All the signs are there. It’s time to be on a close lookout for Lyme Disease-carrying ticks.
Meanwhile, a new group, CNY Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Alliance, has been formed consisting of scientists, medical professionals and those who have suffered from Lyme Disease. It’s a multi-faceted effort to raise public awareness of preventative measures that individuals can take and treatment options for those who come down with a debilitating, tick-borne illness.
Upstate New York has seen its share of unusually cold nights this spring – even some snow. Ticks remain active, though, down to the mid-30 degrees in temperature. Any colder than that, they hunker down underneath leaf litter on the ground where it’s warmer and moist.
They then reemerge when the temperatures go up, hungrier than even in search of a blood host.
“They’re tricky little buggers,” said Brian Leydet, a SUNY ESF professor who specializes in vector-borne diseases. It’s impossible to predict or say what encompasses a bad year for ticks, he said.
“Every year is a bad tick year in Syracuse,” Leydet said. “All you need is one tick to bite you and you can get sick. If there are ticks in your area, you’re going to notice them every year.”
Outdoors enthusiasts should be particularly careful for the next few weeks, Leydet said, as the adult deer ticks will be out looking for their last blood meal from a large mammal before laying eggs and dying. Hosts include deer, skunks, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, or domestic pets (dogs and cats) etc.
Leydet said each adult tick, which has the greatest likelihood for carrying the Lyme disease bacteria since it has already had two blood meals during its two-year lifetime, is capable of laying up to 3,000 eggs before dying.
“They’re more infectious than the nymphs and fortunately easier to spot because they’re larger,” he said.
The smaller, pinhead-sized deer tick nymphs, emerging from feeding as larvae from last year, will be emerging in about a month looking for blood meals. The tick larvae, which had their first blood meal last year on small Lyme disease carrying critters, such as mice – will now be on the scene as nymphs and capable for the first time of transmitting Lyme disease.
Preventative measures one can take when they go outside include wearing light-colored long pants and long-sleeved shirts, preferably sprayed with tick killing chemicals such as permethrin. Certain insect repellents with with DEET or picaridan can be applied directly to one’s skin.
Leydet said it’s a good idea once coming inside to put the clothes you wore into a drier on high for at least 10 minutes, which will kill all the ticks on the clothes. Also, taking a shower afterward and doing a complete body tick check is another recommendation.
Leydet is a member of the CNY Lyme and Tick Borne Disease Alliance. See the group’s website for more.
“Research scientists, medical experts, those who have suffered. We’re bringing all the minds together to attack this from every angle,” he said.
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