The Asian longhorned tick can cause serious infestations in livestock and pets | Photo: Wikipedia
“I’VE BEEN DREADING THE DAY THEY FOUND THEM IN TENNESSEE. IT COULD BE A HUGE PROBLEM FOR PETS AND LIVESTOCK.”
DR. KRISTI SHARPE, DVM
The Asian longhorned tick has arrived in East Tennessee, state officials said late Friday.
The state Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture announced jointly late Friday afternoon that the invasive parasitic species has been found in two locations in East Tennessee — making the Volunteer State the 11th state to be impacted by the tick’s spread.
Two Asian longhorned ticks were recently found on a dog in Union County, officials said, and five were found on a cow in Roane County.
“Tennessee has a relatively large amount and variety of ticks,” said Dr. R.T. Trout Fryxell, associate professor of medical and veterinary entomology at the University of Tennessee. “It is important to be diligent and keep an eye out for all ticks because many varieties can transmit pathogens or cause painful bites.”
The longhorned tick is native to East Asia. While it had been intercepted at ports on imported animals several times, it was not known to exist in the mainland United States until November 2017, when it was discovered on a sheep farm in New Jersey. Efforts to eradicate it there failed; it over-wintered and established itself as an invasive species before later beginning to spread to other states. The tick’s spread is primarily due to birds; the ticks attach themselves to various species of birds and travel quickly.
“I’ve been dreading the day they found them in Tennessee,” said Dr. Kristi Sharpe, a veterinarian at Highland Veterinary Hospital in Oneida. “It could be a huge problem for pets and livestock.”
The longhorned tick is known to be a livestock pest, feeding on farm animals like cattle, horses, sheep, pigs and chickens. It has also been on dogs and cats, as well as humans. Infestations occur in the wild, as well. So far, the tick has been found on 17 different species of mammals in the U.S.
“The female ticks can clone themselves and don’t necessarily require a male to mate and reproduce,” Sharpe said. “This equates to a tick that can cause an infestation much more rapidly than those that have to mate.”
Infestations can be serious in animals. The ticks have been known to cause such serious infestations in pets and livestock that they insanguinate their host — or drain it of blood — Sharpe said.
The ticks are also a concern as disease-carriers. They transmit a disease called theileriosis to cattle, which can cause death in calves and decreased milk production in dairy cattle.
“It can also carry Huaiyangshan banyang virus which causes severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome,” Sharpe said. “SFTS is a condition that causes bleeding disorders and organ damage. So far none of the ticks in the U.S. have tested positive for this virus, but it is considered endemic in China and other Asian countries. So it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the arrival of this tick in the U.S. could have introduced yet another tick-borne disease we have to worry about.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has reported that there is no evidence that the tick has transmitted pathogens to humans or animals in the U.S. so far.
Sharpe said researchers are unsure of the longhorned tick’s ability to transmit diseases like Lyme and Ehrlichia. But, she said,”the potential is definitely there.”
Sharpe said that people should follow general precautions to protect against all ticks. That includes using an FDA-approved repellent, tucking your pants into your socks when you’re out and about in the woods, and doing nightly tick checks on yourself and your pets.
“All veterinary-labeled tick preventatives should provide protection against the Asian longhorn,” she said. “Don’t trust grocery store brands because they usually do not provide adequate tick coverage.”
Fryxell recommended that pet owners and farmers who find a tick on an animal should put the tick in a ziplock bag after removing it with tweezers, writing down the date and where the tick was most likely encountered, and storing it in a freezer. “If any symptoms of a tick-borne disease begin to develop, you should bring the tick to your veterinarian,” Fryxell said.
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**Comment**
The Asian Long-horned tick continues its march into the U.S. unabated.
I’m very thankful for the honest reporting and the blame on birds for spreading ticks, not climate change.
I also appreciate the statement that while Lyme and other diseases have not been found to be transmitted from the Asian tick in the U.S. to date, the potential is there.
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/01/14/multistate-infestation-with-the-exotic-disease-vector-tick-haemaphysalis-longhornis-u-s-aug-2017-sept-2018/Where this tick exists, it is an important vector of human and animal disease agents. In China and Japan, it transmits the severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV), which causes a human hemorrhagic fever (2), and Rickettsia japonica, which causes Japanese spotted fever (3). Studies in Asia identified ticks infected with various species of Anaplasma, Babesia, Borrelia, Ehrlichia, and Rickettsia, and all of these pathogen groups circulate zoonotically in the United States (4,5). In addition, parthenogenetic reproduction, a biologic characteristic of this species, allows a single introduced female tick to generate progeny without mating, thus resulting in massive host infestations.
