Spring is tick season. Here’s how to avoid Lyme disease.

Oh spring.Daffodil season, new beginnings, and the emergence of everyone’s favorite blood-sucking spider, ticks – just waiting for a chance While enjoying your favorite outdoor activities,

As if slicing through tender human flesh with a harpoon’s mouth wasn’t enough, arachnid scourges can also transmit Lyme disease and other ailments.If not treated, Lyme can cause serious or life threatening Future complications, and chronic symptoms are sometimes stay even if treated.

Incidence of Lyme disease is near doubling Over the past 30 years in the United States, changes in climate and land-use patterns have resulted in globalization.

The Banner spoke with Dr. John Orcott, director of the Lyme Disease Research Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, about what Lyme is, how it spreads, and how to protect yourself.

Conversations have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Banner: What is Lyme disease and how does it affect the body?

Orcott: Lyme is an infection caused by bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi Humans are infected by being bitten by an infected deer tick. The bite often, but not always, forms a round red skin lesion. In more than half of those infected, if not treated in its early stages, the bacteria can spread and later cause infections in other organs such as the heart, nervous system, and joints.

What kinds of settings are most likely to catch Lyme disease, and what are the best prevention strategies people can use?

Unfortunately, Baltimore and surrounding counties are high risk areas for Lyme infections. Because there are green spaces that support the deer, ticks and rats that carry the infection, and people live, garden and engage in recreation in those areas. This includes areas within the city limits with streams and greenways, as well as reservoirs and hiking areas outside the city limits.

Most Lyme disease is actually transmitted in the woods outside your backyard lawn. Spring gardening is a typical time for tick bites. Because you are cleaning the brush at the edge of the garden. Ticks live there.

A way to prevent it is to dress appropriately, such as wearing long pants with shoes and socks, and you can treat your clothes with a chemical called permethrin, which you can buy at any sports store. You can also use The best known is DEET, but there are others that can be found on the skin. CDC website.

After gardening or hiking, look for ticks and take a shower while touching them. Nymphal or adolescent ticks are about the size of a poppy seed and are difficult to see. It will be easier to find if you touch the part you want to attach, such as the back of the knee, crotch, armpit, etc. Quickly removing the tick dramatically reduces the risk of transmitting the bacteria.

When are people most at risk of getting infected?

Nymphal ticks emerge in late spring to early summer, with peak months always in June and July. There is his second minor peak in the fall, when the adult tick feeds and people spend time outside. Transmission is lower in August, as it is very hot and neither people nor ticks are circulating. After that, when the temperature is below 40°C he will not feed on the adult ticks, so when it gets very cold it drops off significantly. However, in warmer climates, tick bites can actually be seen in the winter when temperatures rise above 40 degrees.

What Lyme Symptoms Should I Watch Out for?

Acute Lyme disease has an incubation period of several weeks, so symptoms appear about 1 to 3 weeks after a tick bite. People should be looking for that round red skin lesion.One of the big takeaway points I always tell people is that it doesn’t usually look like Target, like the side of a Target department store. Its classic bullseye shape appears in only 20% of skin lesions. Most are actually just round, red bumps that are often mistaken for insect or spider bites.

You miss the chance to get tested by a doctor because you may not have any symptoms. or have symptoms such as fever, chills, fatigue and pain, similar to the flu but without respiratory symptoms. It is often accompanied by a rash, but not always. In the acute period of several weeks, only a rash may appear.

Chronic Lyme disease is a misunderstood term and confusing because infectious disease doctors define Lyme disease in three stages. If the initial stage is not treated with antibiotics, a high percentage of people develop symptoms after an untreated infection.

The first stage is a rash and other symptoms such as fever. The second stage is a symptom of an ongoing infection in which bacteria spread to the heart, nervous system, or joints. Rarely, Cardiac involvement can be fatal.

Stage 3 then occurs after an average of 6 months if that stage is not recognized and treated. That’s when Lyme arthritis occurs. Lyme disease was actually discovered in an outbreak of Lyme arthritis in children in a town called Lyme, Connecticut.

All three stages are symptoms of untreated bacterial infection. But that’s not what people usually talk about when they use the term chronic Lyme disease. It refers to ongoing symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, and joint pain that can occur months after the initial infection. previously treated.

Because the relationship between bacteria and these conditions is an area of ​​ongoing research, it is difficult to understand why these chronic persistent symptoms occur. It is not yet clear whether the symptoms represent an ongoing infection or are due to infection-triggered processes such as autoimmunity, persistent inflammation, or changes in infection-induced systems. Similar to the ongoing question of what makes COVID last longer, this is also still in the research stage.

sarah.true@thebaltimorebanner.com