Welcome to Tick Season! - Learn How to Protect the Ones You Love from Lyme Disease

There are many things that you can do to help protect yourself and your children from the horrible diseases that ticks carry. Ticks search for a host body from grass and other vegetation. Ticks cannot jump, fly or fall out of trees. They do not hop onto people either. Ticks feed on blood by inserting their mouth parts into the skin of the host body. They do not insert their whole bodies, just their mouth. Ticks feed very slowly. A complete meal for them may take many days. As they feed off of the blood, their bodies start to enlarge. This is called engorging. The longer an infected tick feeds, the greater the chances of transmission of Lyme disease to the host.

Removing a tick the correct way is important. You should not use any heated objects, solvents or Vaseline to remove a tick. That will just irritate it and increase the chance of regurgitation which in turn can increase the chance of disease transmission. Squeezing the tick has the same effect. To remove correctly, you should use tweezers and firmly grasp the tick by the mouth as close to the skin of the host as possible. Once the tick has been successfully removed, applying antiseptic ointment is advised. You should place the tick in a zip lock baggie and take to your local vector control center to have the tick identified.

The local vector control center can identify the tick for you and tell you what the chance of disease is. They can also tell how long the tick was on your body so that you know if disease transmission is possible. They will also advise your doctor on any necessary treatments. Most vector control centers are free of charge. They can also refer you to the nearest laboratory that can do Lyme disease testing if necessary, usually for a small fee. If they feel that you need to be treated for a possible exposure to Lyme disease, they will send you doctor a letter and you will be treated with oral antibiotics for about three to four weeks as a precaution. When you take the antibiotics and start them early enough, within a few days of exposure, you will ensure that you do not get Lyme disease. Testing after treatment can be done but is not always necessary.

Some risk factors include a tick that was identified as a deer tick or nymph, which is a female tick. Also, a tick that has been on the host body for over forty eight hours. These are things that the vector control center can tell you. It is important to find these things out so that you can be treated if this is the case.

There are a few precautions that can help you to prevent ticks. There are some different types of pesticides that can be applied to lawns during the spring and the fall that will kill the ticks. Deer population control is important as well. If you live in an area that is heavily flooded with deer, adding fences and pesticides can help. Wearing long sleeves and long pants whenever possible as well as light colored clothing reduce tick invasions as well. There are some tick repellents on the market as well that can be used. One such product is called permethrin which is something that you use on clothes to repel the ticks. There used to be a vaccine on the market called LymeRix. That was taken off the market back in March of 2002 due to the health problems that some people had gotten from the vaccine.

Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria and is transmitted to a host body by an infected tick. Some symptoms of Lyme disease are fever, fatigue, skin rash and headaches. If left untreated, the infection can be transmitted to the joints, heart and nervous system. The highest months of occurrence is between June and July. NY, PA, and NJ are the three states with the highest infection rate. In the year 2005, NY state had 5565 cases of Lyme disease. PA came in second with 4287 cases and in third was NJ with 3363, according to the Center for Disease Control. The states that had no cases were AR, CO, HI, MS, MT and OK.

If you live in tick infested areas, you should check yourself and your children daily after being outside. Sometimes, the ticks are so small that you may not even be able to see it until it has been there for a few days and is engorged enough to be able to identify it. The best advise is to then remove it, put it in a baggie and take it to your local county vector control. You can usually find out where that is by looking in the government section of the phone book. They can advise you from there what to do next. Prevention and early treatment are the keys to staying disease free.

My two year old son had a tick attached just under his eye last summer. I wasn't aware that it was a tick and did nothing about it as I thought it was a scab from a scratch. A day after I first noticed it, my husband said that it was a tick and removed it with tweezers. The next day, I took it to vector control and they identified it as a tick that generally carries Lyme disease. That day, my son's pediatrician prescribed antibiotics for three weeks and he has been fine since. Then, today, a year later, I find a tick attached to his buttocks. I did what I watched my husband do the year prior. I grabbed the tweezers, removed the tick, and placed it in a baggie. I ran right to vector control where they told me that this tick, a nymph, was embedded in his skin for over fifty five hours. Amazing how they are able to tell that in just a matter of seconds!! This particular type of tick, a female tick, is very susceptible to Lyme disease. So now, my poor boy is being treated for thirty days on antibiotics. Better this than to find out in a few weeks that he has Lyme disease though. This should knock any disease that may be in his system. I can have the tick tested for Lyme for seventy five dollars but it will not change the course of treatment. I would rather not know at this point. He will be ok thanks to the month long antibiotics that he will be taking.

It is important to check every day. Even if a tick is too small to notice the first day, by the second or third, you should be able to see it. Getting treatment early is best. Prevention is important but not necessarily easy. If you live in a highly populated tick area, become proactive to save yourself and your family from many years of illness.