Man shares his story about dealing with Lyme disease
Man makes it his mission to raise awareness about Lyme Disease
By Taylor Eaton
Posted: May 22, 2019
ELLIOTT COUNTY, Ky. (WSAZ) — In 2006, Patrick White says his life really started changing.
May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and a man from Kentucky shares his experience with the disease.
“The first sign that something wasn’t right was 2006,” said White. “I remember the date because it was my wife’s birthday. I slept all day on her birthday, which was totally odd. That was the first sign. There were other things. Bone pain, odd bone pain. I’m 44, and this started when I was in my early 30s. It was odd to have that pain. I always worked in construction, was in the Marine Corps but never experienced this type of pain.”
White developed a lot of different health issues.
“The mood swings. Rage was the worst part of it,” White said. “I’d get so angry over some of the smallest things. From there, it started to kind of spiral. Depression started. I got really depressed.”
He was left in the dark for years though, not knowing what was causing all of his problems. It was one misdiagnosis after another for him because his symptoms mimicked a lot of other illnesses.
“I had no idea what was going on,” White said. “I just knew I was in so much pain. It got to the point when I would walk, it felt like my bones were like glass and they were going to snap and break. It was through my whole body.”
It wasn’t until around 2014 when one of his doctors brought up the possibility of Lyme disease. White was tested and it came back positive.
“I didn’t know anything about Lyme at that time,” White said. “It wasn’t even a thought in our head that could happen.”
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that is transmitted through the bite of an infected deer tick. Typically, a rash will develop around the site of the bite, called a bulls-eye rash. Aside from that symptom, there are no other symptoms specific to Lyme disease.
However, White says he didn’t develop a rash.
Other common symptoms include fever, chills, fatigue, and body aches.
“I never saw the bulls-eye rash,” White said. “I can’t remember getting flu-like symptoms. I can’t ever remember getting sick like that.”
Many times, Lyme disease isn’t diagnosed immediately because people don’t realize they have been bitten. If it’s not diagnosed immediately, the bacteria can spread throughout the body and cause a number of different health issues.
However, many of those symptoms can mimic other diseases and infections, which is why Lyme disease can be difficult to diagnose.
White says after his diagnosis, he finally felt he had some answers. He still doesn’t know exactly when he was bitten.
Typically, Lyme disease is treated with antibiotics if it is caught early.
However, White received a late diagnosis and is still feeling the effects of it.
“I still have seizures,” White said. “I still have memory loss. But, I am able to get out walking now and can help around the house.”
He is undergoing a treatment now called immunotherapy. He credits the treatment for giving him a big part of his life back.
“Where I am at now, I am extremely happy,” White said. “It feels good. I feel like I have my life back.”
White has now turned to art and support groups to help him on his journey forward. He is making it his mission to raise awareness about Lyme disease.
“Since I have started getting better, I really push this awareness because I don’t want to see anyone go through this,” White said. “I am petrified of ticks now. I am constantly on the lookout when we go in the woods. I know that little thing that is the size of a poppy seed will change and destroy your life. You have to be diligent with your body checks. You have to check yourself constantly.”
We hypothesized that since Borrelia burgdorferi causes systemic inflammation and infects the brain, it may lead to alterations in cerebral metabolism, as measured by 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). The purpose of our study was to determine whether 1H-MRS could detect brain metabolite alterations in patients with early Lyme neuroborreliosis (LNB) in normal-appearing brain tissue on the conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
METHODS:
Twenty-six patients diagnosed with early LNB and twenty-six healthy volunteers as a control group have been involved in the study. All of them underwent routine MRI protocol using 3.0-T MRI scanner. 1H-MRS examinations were performed with repetition time (TR) = 2000 ms, and echo time (TE) = 135 ms. Single voxels were positioned in the anterior and posterior parts of the right and left frontal lobes.
RESULTS:
We found a statistically significant decrease of the N-acetylaspartate/creatine ratio within the anterior part of the right and left frontal lobes (p ≤ 0.001 and p = 0.001 respectively) and in the posterior part of the right and left frontal lobes (p ≤ 0.001 and 0.031) in the patients with LNB.
