Lyme Disease In Deer Symptoms

Keep A Lookout For Symptoms From Tick Bite This Summer

Have you checked yourself or your child for tick bites lately?

If you havent already heard, this summer is a particularly booming year for tick populations across the country and in the state of Ohio. A black-legged tick , the kind that sometimes carries Lyme disease, was spotted just to the east of us in Vermilion earlier this summer. And Ohio is on the list of 24 states that contains counties with newly documented populations of deer ticks.

Tick bites are common. Some people are unaware of a tick bite at first. Be sure to check yourself and your children often, especially throughout the summer months when tick populations grow. Ticks are especially attracted to warm, moist areas of the skin like armpits, groins, or hair. Once they bite you, a tick may stick around drawing your blood for up to 10 days. The sooner you spot and remove a tick, the better.

Where Blacklegged Ticks Live

We continue to track where infected and uninfected blacklegged ticks are being found.

Public Health Ontarios Lyme disease page has a map that shows areas in Ontario where they estimate you are more likely to find blacklegged ticks.

Blacklegged ticks are spreading to new areas of the province because of climate change. They can also spread by traveling on birds and deer. While the probability is low, it is possible to find an infected tick almost anywhere in Ontario.

Ticks are most active in spring and summer, but can be found at any time of the year when the temperature is above freezing.

What Do You Do If Theres A Tick Under Your Skin

Use a pair of fine-tipped tweezers to remove it as soon as possible. Pull upward with steady pressure. If parts of the tick are still in your skin, try to get those with the tweezers, too. After everything is out, clean the bite area with rubbing alcohol or soap and water.

You probably wonât get infected if you remove the tick within 36 to 48 hours.

How do you throw away a tick?

Put it in soapy water or alcohol, stick it to a piece of tape, or flush it down the toilet.

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How To Avoid Tick Bites

To reduce the chance of being bitten:

• cover your skin while walking outdoors and tuck your trousers into your socks
• use insect repellent on your clothes and skin products containing DEET are best
• stay on clear paths whenever possible
• wear light-coloured clothing so ticks are easier to see and brush off

What Is Lyme Disease In Horses

Thus, familiarizing yourself with the most common of symptoms, is the first step to combating this debilitating disease.

Lyme Disease is a tick-borne illness that can affect anything from humans to horses.

It is caused by a bacterium that is carried most commonly by deer ticks and transmitted through tick bites. Lyme Disease is most common in the North East, where ticks are increasingly prevalent, especially in the warmer months.

Unlike in humans where Lyme can be detected by a bullseye shaped rash following contact with a tick, Lyme Disease can be much harder to detect in horses and other animals.

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What Causes Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is caused by bacteria that is spread to humans by tick bites. The ticks that carry the spirochete are:

• Black-legged deer tick

• Western black-legged tick

Ticks prefer to live in wooded areas, low-growing grasslands, and yards. Not all ticks carry the Lyme disease bacteria. Depending on the location, anywhere from less than 1% to more than 50% of the ticks are infected with it.

While most tick bites are harmless, several species can cause life-threatening diseases. Tick-borne diseases include:

• Rocky Mountain spotted fever

Symptoms Of Late Stage Lyme Disease

Your suffering has moved from an occasional inflammation flare-up to chronic pain in your muscles, tendons, and joints. You may have been diagnosed with some form of arthritis. Your headaches have become severe. You may even experience dizziness or vertigo.

Additional symptoms include a stiff neck, sleep disorders like insomnia, and numbness in your outer extremities. You may also lack the ability to focus, and paying attention when having conversations has become difficult. Your fatigue is so bad you sometimes do not want to attempt getting out of bed.

The worse symptom may be that you have tried to get the right help, but doctors have failed to give you an accurate diagnosis. Because of this, you may feel like you are crazy, or your friends and family may not believe you are in pain.

You may be wondering how you were able to reach late stage Lyme disease without proper treatment.

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What You Need To Know About Lyme Disease

• Lyme disease is an infection caused by the spiral-shaped bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, which is most commonly transmitted by a tick bite.

• There are over 300,000 estimated new cases of Lyme disease in the United States each year.

• The symptoms of Lyme disease depend on the how long the infection has been present in the body. The first sign of Lyme disease is often an expanding round or oval red “bullseye” rash.

• If left untreated, people may develop neurological symptoms and heart problems, and have an approximately 60 percent chance of developing Lyme arthritis.

What To Do If You Have A Blacklegged Tick Bite

Remove the tick by pulling it directly out with fine-tipped tweezers. Lift upward with slow and even pressure. Dont twist when removing it. Dont crush it or put soap or other substances on it. Dont apply heat to it.

Place the tick in a resealable container. See if you can identify what kind of a tick it is.

Immediately after removing the tick, wash your skin well with soap and water or with rubbing alcohol.

Not all ticks carry Lyme. The Lyme bacteria is transmitted only by blacklegged ticks in their nymph or adult stage.

