Understanding and Preventing Lyme Disease

As deer hunters, we spend a lot of time outdoors. I do not just mean during the season as we hunt. As hunters, we spend countless hours preparing for the upcoming season. Much of this time preparing is done in the spring and summer months. Placing trail cameras, putting out attractants, scouting, hanging stands, and more.

Unfortunately, hunters do not think of the dangers involved with this activity. Ticks and Lyme disease. Every time we step outside we put ourselves in danger of encountering ticks and the possibility of contracting Lyme Disease.

Summer is tick prime time; a season when a new batch of ticks seek their first blood feast as May and June are the months when a great number of ticks are born. But, do not let your guard down in the fall and winter when you are out hunting. Most people believe that ticks can’t survive below-freezing temperatures but some species like deer ticks start their feeding season at this time.  Only an extensive temperature below 10 °F can kill ticks.

Brian Anderson, better known as The Tick Terminator (www.lymetickbughub.com) is an expert on tick prevention and treatment. Sit down and talk with this man for 30 minutes and you will know more about ticks than you could imagine.

I first met Brian at a writer’s conference several years back. The conversation at the dinner table quickly turned to ticks and the health risks associated with them. Like most of you, I had heard of Lyme Disease but just dismissed it as something we have to deal with, or it will not happen to me. After an hour at the dinner table with Brian, my beliefs changed,

Lyme disease is serious and as people who spend a good portion of the year outside, we have to do what we can to protect ourselves and others.

Over the last few years, I have made sure all my clothing is treated before heading outside to do any hunting-related activities whether it is in the spring putting out trail cameras or in the fall when out trying to fill my tags.

According to the CDC, Lyme disease infects 300,000 people a year, ten times more Americans than previously reported. This new preliminary estimate confirms that Lyme disease is a tremendous public health problem in the United States,” says Dr. Paul Mead, chief of epidemiology and surveillance for CDC’s Lyme disease program.

Ticks are small, bloodsucking Arachnids, Arthropods, or part of the Spider family. A tick’s life cycle (about 3 years) consists of three stages once they are born with 2000-3000 other eggs. The first stage is the larva where their first blood meal is normally a mouse which is where they become infected with Lyme and other diseases. That fall and winter they molt into the nymph stage and grow two more legs for a total of eight. The following spring, they look for their next blood meal (from small animals and humans) and then molt into the final adult stage. After the final blood meal as an adult (normally on a deer), they will breed and then die the following summer after giving birth. Ticks are the leading carriers of disease in the United States and are second to only mosquitoes worldwide. The disease is transferred not from the bite alone, but instead from the toxins, secretions, or organisms in the saliva of the tick

Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected black-legged ticks (Deer Ticks). Typical symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. If left untreated, the infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. Lyme disease is diagnosed based on symptoms, physical findings (e.g., rash), and the possibility of exposure to infected ticks. Laboratory testing is helpful if used correctly and performed with validated methods. Most cases of Lyme disease can be treated successfully with a few weeks of antibiotics. Steps to prevent Lyme disease include using insect repellent, removing ticks promptly, applying pesticides, and reducing tick habitat. The ticks that transmit Lyme disease can occasionally transmit other tick-borne diseases as well. Info provided by the CDC.

If Lyme disease is diagnosed soon enough (within a few months of an infected bite) the typical antibiotic treatment by a doctor will be a great help. So often the symptoms are unexplained flu-like, fever, chills, headaches, dizziness, fatigue for no reason, brain fog, muscle and joint pain, irregular heartbeat, sensitivity to light and vision changes, inflammation, and sensations in limbs to name a few. Unfortunately, most cases of Lyme disease are not discovered soon enough. Therefore most people with Lyme need much more than antibiotics.

The best way to avoid Lyme Disease is to avoid ticks. The best way to avoid ticks starts with great prevention. The best prevention starts with the best repellent known as Permethrin. The best Permethrin is Duration.

Duration 10% is the only Permethrin clothing grade concentrate registered by the EPA and is the most economical clothing repellant on the market and is a must for anyone who goes outdoors because we all want to practice scent control while out hunting, it is odorless.

Duration kills and repels ticks, chiggers, mites, and mosquitos and helps protect against Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, also Yellow Fever Mosquito, which could transmit the Zika Virus.

Because Duration is a concentrate, it will help you save up to 50% or more on your tick-repellant costs. One 8 oz container of Duration 10% will make one gallon or 128 oz. and can treat many sets of clothes depending on how long protection is needed. One set of clothes is 1 shirt, 1 pair of pants, and 1 pair of socks.

Duration 10% gives you options like no other permethrin on the market. You can do the standard mixture of 2 cups to last for 6 weeks and 6 washes. Other options with the mixture will last for months at a time. The choice is yours as to how you need it to be applied.

Some Extra tips to avoid ticks are to wear light-colored clothing; tuck your pants into your socks; tuck your shirt into your pants; wear a hat; spray your shoes, socks, belt-line, collar, and hat with a permethrin-containing tick repellent; do a tick check after walking in high-risk areas; put any clothes that might have live ticks on them into a hot dryer for ten minutes to kill all insects.

If you have a tick that has embedded into your skin, tweezers are the best for removing it. Grasp the tick as close to the skin as you can. The tweezer tips should be on or as close to the tick head as you can get. Pull upwards with a slow, steady motion.

If this tick bite has transmitted Lyme disease, the redness may expand over the next few days or weeks and form a round or oval red rash. It may resemble the classic bull’s eye, with a red ring surrounding a clear area and a red center. This rash, called erythema migraines, is a telltale sign of Lyme disease but it only appears in maybe 50% of infected people.

If you believe you have been infected should you test the tick or test yourself or both? That depends, if you have the bullseye or if you experience flu-like symptoms, achy joints, and just not normal you should see a “Lyme literate doctor.” or a doctor who is very familiar with Lyme so you can get started on antibiotics right away. Quick treatment is the most important thing before weeks and months pass by and the Lyme has had a chance to get into your system. If just bitten, save the tick and you can have it tested to see if it has Lyme or any other tick-borne diseases. There are several credible labs for testing ticks. One is Tick Check (www.tickcheck.com). TickCheck.com has a simple, easy-to-use interface for ordering tick tests. Just order your tests, mail your tick to their East Stroudsburg laboratory, and your results will be ready within 24-48 hours of lab receipt.

Lyme disease must be taken seriously. If you have any signs of being infected, please consult a doctor at once. Treatments are available. Do not be a statistic. Prevention is at your fingertips.