Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, IA
06-30-06
Encountering ticks inevitable in great outdoors
By JENS MANUEL KROGSTAD, Courier Staff Writer
They lie in wait on the tips of grasses and shrubs to suck your blood.
To compound the leg-crawling queasiness, ticks belong to the arachnid class,
which means they are relatives of the scorpion, spider and mite.
Yet any outdoors enthusiast likely will tell you that ticks are simply part of nature's
package.
"If (people) are going to go into tick territory, that's just something you should be
aware of. It's one of the necessary evils," said Kenneth Holscher, an Iowa
State University entomology professor. "Ticks don't find people, people find
ticks."
Even those who make a career out of nature fall prey to the critters when they
head into forests.
Mark Linda, environmental health manager for the Black Hawk County Health
Department, said a wood tick lodged itself in the curl of his right ear --- that hardto-reach area just above the ear's opening. Three days later, his ear started
itching and he finally discovered the wood tick. That's when the trouble started.
"The whole right side of my face swelled up, and I went on some exceedingly
strong antibiotics," he said.
Linda said he recovered fine, but his story serves as a cautionary reminder that
ticks do carry disease.
The most common tick-borne illness in Iowa is Lyme Disease, a bacterial illness
transmitted by deer ticks, Holscher said. Symptoms include fever, headache,
fatigue and a skin rash usually in the shape of a bull's-eye.
Lyme Disease previously was thought to be isolated in the northeast corner of
the state, but ISU's tick surveillance program shows the disease is in the
southeast Iowa counties of Iowa, Johnston and Muscatine. (View the entire map
at www.ent.iastate.edu/medent/)
Holscher said the best way to avoid contracting disease is the prompt removal of
ticks. That can be a challenge because people don't feel a tick bite because the
critters sink their harpoon-like barbs into the skin so slowly that we don't feel a
thing.
"The only safe and recommended way to remove ticks is to take a pair of sharp
pointed tweezers, grab the mouth part right where it is attached to skin and
slowly pull straight out," he said.
Holscher said he's encountered a lot of misinformation about the proper way to
remove a tick. He's heard of people applying heat, lighter fluid and gasoline to
the tick, or pulling and twisting it out with their fingers.
All of those methods will actually increase the chances of contracting disease.
Heat will cause the tick to salivate and can cause a person to become infected
before the tick has even champed into the skin, he said. Pulling and twisting a
tick with one's fingers can force the bacteria into the bite, he said.
Another common misconception lies in identifying deer ticks. Holscher said the
rule of thumb --- a small tick is a deer tick --- is inaccurate because "all ticks are
small at some point in their life," he said.
Instead, Holscher recommends that people concerned about Lyme disease place
the tick in a plastic bag and store it in a freezer. If you experience flu-like
symptoms in the following week or two, visit your doctor and send the sample for
analysis to an Iowa State University extension office.
Contact Jens Manuel Krogstad at (319) 291-1580 or
jens.krogstad@wcfcourier.com.
Tick protection tips
In dogs: If your dog is outside regularly, ask the veterinarian about the Lyme
disease vaccine. (There's no vaccine for cats yet.) Watch for itching, pain,
appetite loss, lethargy, fever, swollen joints or lameness. If you suspect a tickborne disease, see the veterinarian pronto. With early diagnosis, antibiotics
generally work.
To help prevent tick exposure, mow grass regularly and avoid allowing your pet
in grassy, wooded or beach areas. While in areas of tick exposure, examine pets
closely for ticks on a daily basis, especially around the head and inside the ears.
For people:
--- Wear long-sleeved shirts tight at the wrists, long pants tight at the ankles and
tucked in socks, and shoes covering the whole foot.
--- Wear light-colored clothes that show ticks easily.
--- On clothing, use a repellent containing permethrin. However, do not apply it to
clothing while it is being worn, and allow the clothing to thoroughly dry before
wearing.
--- On skin, use a repellent containing DEET. But don't overdo it. Too much bug
spray can cause breathing difficulty, especially in children.