Save the tick to show your doctor. The doctor will want to determine if its a blacklegged tick and if theres evidence of feeding. Ticks enlarge as they feed. Your risk of getting Lyme from an infected tick increases with the length of time that the tick fed on your blood.

Summary:

Pull the tick out with tweezers and save it in a resealable container for identification.

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How Does Lyme Disease Affect Horses

Diagnosing Lyme disease is a difficult endeavor.

The horses that do develop Lyme disease, the symptoms are vague and somewhat nonspecific, which makes this a difficult disease, Dr. DeNotta says. Theres a lot of confusion, theres a lot of controversy.

The signs of the disease are general and can be indicative of a number of other diseases.

Can I Catch Lyme Disease From My Dog

Dogs are not a direct source of infection for people. Lyme disease cant be transmitted from one pet to another, nor from pets to humans, except through tick bites. However, a carrier tick could come into your house on your dogs fur and get on you.

If your dog is diagnosed with Lyme disease, you and any other pets have probably been in the same outdoor environment and may also be at risk, so it is a good idea to consult with your physician and veterinarian to see whether you should test other pets or family members.

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When Should I Go See My Doctor

Anyone who has been bitten by a black-legged deer tick is at risk for Lyme disease. The highest risk groups include those living in or visiting endemic areas, especially people who spend significant time outdoors such as gardeners, hikers, or outdoor workers.

Patients should seek advice from their doctor if they have a suspicious round expanding red skin lesion, and/or show signs of summer-flu, particularly during Lyme disease season, which is highest-risk late spring through July/August. If those circumstances apply or symptoms persist it is very important to go to a physician.

For the west coast and other more temperate regions Lyme disease can be a year-round concern.

In the later disseminated stages, Lyme disease can be a much more insidious and complex illness. An individual should seek medical care if experiencing symptoms such as prolonged fevers, unexplained fatigue, painful joints, new or unusual headache, or heart or neurologic symptoms. If unexplained viral-like symptoms last for more than 1-2 weeks, please seek the advice of a physician.

Chronic Lyme Disease Vs Acute And Late Stage Lyme

One reason chronic Lyme disease is harder to detect and treat than Lyme at earlier stages is that chronic Lyme disease symptoms are more wide-ranging and varied. Chronic Lyme disease can cause symptoms of early Lyme disease such as fatigue and muscle aches to recur, but it can also cause new symptoms that affect different parts of the body.

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How Is Lyme Disease Spread

Not all deer ticks are infected with the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. Ticks can become infected if they feed on animals such as mice and other mammals that are infected. The disease can be spread when an infected tick bites a person and stays attached for a period of time. In general, the tick must be attached for 36 to 48 hours or more. Lyme disease does not spread from one person to another. Transfer of the bacteria from an infected pregnant woman to her fetus is extremely rare.

What Blacklegged Ticks Look Like

Blacklegged ticks are small and hard to see. They attach themselves to humans and animals and feed on their blood. They can range in size depending on how long they have been feeding.

You can find out if its a blacklegged tick by:

• calling your local public health unit or checking their website
• submitting a photo of the tick to etick.ca

Adult female blacklegged tick at various stages of feeding. Photo: Government of Canada

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Deer Contribution To Tick Reproduction

Deer contribute to the spread of Lyme in that they provide that last blood meal to the adults. Those ticks will lay thousands of eggs at a time and boost the population of younger ticks who will be out in the spring to spread Lyme. Ticks contract Lyme from the mice in which they receive their first blood meal.

In less frequent cases, a nymph deer tick will choose a deer as a host. The blood meal from the deer is when the nymph deer tick might actually be cleared of the Borrelia infection.

There are regular references to the fact that nymph ticks spread more Lyme than adults. This fact was mostly attributed to the fact that nymphs are smaller, therefore less noticeable and will have a great chance of staying embedded long enough to transmit the disease. But, as in all things Lyme disease related, the situation is complex.

Tick Prevention Services for Your Home

If youre concerned about ticks spreading Lyme disease on your property, please consider our tick control program. Follow the 6 Cs of tick control, to prevent extra spaces for ticks to hang out in your yard. Call today to learn more or contact us online for a free quote.

Other Canine Diseases Carried By Ticks

Ticks can also carry several other less common but serious bacterial diseases affecting dogs, including anaplasmosis and babesiosis.

Anaplasmosis can involve symptoms similar to those for Lyme disease. Babesiosis can present with a wide range of symptoms, from sudden and severe shock, high fever, and dark urine to a slowly progressing infection with more subtle clinical signs. Diagnosis of both diseases includes blood tests similar to those used to check for Lyme disease.

Sometimes, dogs and people can become sick with co-infection of multiple tick-borne diseases, where more than one type of disease-causing bacteria is transmitted through a tick bite. This situation can make diagnosis and treatment even more challenging and difficult.