CONCLUSION:
A significant reduction in NAA/Cr ratio in comparison with the controls suggests the presence of diffuse neuronal loss in patients with early LNB.
(WLUK) — Memorial Day is approaching and some will be spending time in the great outdoors.
As the weather warms, the risk of catching Lyme disease increases.
“Lyme disease is an infection spread by tick, caused by bacterium,” explained Rebecca Osborn with the state Department of Health Services.
Osborn said Lyme disease shows no signs of slowing.
“We do have data that suggest that Lyme disease has increased in the last several decades,” she said.
Last year, Wisconsin had more than 3,000 Lyme disease cases. The state health department said the average number of reported cases has more than doubled over the past 10 years.
“If you get a tick bite, we recommend being aware of any symptoms that may be developed within 30 days of that tick bite,” said Osborn.
She added that symptoms include fevers, joint pain, headaches and bulls-eye rashes.
To prevent the bug bite, Osborn said, “Avoid tick habitat, they tend to live in brushy, grassy, wooded areas, if you can stay on trails or try to stay away from tick habitats.”
And if you are in the wood, health experts say you should check your body for tick, take a shower, and dry your clothes on high heat for 10 minutes.
Wisconsin legislators are also bringing awareness to this growing problem by releasing five bills.
Bill draft numbers and an overview of the five bills is listed below. All five bills were circulated for co-sponsorship in the Legislature Thursday, and are circulating until Tuesday, June 4.
LRBs 1758 and 3360 – Requires the DNR to post signs to raise awareness of Lyme disease, inform on how to prevent tick bites, and encourage visitors to check for ticks after visits to be posted in a common area, such as the park entrance, a trailhead or in a campground, in all State Parks, Forests, Recreational Areas, and Trails
LRBs 1759 and 3359 – Requires the DNR to sell bug spray with DEET, which can help to repel ticks, in all State Parks and Forests when their Park or Forest Office or other location in the Park or Forest, such as a concession stand, is open
LRBs 2738 and 3358 – Requires the DNR to post information in certain Parks brochures to raise awareness of Lyme disease, inform on how to prevent tick bites, and encourage visitors to check for ticks after visiting a State Park, and requires the DNR to complete an annual awareness campaign in May of each year, which is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, on digital and print platforms to raise awareness of Lyme disease, inform on how to prevent tick bites, and encourage visitors to check for ticks after spending time outdoors
LRBs 1658 and 3355 – Provides an Epidemiologist Advanced position at DHS’s Division of Communicable Disease with the position dedicated to vector-borne diseases spread by mosquitoes, ticks, and other insects with a specific focus on Lyme disease, including raising awareness about and creating informational materials about Lyme Disease and other vector borne diseases
LRBs 1652 and 3362 – Establishes a sixteen-member Tick-Borne Disease Study Committee to create a report for the legislature on consensus-based recommendations for policy changes on awareness, prevention, surveillance, diagnosis, reporting, and treatment of Lyme disease
After speaking with a legislative aid about the polarization within the medical community, I warned him that bill #5 could have potential problems depending upon who is on the 16 member group. It is always concerning when diagnosis and treatment is discussed as the medical community is completely divided on both aspects.
The bills were released by Senator Cowles and Miller, along with representatives Mursau, and Milroy. They’ve since obtained more co-sponsors. Contact your reps and senators and let them know how much this impacts you and your families.
Headaches are a common symptom of tick-borne illness. Now that I’m in remission, I rarely get headaches. When I do, I’ve become adept at recognizing why I have them. Knowing the nuances of my headaches helps me determine whether my pain is Lymeor babesia related—or from something else entirely—and how to treat it. In short, I now know my own head as well as I know my own body.
I trained myself to recognize gradations and causes of headaches in part as a defense against people who thought they knew my head and body better than I did. In my worst days of battling tick-borne diseases, when I would complain to an acquaintance of a smashing migraine, they might say “It could be the weather.”
I wanted to scream. A headache that severe does not result from a shift in barometric pressure. Sometimes on muggy days with impending rain, I felt fine. My head was clear. I had no brain fog or pain. Other days, it would be beautiful and sunny outside, and I felt my head might explode. Healthy people were outside playing, encouraging me to enjoy the weather—“it’ll be good for you!”—when all I really needed was to take some migraine medication and sleep.
