Tick Bites And Lyme Disease Pictures

Lyme Sci: Help Ive Gotten A Tick Bite Now What

Tick season is in full-swing. How do I know that? I wake up practically every day to another text or email from a friend or relative telling me they had a tick bite.

Last week, I got a desperate call from a relative whose son had found a tick embedded in his skin after a camping trip. Both my cousin and her son are well aware of my daughters missed diagnosis and years long battle with Lyme and co-infections. Needless to say, they were in a panic. More about this later

Of course the best thing is to prevent tick bites in the first place, but life happens and thats probably why youre reading this.

How To Remove Ticks From Your Dog

When removinga tick from a dog be sure to grasp the tick by the head and pullfirmly straight from the dog. Dispose of the tick in a clear sealedcontainer and save the tick in case it needs to be tested for Lyme orother tick borne diseases. There are inexpensive tick removal toolssuch as a TickedOff that can be used to quickly and easily remove ticks.

What Are Lyme Disease Causes And Risk Factors

B. burgdorferi bacteria cause Lyme disease. The bacteria have a complex life cycle, spending part of their life in the deer tick and part in some mammals such as mice and deer.

Humans are not a part of the bacteriums life cycle but can become infected when bitten by the tick. Lyme disease is not contagious and cannot be passed from person to person.

While dogs and cats can get Lyme disease, there are no reported cases of these animals spreading the disease to their owners. However, dogs and cats can bring the infected ticks into the home, which is one reason why tick protection for pets is important. Talk to a veterinarian about the right type of tick control for any pets.

Risk factors for getting Lyme disease include the following:

• Living in the northeastern or Midwestern U.S. states where the disease is most prevalent
• Being outdoors in the woods or areas that have tall grass, shrubs, or brush
• Fishing, camping, hunting, yard work, hiking, and other outdoor activities in tick-infested areas
• Having bare, unprotected skin when outdoors in high-risk areas
• Pets who are not protected against ticks may bring them indoors.
• Not removing attached ticks promptly

• Swollen lymph nodes
• General feeling of being unwell

The initial infection can occur with minimal or no signs or symptoms. But many people experience a flu-like primary illness or a characteristic rash several days to a few weeks following a tick bite. This rash may feel warm to the touch but is rarely itchy or painful.

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Where Do We Find Ticks

Generally, you can find ticks where the animals they feed on live. This usually includes wooded and grassy areas. An adult tick quests for its next blood meal by climbing up grasses and bushes to wait for an animal to pass by. Nymphs and larvae are typically found in layers of decomposing leaves underneath trees. Ticks thrive in damp environments and are less active in hot, dry weather.

How Is Lyme Disease Diagnosed

Lyme disease is difficult to diagnose because symptoms are not consistent and may mimic other conditions. The primary symptom is a rash, but it may not be present in up to 20% of cases.

Diagnosis for Lyme disease must be made by a healthcare provider experienced in recognizing Lyme disease. Diagnosis is usually based on symptoms and a history of a tick bite. Testing is generally done to confirm the diagnosis and rule out other conditions. This may need blood and other lab tests.

Research is underway to develop and improve methods for diagnosing Lyme disease.

The symptoms of Lyme disease may look like other medical conditions or problems. Always talk with your healthcare provider for a diagnosis.

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When To Contact A Doctor

Contact your doctor as soon as possible after youve been bitten by a tick. A doctor can determine if any treatment is necessary, based on the type of tick that bit you.

Different parts of the country have different risks when it comes to diseases from tick bites. If you live in an urban area without many ticks and get bitten elsewhere, your usual doctor may not readily identify the tick. If that is the case and youre uneasy, seek another opinion about treatment.

Let your doctor know if you were bitten in a geographical location known for severe tick-borne diseases, like the Western or Northeastern United States.

You should also let your doctor know if you developed any of the following symptoms after your tick bite:

intense itching in some people due to the toxins and irritants in tick saliva. However, itching doesnt always occur. For this reason, if you spend time in a tick-infested area, its important to check your whole body for ticks after you leave.

If a tick bite leads to Lyme disease, it can also lead to the development of lesions on the skin known as erythema migrans . These often dont trigger any further symptoms, but some people report that they feel itchiness and burning around the area of the lesion.

Where Do Ticks Live

Ticks live outdoors. They hide in grass, trees, shrubs, and underbrush.

If youre outside hiking or playing, a tick might attach itself to you or your pet. Ticks may stay attached to your pet, or they can migrate to you while youre touching or holding your pet. They can also leave you and attach themselves to your pets.

Various kinds of ticks live in large populations throughout the country. Most states have at least one type of tick that lives there. Ticks are at their peak population in the spring and summer months, typically April through September.

