Bites from blacklegged ticks have led to record numbers of tick-borne disease in Minnesota
06/19/2009
Duluth Budgeteer June 12th 2009
Bites from blacklegged ticks have led to record numbers of tick-borne
disease in Minnesota
By: Jana Peterson, Duluth Budgeteer News
Tom Grier doesn’t actually know when he contracted Lyme Disease. He
suspects it was around 1977, when he was a young man attending medical
school as a Graduate Student. Tom was in training for marathons, and
often trained by running through wooded areas.
He remembers contracting shingles, and getting some bizarre blood
smear results where his neutrophils dropped and his eosinophils
skyrocketed, something that truly perplexed his professors. The
Shingles went away after a brief treatment with tetracycline. This was
a puzzling outcome for a viral disorder which should not respond to
antibiotics.
Tom now suspects he had two tick-born diseases: Anaplasmosis and Lyme
disease. While the Anaplasmosis was easily cured, the underlying Lyme
disease continued for the next decade to multiply in his body.
A little over 10 years later, in 1990, he was misdiagnosed with a
rapid progressive form of multiple Sclerosis. His doctor had already
put a request in for a bed at a local nursing home before another
neurologist suspected that it was actually Lyme disease.
“I was extremely fatigued, depressed, and had an enlarged heart and
heart palpitations, muscle aches, extreme night sweats — my vision had
shrunk to about the size of a baseball and there was enormous pressure
in my head,” said Grier, who said he was handicapped as a result of
the disease. “I hardly knew where I was or what I was doing. I
absolutely could not stand upright for more than a few minutes.”
It would be another year before doctors figured out that Grier
actually had Lyme Disease and several more years before he was well
enough to safely drive long distances again.
Today doctors are more aware of tick-borne diseases — which also
include human anaplasmosis (HA) and babesiosis, among others — and
they can treat them, especially when caught in the early stages of the
disease. However, Grier said, medical science is still working to gain
a greater understanding of how these diseases work.
Grier is very active with the Duluth/ Superior Lyme Disease Support
Group, and runs a non-profit organization MIBDEC to increase Lyme
education in Minnesota.
“We’ve seen hundreds of people come through group,” Grier said. “Most
people get better and never come back. … But there are a lot of
people who still feel sick after treatment, often these patients
relapse with a different set of symptoms than they initially presented
with when they were first diagnosed. “Incomplete antibiotic treatment
might delay more severe symptoms, and this is the area of Lyme disease
diagnosis and treatment that creates controversey within the medical
community” say Grier. Many doctors don’t want to accept that Lyme can
relapse or become chronic after antibiotic treatment.
“I’m 1,000 percent better than I was, but I’m still not well,” he
said. “Mostly I suffer from fatigue, memory loss and heart
palpitations. But I am one of the lucky ones, I can’t even imagine
where I would be now if I had just accepted 21 days of treatment and
then gave up!”
The same blacklegged tick — aka a deer tick or bear tick — can carry
all three of the previously mentioned diseases.
These black-legged ticks — and the diseases they carry — are on the
rise in the state.
According to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), approximately
one-third of blacklegged ticks tested during recent years in Minnesota
were positive for these disease-causing organisms.
“While levels of infection in blacklegged ticks can vary by time or
place, these levels were consistently high,” said Melissa Kemperman,
an epidemiologist specializing in tick-transmitted diseases at MDH.
“Overall, about one out of every three adult blacklegged ticks was
positive for the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. In many parts of
Minnesota, this means that there is a good chance that any blacklegged
tick you encounter is carrying the Lyme disease bacteria.”
Nymphs, the immature stage of tick, were also tested. Just over 10
percent of nymphal blacklegged ticks were positive for the Lyme
disease bacteria. Although fewer nymphs than adults were positive for
the Lyme disease bacteria, their small size makes them more dangerous.
“Nymphs are tiny — about the size of a poppy seed,” Kemperman said.
“Because of this, they are very difficult to notice, and many people
don’t notice that an attached nymph is feeding on them.”
The parts of the state where blacklegged ticks are very common include
areas with a lot of wooded or brushy areas, like south St. Louis
County, Carlton County and Pine County. These ticks like leaf litter,
so they’re not as fond of conifer forests, Kemperman said, although
she added that they are seeing more black-legged ticks further up the
North Shore.
