Lyme Disease Ticks
The bacterium that causes Lyme disease lives in certain animals such as mice, birds and small animals. The bacterium is harmless to the animals but affects humans.
Ticks are small spider like creatures with little legs and are a dark shade of red the size of a pin head. Ticks are parasites and suck blood from animals like mice and sometimes humans. This is how ticks get infected with the bacterium that causes Lyme disease and in turn infects humans. Thereafter, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease is not passed from human to human. However, only ticks infected with the bacterium will cause Lyme disease. Tick bites do not necessarily cause Lyme disease.
The Lyme disease ticks are very clingy and are very difficult to take off the skin; they become especially clingy once they bite you. The ticks carry the bacteria in their gut, and it travels to your skin through the tick's mouth. If you find the tick on your body within 24 hours after it has bitten you it is possible that you may not develop Lyme disease, even if the tick is infected.
It is not known for certain if only infected ticks that bite. Humans may not notice the Lyme disease causing tick clinging on to the skin. This is often due to the tick being very small and tick bites do not hurt. When a physician queries from a person diagnosed with Lyme disease if they were bitten by a tick the patient would not be in a position to answer.
After the infected tick bites you the bacteria multiply and travel in the bloodstream to other parts of the body and spread the symptoms. The part of the human body that is affected by this bacterium is the skin, heart, joints and the nerves.
If once bitten by a tick, even though it is not known if the tick is the carrier of the Lyme disease bacterium, one should not panic. Use a pair of tweezers and grasp the tick's body as close to your skin as possible and pull it upward until the tick comes out. Do be careful not to squeeze or twist the tick's body. If there are any parts of the tick left in the skin, carefully remove them with the tweezers. Rub in a good antiseptic to the bite area and wash your hands with hand-wash or bacteria killing liquid. If a rash develops see a doctor.
Showing posts with label Lyme Disease Deer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lyme Disease Deer. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Lyme Disease Deer
Lyme Disease Deer
There are various conflicting observations about the deer being the father and mother of the Lyme disease. But it is always good to look at both ends and determine if the deer is solemnly responsible for Lyme disease. Research on Lyme disease and the deer has basically brought on the table very debatable observations.
It has been observed that the leading causes of the Lyme diseases are mainly the small mammals like the mice which usually help in the first year of the two-year life cycle. But the adult tick is usually given blood meal and transportation by the deer. Studies have indicated that you can reduce the number of ticks dramatically if you reduce the number of deer per density to maybe 10 per square mile. This therefore also means that there will be a dramatic reduction of the Lyme disease. There are some studies which have gone further in demystifying this fact by essentially removing all deer in a selected area and the results were that the Lyme disease dropped almost to non-existent.
A fenced area that can bar deer from coming in can prove this observation. If you walk round inside the fence; you will find that you will not pick up ticks contrary to if you were to join the deer population outside the fence where you may find that you will pick up ticks. The unfortunate part of this observation is that nature has a part to play. In fact, it has a way of being complex than it is ever thought about. It is believe that the deer is the parent host of the black-legged tick. But when there is scarcity of deer, nature takes its course and the ticks feed on raccoons, skunks, opossums or even other medium sized mammals. These always provide alternative hosts to these ticks.
But then, a fact that is true is that ticks are very dangerous when infected and the deer does not play any role in infecting the ticks. It is the Lyme disease bacterium that infects ticks which feed on the small mammals such as the white footed mice, chipmunks and shrews, with mice playing an additional role of increasing the survival of the ticks. In essence, as much as the reduction of deer can reduce accidents and maybe increase forest regeneration, the best way is to increase forest patches that will necessitate the growth of natural predators such as the weasels, coyotes, foxes and owls which can do the job of feeding on these ticks.
There are various conflicting observations about the deer being the father and mother of the Lyme disease. But it is always good to look at both ends and determine if the deer is solemnly responsible for Lyme disease. Research on Lyme disease and the deer has basically brought on the table very debatable observations.
It has been observed that the leading causes of the Lyme diseases are mainly the small mammals like the mice which usually help in the first year of the two-year life cycle. But the adult tick is usually given blood meal and transportation by the deer. Studies have indicated that you can reduce the number of ticks dramatically if you reduce the number of deer per density to maybe 10 per square mile. This therefore also means that there will be a dramatic reduction of the Lyme disease. There are some studies which have gone further in demystifying this fact by essentially removing all deer in a selected area and the results were that the Lyme disease dropped almost to non-existent.
A fenced area that can bar deer from coming in can prove this observation. If you walk round inside the fence; you will find that you will not pick up ticks contrary to if you were to join the deer population outside the fence where you may find that you will pick up ticks. The unfortunate part of this observation is that nature has a part to play. In fact, it has a way of being complex than it is ever thought about. It is believe that the deer is the parent host of the black-legged tick. But when there is scarcity of deer, nature takes its course and the ticks feed on raccoons, skunks, opossums or even other medium sized mammals. These always provide alternative hosts to these ticks.
But then, a fact that is true is that ticks are very dangerous when infected and the deer does not play any role in infecting the ticks. It is the Lyme disease bacterium that infects ticks which feed on the small mammals such as the white footed mice, chipmunks and shrews, with mice playing an additional role of increasing the survival of the ticks. In essence, as much as the reduction of deer can reduce accidents and maybe increase forest regeneration, the best way is to increase forest patches that will necessitate the growth of natural predators such as the weasels, coyotes, foxes and owls which can do the job of feeding on these ticks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)