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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 Happens At Your Appointment

The GP will ask about your symptoms and consider any rash or recent tick bites you know about.

Lyme disease can be difficult to diagnose. It has similar symptoms to other conditions and theres not always an obvious rash.

2 types of blood test are available to help confirm or rule out Lyme disease. But these tests are not always accurate in the early stages of the disease.

You may need to be retested if you still have Lyme disease symptoms after a negative result.

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How Do I Know If Ive Been Bitten By A Tick

Detecting tick bites can be tricky. Unlike the bites of mosquitoes and other insects, tick bites do not tend to cause itching or immediate skin irritation.

Every blood-feeding arthropod and insect introduces saliva into the wound, explains Jonathan Day, PhD, an emeritus professor of medical entomology at the University of Florida. In the case of mosquitoes and some other biting insects, this saliva contains proteins that prevent the bite wound from clotting, which would slow the outflow of blood and therefore disrupt feeding, Dr. Day explains.

Apart from preventing your blood from clotting, these proteins also trigger a reaction from your immune system. This reaction produces redness, swelling, itching, and all the other unpleasant skin irritations that come with bug bites, Day explains.

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But tick bites are different. Ticks suppress that reaction with immunosuppressants in their saliva, Ostfeld explains.

Since you cant feel a ticks bite, you can detect it in one of two ways:

When Should I Call The Doctor

If a tick bites you, call your doctor. Other conditions can cause similar symptoms, so its always a good idea to discuss them with your doctor. That way you can get checked and treated, if needed. Call right away if you get a red-ringed rash, lasting flu-like symptoms, joint pain or a swollen joint, or facial paralysis.

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What Are The Complications Of Lyme Disease

Lyme disease affects people differently. Relapse and incomplete treatment responses happen. Relapse and incomplete treatment responses happen. Complications of untreated early-stage disease include:

• Frequent hospitalizations to manage the disease

Some of these complications result in chronic, debilitating conditions.

Some people may develop post-Lyme disease syndrome . A condition also known as chronic Lyme disease includes PLDS, but also other syndromes. Usually, these are characterized by persistent musculoskeletal and peripheral nerve pain, fatigue, and memory impairment.

Lyme Disease Nymph Tick

The Lyme disease bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, is spread through the bite of infected ticks.The blacklegged tick spreads the disease in the northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and north-central United States.The western blacklegged tick spreads the disease on the Pacific Coast.Ticks can attach to any part of the human body but are often found in .

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What Precautions Can I Take Against Tick Bites

• Avoid wooded, brushy, and grassy areas, especially in May, June, and July.
• Wear light-colored clothing so that you can see ticks that get on you.
• Wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts, and shoes that cover the entire foot.
• Tuck pant legs into socks or shoes, and tuck shirts into pants.
• Wear a hat for extra protection.
• Spray insect repellent containing DEET on clothes and uncovered skin.
• Walk in the center of trails to avoid brush and grass.
• Remove your clothing, and wash and dry them at high temperatures after being outdoors.
• Do a careful body check for ticks after outdoor activities.

Do All Ticks Transmit Lyme Disease

No. In the northeastern and north-central U.S., the black-legged tick carries Lyme disease. In the Pacific coastal U.S., the western black-legged tick spreads the disease.

Other major tick species in the U.S., like the lone star tick and the dog tick, do NOT transmit the Lyme disease bacterium. But beware: All 50 states have reported Lyme disease, as well as Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America.

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Lyme Disease Pictures & Tick Photos

The Lyme Disease Association offers this page to provide the general public and professionals with an array of tick images, rash images, and disease organisms to help in the determination of what is Lyme disease and what are other tick-borne diseases.

Many professionals have provided pictures to the Lyme Disease Association that show what some of the rash signs look like, tick images of various ticks that transmit a number of tick-borne diseases in the US, and infectious organisms seen under the microscope that are transmitted by ticks in the US.

This category of medical photos includes pictures of Lyme disease related rashes, ticks and organisms under the microscope.

There are 3 photo albums below: Lyme disease rashes, ticks and under the scope . To view each album click on pictures below.

The images are intended for education purposes only, and a medical professional should be consulted to determine if someone has a tick-borne disease. The LDA does maintain an online referral where someone can search for a Lyme disease doctor.

TICKS VECTORS

Latin Name : Diseases they can transmit

Ixodes scapularis :Lyme , Borrelia miyamotoi, babesiosis, anaplasmosis, Powassan encephalitis, tick paralysis, bartonellosis, ehrlichiosis .Ixodes scapularis have been shown to carry Ehrlichiosis , but to date, transmission is still in question

Amblyomma americanum : Human monocytic ehrlichiosis, STARI, tularemia, tick paralysis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever

59 Photos

Topics of Guest Blogs:

What Does A Tick Bite Typically Look Like

The tick bite itself will likely be so small and painless that you wont actually notice it, says Qurat Mudassar, MD, an infectious disease specialist and primary care physician at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut. Youll likely only become aware that one of those little buggers has latched onto you if you actually find the tick attached to your skin, or if you develop one of the tell-tale rashes that signals youve been infected with a tick-borne illness.