My headaches were caused by tick-borne illnesses, not by the weather. They also weren’t stress-related (though stress could aggravate them), or caffeine withdrawal. If you are bedridden with Lyme, wishing you could just take your head off and put it on the nightstand because it hurts so much, I am here to remind you that your pain is likely caused by a bug in your brain, not by any of these more typical causes.
It’s important to talk to your Lyme Literate Medical Doctor (LLMD) and perhaps get a scan of your brain to make sure nothing else—outside of the scope of tick-borne illness—is going on. It also helps to recognize different headache symptoms, so you can be as specific as possible when talking with your doctor. In my case, headaches related to Lyme took over my whole skull with a throbbing pressure, sometimes making me feel like my brain was getting too big for my skull. Pain caused by babesia was different; that tended to be a migraine, focused on the left side of my head. It was more searing, like someone sawing into the left side of my skull. Babesia headaches caused nausea and light sensitivity, while Lyme headaches caused a more generalized, tolerable pain.
Your own headache symptoms might be different. You might be suffering from co-infections I did not have, and suffer relapsing fevers that can cause their own species of headaches. Do you tend to get migraines for a few days in a row? Are your headaches local or generalized? Do they come on during Herxheimer reactions, or when you are pulsing antibiotics? If you’re female, are your headaches specific to a certain time of the month? Figuring out these nuances can help your LLMD treat you. I recommend keeping a written log, and marking any external factors (like stress or certain foods) that you think might be worsening your symptoms.
These days when I do get a migraine, it’s usually because I’ve pushed myself way too hard neurologically or physically. If they persist, I know my babesia is flaring. But the headaches I usually get now are the “normal” headaches healthy people thought I was suffering from years ago.
I’ve learned to differentiate between these headaches, too. Weather-related headaches mean slight pressure at the base of my skull, across both sides of my head. These I can’t do anything about until the storm passes, but the pain is minimal. Stress-related headaches cause inflammation only on the left side of the base of my skull, creating a knot that I can actually feel with my hand. It helps to rub the knot or get cranial-sacral therapy and sleep. Hormonal headaches feel like a buzzing across my temples, and are relieved with over-the-counter painkillers. Dehydration headaches are a tightening on the top of my head, signaling that I need to drink electrolyte-enhanced water.
All of these headaches are bearable. Getting these typical, that is, non tick-borne disease related headaches reminds me how very, very different they are than the agonizing headaches I suffered years ago. Learn the nuances of your own headaches, talk to your LLMD about them, and don’t let anyone but your trusted medical providers tell you what the cause of pain is in your own body.
Opinions expressed by contributors are their own.
Jennifer Crystal is a writer and educator in Boston. She has written a memoir, One Tick Stopped the Clock, for which she is seeking representation. Contact her at: lymewarriorjennifercrystal@gmail.com.
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**Comment**
This article takes me back to when I wondered if there would EVER be a day without an excruciating, all encompassing headache. Thankfully, these headaches are a thing of the past due to appropriate treatment. One of the most effective drugs for me was minocycline due to its ability to cross the blood/brain barrier: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/04/minocycline-for-ms-and-much-more/
For me initially, the headaches were in the meninges (the layer encompassing the entire brain). The inflammation and pain were beyond anything I’d ever experienced. Then they became occipital (base of where head meets neck). Since I met numerous patients that had a Lyme diagnosis as well as Chiari, I had a MRI to rule that out: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/04/02/chiari/ The MRI for me was normal – showing nothing that should cause the type of pain I was experiencing.
I recommend you discuss these options with your practitioner IF you’ve had sufficient antimicrobial treatment but are left with a lot of pain. These substances did not work for me while in treatment for active infection. It wasn’t until after stopping treatment that they worked for me; however, you may be different.
I do feel one mistake people make is quitting treatment too soon. ILADS recommends being symptom-free for 2-3 months before stopping any treatment. As you see from the article on Babesia, Dr. Horowitz recommends 9 months to a year of steady 3 weeks on, one week off treatment. Many quit this too soon. It’s important to overlap treatment as well with numerous things hitting all the various angles. It’s also important to switch meds when you reach plateaus. My husband and I were treated with 4.5 years and have relapsed twice requiring 2-3 month stints of treatment. Make sure you see your practitioner if symptoms return. Read the following articles for examples to discuss with your practitioner:
Opinions expressed by contributors are their own.