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What Is The Treatment For Lyme Disease

Patients treated with antibiotics in the early stages of Lyme disease usually recover quickly and completely. Antibiotics commonly used for treatment include doxycycline, amoxicillin, or cefuroxime axetil. Patients with certain neurologic or cardiac forms of illness may require additional treatment. It is important to speak with your health care provider if you think you might have Lyme disease. The best treatment for Lyme disease is prevention and awareness.

Signs And Symptoms Of Lyme Disease

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Overview

Lyme disease is an underreported, under-researched, and often debilitating disease transmitted by spirochete bacteria. The spiral-shaped bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, are transmitted by blacklegged deer ticks. Lymes wide range of symptoms mimic those of many other ailments, making it difficult to diagnose .

The blacklegged ticks can also transmit other disease-causing bacteria, viruses, and parasites. These are known as coinfections . These ticks that transmit Lyme are increasing their geographical spread. As of 2016, they were found in about half the counties in 43 of 50 states in the United States .

Lyme is the fifth most reported of notifiable diseases in the United States, with an estimated 329,000 new cases found annually . Some studies estimate that there are as many as 1 million cases of Lyme in the United States every year .

Most people with Lyme who are treated right away with three weeks of antibiotics have a good prognosis.

But if youre not treated for weeks, months, or even years after infection, Lyme becomes more difficult to treat. Within days of the bite, the bacteria can move to your central nervous system, muscles and joints, eyes, and heart .

Here is a list of 13 common signs and symptoms of Lyme disease.

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How Does A Person Get Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is transmitted by the bite of an infected deer tick, which also is known as the black-legged tick. Immature deer ticks can be very small, about the size of the head of a pin adult deer ticks are slightly larger. Both can be infected with and transmit Lyme disease. Deer ticks acquire the bacteria by feeding primarily on small mammals infected with the bacteria, particularly the white-footed mouse. Deer ticks infected with the bacteria that cause Lyme disease have been found in Illinois. Areas in the United States where deer ticks are most frequently infected with Lyme disease are the northeastern United States , northern California, and north central states, especially Minnesota and Wisconsin. However, Lyme disease has been reported in almost all states in the United States as well as in many countries throughout the world.

Image source: /content/dam/soi/en/web/idph/files/pictures/babesiosis.jpg

Which Areas Are More Likely To Have It

The tick that causes Lyme disease has been moving from the Northeast and upper Midwest into the Southern and Western U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Cases in California and Florida are on the rise. After a drop between 2017 and 2018, the numbers jumped a little bit in 2019.

But most Lyme cases in 2019 were in 15 states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New

Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Washington, DC, is also a hotspot.

In 2019, Pennsylvania had the most Lyme infections, with 6,763. New York was next, with 2,847 cases.

In the Southern U.S., where itâs hotter, ticks stay under leaves so they don’t dry out. This means people donât get Lyme from Southern ticks very often because they don’t usually come out to bite.

Even though people only report about 30,000 cases of Lyme infection in the U.S. each year, there are actually around 476,000 a year. The same tick also can spread other diseases, including babesiosis, anaplasmosis, and Powassan virus. Those diseases are also on the rise in the U.S.

Whoâs likeliest to get Lyme disease?

Boys up to age 15 and men between the ages of 40 and 60 are the most likely to get Lyme disease. Thatâs because they tend to play outside and go camping, hunting, and hiking.

Why are there more ticks now than there used to be?

There are several reasons why Lyme is spreading. Some of these are:

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What Is A Deer Tick

Deer ticks also called black-legged ticks are tiny arachnids that measure about one-eighth of an inch once they reach adulthood. Larvae, on the other hand are about the size of a pinhead. Their bodies are dark brown to black and they have dark legs, and, regardless of maturity, all deer ticks need a blood meal to grow.

The deer tick is primarily found in the eastern United States, particularly the Northeast. Their preferred habitats include wooded areas and fields. Over the years, this arachnid has gained a pretty bad reputation as it is well known for being a carrier of the bacteria that can cause Lyme disease in humans and their pets.

How Is Lyme Disease Transmitted

Ticks usually live in woods or tall grasslands in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Asia. Ticks can become infected with Borrelia burgdorferi by feeding on infected wild animals, and then can spread the bacteria when they feed on blood from the host. Ticks cannot fly – they hang onto small bushes or tall grasses and are usually found close to the ground. They wait for an animal or person to pass near them and when the animal or person makes contact, the ticks attach themselves to the skin to feed.

In North America, Lyme disease is transmitted mainly by two species of ticks:

• Blacklegged tick , Ixodes scapularis.
• Western blacklegged tick, Ixodes pacificus.

The Public Health Agency of Canada states that there no evidence that Lyme disease can spread from person-to-person. Pets, especially dogs, can get Lyme disease, but there is no evidence that pets can spread the infection directly to humans. They may, however, carry infected ticks into the home or yard which may increase the chance of transmission.

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