How to prevent tick-borne illnesses

It’s Labor Day weekend and time to head outdoors. But not before covering yourself head-to-toe in clothing, drenching yourself in insecticide and taping your shirt to your waistline and your pants to your boots.

Tick-borne illnesses have risen drastically nationwide. In Kansas, 250 confirmed cases of tick-borne illnesses were reported last year.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment said it tracks four tick-borne diseases: Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia and ehrlichiosis, also known as anaplasomsis.

Other tick-borne illnesses are not reported to KDHE because of rarity, such as Bourbon virus, which was discovered after a farmer in Bourbon County, Kansas, died last year, and Heartland virus, which has similar symptoms to Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme.

Tick diseases can be serious. Some Lyme patients say their brain feels like spaghetti because of the disease’s cognitive effects. Many patients also experience severe fatigue, joint pain, headaches and confusion that cause them to quit their job.

Ticks used to be rare to find, as large as a pencil eraser and mostly innocuous. Now, ticks are increasingly more common, as tiny as the dot of a pen and they carry severe, sometimes life-threatening diseases.

Where ticks live

Susan Little, regents professor and Krull-Ewing endowed chair in veterinary parasitology at the Center for Veterinary Health Sciences at Oklahoma State University, said ticks thrive in vegetated areas, like forests and brush, but can also survive in small strips of trees between two houses.

A 1995 study by the New England Journal of Medicine found golfers who spent a lot of time in the rough had greater risk of contracting ehrlichiosis than those with better golf scores who spent more time on the greens.

But Little said a species called dog ticks, which carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever, raise particular concern because of the tick’s ability to survive indoors.

Little said dogs often carry the ticks into homes, like fleas.

“Then people can’t get away from ticks, so that’s a major concern,” she said.

Little said it’s a common misconception that ticks die after a deep freeze because the ticks hibernate under leaves to live through the winter.

How to prevent tick bites

To prevent tick bites, Little recommends tucking pant legs into boots and taping the top of the boot line. The same goes for shirts and waistlines, she said.

And don’t forget about your pets.

“Make sure your dogs and cats are on tick control,” she said. “Especially in Oklahoma and Kansas where ticks are so dense. If they’re not on tick control, they can bring ticks into the home.”

She said certain oral medication or chemical sprays and collars kill ticks. She said the sprays and collars work the same: a chemical spreads over the dog’s entire body and kills the ticks.

For people, two sprays are recommended: DEET and permethrin (0.5 percent). DEET can be used on skin but permethrin cannot.

Permethrin can last up to two weeks when sprayed on clothing, shoes or tents. It works as an insecticide rather than a repellant – it kills ticks when they touch treated fabric.

And of course, check for ticks after being outdoors.

What to do if you get a tick

Little said if you find a tick on yourself, use a pair of tweezers, or a tick removal tool that looks like a scoop. She said it’s best to avoid touching the tick because it can infect a person’s fingers in the removal process.

Sometimes the tick’s head stays burrowed in skin after its body is removed. Little said that’s not catastrophic. Without the body, the disease transmissions stops, but it causes more irritation and itching, she said. The mouth parts are then like any foreign object in skin, such as a splinter.

She said to then wrap the removed tick in tape to make sure it can’t escape. She said some people flush ticks down the toilet to try to get rid of them, but she said ticks can crawl out of water, so tape ensures it won’t crawl away and latch to another person.

To save the tick for testing if an infection occurs, people can tape the tick to a piece of paper, put it a sealable plastic bag and store it in the freezer. Make a note of the date and location of the bite, too. That way doctors can identify the tick species and test it for disease if the person becomes ill.

Little said the tick won’t survive in a freezer.

Symptoms of disease

If someone is infected, a rash might form a few weeks after the bite. The rash can appear as bull’s eye rings – typical of Lyme disease – or look like a diffused rash on different parts of the body – typical of Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

Hallmarks of tick-borne diseases resemble flu-like symptoms: fever, fatigue, headaches and muscle or joint pain.

Other symptoms can vary greatly, but if you do develop flu-like symptoms see a doctor as soon as possible for antibiotics.

“Don’t delay because the sooner you get on antibiotics, the better – it’s life-saving,” Little said. “Delaying antibiotics is associated with increased fatality.”

This story was originally published September 5, 2015 at 8:19 AM with the headline "How to prevent tick-borne illnesses."