The hallmark sign of Lyme infection is a rash that resembles a bullseye. , the rash is a localized infection, Dr. Mudassar says. The center may be clear with a red, circular margin outside. This rash may also become itchy or swollen for some people.

Heres where it gets a little more complicated: Not everyone who develops Lyme disease gets a rash, and even the people that do often dont notice it, Dr. Mudassar says. Plus, the rash can show up on other areas of the body away from the bite site, so it might not raise any red flags.

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Ticks Dont Fly Or Jump But They Can Climb Onto You If You Get Close Enough

Ticks are not fliers or jumpers. Theyre crawlers and poor ones at that, Dr. Ostfeld says. They dont move fast at all, he says.

To get onto your body, ticks like to climb over low plants, foliage, logs, or other close-to-the-ground objects. From there, they grasp the object with their back legs while reaching out with their front legs in an act researchers call questing.

When you brush past, the questing tick grabs hold of your shoes or pants or skin and then makes its way upward until it finds a safe, inconspicuous spot to sink its mouthparts into your flesh, Ostfeld says. They like those tucked-away places where the skin is soft and where they can hide without being detected, he adds, mentioning the backs of the knees, the armpits, the back of the neck, and the groin as favorite locations.

Once attached to your skin, a tick will stay there for several days, slowly gorging itself on your blood before dropping off on its own. Ticks must feed on a host at every stage of their life cycle in order to survive.

What Are The Symptoms Of Lyme Disease

The list of possible symptoms is long, and symptoms can affect every part of the body. The following are the most common symptoms of Lyme disease. But symptoms are slightly different for each person.

The primary symptom is a red rash that:

• Can appear several days after infection, or not at all

• Can last up to several weeks

• Can be very small or grow very large , and may resemble a “bulls-eye”

• Can mimic such skin problems as hives, eczema, sunburn, poison ivy, and flea bites

• Can itch or feel hot, or may not be felt at all

• Can disappear and return several weeks later

Several days or weeks after a bite from an infected tick, you may have flu-like symptoms such as the following:

Weeks to months after the bite, the following symptoms may develop:

• Neurological symptoms, including inflammation of the nervous system and weakness and paralysis of the facial muscles

• Heart problems, including inflammation of the heart and problems with heart rate

• Eye problems, including inflammation

Months to a few years after a bite, the following symptoms may include:

• Inflammation of the joints

• Neurological symptoms including numbness in the extremities, tingling and pain, and difficulties with speech, memory, and concentration

Some people may develop post-Lyme disease syndrome . A condition also known as chronic Lyme disease includes PLDS, but also other syndromes. Usually, these are characterized by persistent musculoskeletal and peripheral nerve pain, fatigue, and memory impairment.

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Who’s At Risk Of Lyme Disease

The risk of getting Lyme disease is higher:

• for people who spend time in woodland or moorland areas
• from March to October because more people take part in outdoor activities

It’s thought only a small proportion of ticks carry the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. Being bitten doesn’t mean you’ll definitely be infected. However, it’s important to be aware of the risk and speak to a GP if you start to feel unwell.

History Of Lyme Disease

Lyme disease gets its name from a small coastal town in Connecticut called Lyme. In 1975, a woman brought to the attention of Yale researchers an unusual cluster of more than 51 cases of mostly pediatric arthritis. In 1977, Dr. Allen Steere and Yale colleagues identified and named the 51 clusters Lyme arthritis.” In 1979, the name was changed to “Lyme disease,” when Steere and colleague Dr. Steven Malawista discovered additional symptoms linked to the disease such as possible neurological problems and severe fatigue. In 1982 the cause of the disease was discovered by Dr. Willy Burgdorfer. Dr. Burgdorfer published a paper on the infectious agent of Lyme disease and earned the right to have his name placed on the Lyme disease spirochete now known as Borrelia burgdorferi.

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What If The Tick That Bit Me Didnt Transmit An Infection

If you know for sure a tick bit you because you found it attached to your skin, its still totally possible you wont contract an illness. Why? Well, not all ticks carry diseases, for starters. As mentioned, theres also a correlation between the length of time the tick was attached to you and how likely you are to get sick.

Removing the tick as soon as possible reduces risk of infection if its carrying a disease, says Dr. Schrading. The less time its attached to you, the less likely it is to infect you, especially if its been less than 12 hours.