By Thomas Doucet

To Your Health

To Your Health: Lyme Disease

May 12, 2022 | 11:24 AM

PRINCE GEORGE—Lyme disease is an inflammatory infection that spreads to humans through tick bites. Most often from a species called a Deer tick. The disease is caused by borrelia bacteria, which commonly infects animals like birds, mice, other small rodents, and deer. Ticks in their infancy then latch onto infected animals sucking the blood from them and jumping into tall grass. When humans walk through it allows the ticks to latch on and pass the bacteria.

Some symptoms are very obvious like joint aches, swollen lymph nodes, fever and chills. While other symptoms come on later.

“You might have poor memory, you might not feel as well mentally or physically,” said Patrick Dinelle, Pharmacy Manager at 3rd Ave Pharmacy.

Some symptoms you may have heard about might not actually be as common as originally thought. The famous Bullseye rash only shows up in a minority of cases.

“There was a study done in Nova Scotia on children diagnosed with Lyme disease and only 18 per cent of them presented with any kind of rash,” said Jim Wilson, founder of the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation.

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Treatments are still being looked into as some people respond well but others do not.

Wilson continued to say that most people are easily treated with a single round of antibiotics if caught early but many individuals do not respond to a single treatment and need further treatment.

What can you do to help protect yourself?

The first thing to know is that ticks can be everywhere. Most people know that ticks are found in long grass in the woods but they can also be found in bushes, gardens and public parks frequented by animals.

Another thing you can do is wear clothing that covers skin. While shorts are nice in the hot weather it does leave a lot of exposed skin for ticks to latch onto. Hiking pants can be light and breathable with some even having tick repellant materials woven right into the fabric. Bug spray is also a good idea with Wilson suggesting that sprays containing picaridin are especially effective against ticks.

If you are a frequent user of the outdoors you may get bit by a tick at one point or another and knowing how to remove a tick is very important.

“How you remove a tick that is attached to you is very important so that you do not touch the body of the tick which could then inject into your bloodstream the contents of the tick’s gut. It is important not to use heat, or anything that can smother the tick or that may cause the tick to vomit into your bloodstream,” Said Wilson

There are resources online from nonprofits and government bodies with more information on the conditions.

The most important thing to know is to be alert and not anxious. While nearly 1500 cases of Lyme were reported to Statistics Canada in 2018 it is a rare disease. Take the proper precautions and enjoy the great outdoors.