While they may say tick bites are somewhat rare, and even then
only a small percentage of ticks carry Lyme disease, tell that to
Donna Brodsky’s family.
While they may say tick bites are somewhat rare, and even then only a small percentage of ticks carry Lyme disease, tell that to Donna Brodsky’s family.
Brodsky’s two daughters were bitten by ticks within one year of each other on opposite sides of the country, and one of them was diagnosed with Lyme disease, the best-known of the many bacteria that ticks carry. The other has tested both positive and negative for the disease.
“He said the only two he’s seen so far are my two,” Donna said about taking her daughters to the doctor for Lyme disease testing.
Brodsky’s 22-year-old daughter had all the classic symptoms of Lyme disease: a bull’s-eye type rash, extreme fatigue, headaches and joint pain. Testing for Lyme disease often will result in false-positive results, so Brodsky went to see infectious disease specialist Michael Charney in San Jose for further testing.
Her daughter’s case is rare in that she doesn’t spend much time in the wilderness.
“She’s kind of like a princess,” her mother said. “She doesn’t go out too much. … She was pretty grossed out there was a tick on her back. She thought it was a scab.”
Brodsky’s other daughter, who is 19 years old, is a much higher percentage candidate for a tick bite.
“She camps, she goes out to the Pinnacles,” Brodsky said.
Her other daughter found a tick on her back after a trip to North Carolina and also thought it was just a scab.
After Brodsky’s 22-year-old was diagnosed with Lyme disease, she was put on antibiotics for six weeks. She was told that she no longer has the disease, but she still feels some of the symptoms lingering.
“The sooner you catch it, the better it is to treat,” Brodsky said. “It’s real important the even if you are out walking or mowing or weed-whacking, to wear long sleeves and long pants and to check yourself.”
Area park rangers know that ticks are a problem. Each year, park rangers go out into areas where many ticks can be found and do what they call “flagging.”
“We have a lot of ticks here. The main one is the western black-legged tick because it’s a carrier of Lyme disease,” said Kriss Costa, community resource specialist with the Santa Clara County Vector Control District. “We take a white flannel cloth and drag it through areas where there are a lot of ticks. We usually come up with a one-half to 2 percent infectious rate.”
That means that at most, only one in 50 local tick bites will cause Lyme disease, while that number jumps to nearly 50 percent or worse in the eastern United States. According to Costa, one of the reasons for the lower number is because of the western fence lizard.
The tick’s life cycle includes three bites. Lyme disease is transferred from a female tick to it’s babies. The tick lays eggs and then dies. The baby ticks eat one meal on a rodent, or the common western fence lizard. If it chooses the latter of the two, the western fence lizard will actually counter the Lyme disease and remove it from the tick.
“The western fence lizard balances it out,” Costa said.
Rangers also check for other tick-carrying diseases like babesiosis and two different types of ehrlichiosis, even though cases of the disease are extremely rare.
“These are fairly new diseases,” Costa said. “In ’94 and ’97 were the only two cases (in California). One was in Santa Cruz County.”
Costa said they do not check for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever because it is not a major issue in the South Valley region.
Ticks are arachnids. They begin life as six-legged creatures but gain two more legs after their first feeding. They will feed two more times, and molt after each stage. The tick usually sits on the top of thick blades of grass and grabs onto a feeding source as it brushes through the grass.
The tick will look for a moist dark spot to find a spot to feed – usually in the hair, pelvic area, armpit or belly button.
However, there are ways to avoid its bite.
“Stay on the trails,” Costa said. “Areas where there is poison oak and afternoon shade areas are where you find most of the ticks.”
Costa said that wearing long shirts and pants helps but also to spray skin with DEET and to use Peremone – available at sporting goods stores – on clothing.
She said that poison oak, and afternoon shade areas are where most ticks can be found.
Veterinarian Pete Keesling said that pets can not only be bitten by ticks, but can bring them back out of the woods.
“We are concerned about this,” he said. “It’s still out there.”
Keesling said that there are several ways to keep ticks off your pets, but none of them is perfect.
“There is a collar that is fairly protective,” he said. “There is a vaccine available for dogs, but we don’t feel it’s 100 percent protective. They should check them (for ticks) every day.”
Dave Steffenson is an assistant editor with The Dispatch in Gilroy.