People who develop signs or symptoms of a tick-related illness after
spending time in blacklegged tick habitat should see a physician right
away, even if they don’t remember getting a tick bite.
Peak time for black-legged ticks is mid-May through mid-July, and
again in the fall.
Blacklegged ticks need to be attached for 24 to 48 hours to transmit
Lyme disease bacteria and 12 to 24 hours to transmit HA bacteria.
Lyme disease, HA, and babesiosis are treatable, but early diagnosis
and treatment are important in preventing severe illness. Some people
can develop two or more diseases from the same tick bite.
Since 2004, an average of about 1,000 cases of Lyme disease has been
reported to MDH each year. That’s twice the average annual numbers
from 1999 to 2003. Numbers of HA and babesiosis cases are smaller but
also have risen dramatically, to about 300 HA and 25 babesiosis cases
in each of the last two years, said Kemperman.
Symptoms of HA and babesiosis include a high fever, chills, headache,
and muscle aches. These symptoms appear approximately one to three
weeks after the tick bite for HA and one to six weeks or more after
the tick bite for babesiosis.
Signs and symptoms of Lyme disease can include an expanding rash,
fever, headache, chills, muscle pain, joint pain, and fatigue. The
rash, one of the earliest symptoms, typically appears between 3 and 30
days after an infectious tick bite.
Untreated Lyme disease can develop into joint swelling, nervous system
problems, or heart problems.
Unfortunately, not everyone with Lyme disease develops the trademark
bullseye-shaped rash. Nor do they all suffer the same symptoms, in a
predictable order.
“It’s a very individual disease,” Grier said.
The Lyme’s support group meets at 7 p.m. the first Tuesday of the
month at St. Luke’s Hospital, East Clinic Building, Room 329. Call
728-3914 for more.
If you do get a tick, don’t panic
Simply remove it with a pair of tweezers behind the head, not the body.
Squeezing the body could push fluids back into your body, like a
syringe. Tom Grier, of the Duluth/Superior Lyme Disease Support Group,
advises people who have been bitten to save the tick in a jar with a
drop of water and seek treatment promptly, without waiting to see if
symptoms develop.
“I’m a big believer in treating tick bites (preventively),” he said,
“because I’ve seen the results when you don’t seek treatment, there
are many horror stories.”
After removing the tick, use an antiseptic on the bite.
Also, avoid folk remedies (and e-mail cures) like Vaseline, nail
polish remover or burning matches — they are not a safe or effective
way to remove ticks.
Here are some tips to prevent tick bites:
Use repellent, especially on your lower legs
When spending time in wooded or brushy areas, it is crucial to use tick
repellents containing permethrin. Permethrin-based products, which are
only applied to clothing, are highly effective and can last through
several washings. Since ticks climb up from the ground, focus
repellent use below the knees. Repellents containing up to 30 percent
DEET can be used on the skin or clothing. Parents should apply this
product to their children, avoiding the hands, eyes, and mouth.
Wear light colored pants
Wear long pants and light-colored clothing (so you can easily see the
ticks trying to wander up your leg) and walk in the center of trails.
Tuck pants into your socks if you’re heading into wooded areas.
Do a tick check
After returning from the woods, check your body carefully for ticks
and promptly remove any that are found. Look carefully in the hair,
under the arms, in and around the ears, inside belly button, in back
of the knees, under the arms, between the legs and where your
waistband sits.
Also throw your clothes and sleeping bags into the dryer on hot for at
least 20 minutes — this should kill any other ticks.
Create an anti-tick yard
Modify your landscape to create Tick-Safe Zones. To do this, keep play
areas and playground equipment away from shrubs, bushes, and other
vegetation. Also, regularly remove leaf litter and clear tall grasses
and brush around homes, and place wood chips or gravel between lawns
and wooded areas to keep ticks away from recreational areas.
Provide a vegetation-free play area. Keep play areas and playground
equipment away from away from shrubs, bushes, and other vegetation.
Use a chemical control agent. Effective tick control chemicals are
available for use by the homeowner, or they can be applied by a
professional pest control expert, and even limited applications can
greatly reduce the number of ticks. A single springtime application of
acaricide can reduce the population of ticks that cause Lyme disease
by 68–100%.
Discourage deer. Removing plants that attract deer and constructing
physical barriers may help discourage deer from entering your yard and
bringing ticks with them.
The Minnesota Department of Health contributed greatly to this article.
