According to the National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP), emergency room visits for tick bites have been exploding this year. And although they are commonly prevalent in the northwest and the upper Midwest, tick populations have been spreading beyond into states including Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Tick bites can be far more than a simple nuisance as they are the vector for a number of diseases, including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Heartland virus.
Lyme disease can cause a variety of symptoms, including fever, rash, facial paralysis, irregular heartbeat and arthritis, while Rocky Mountain spotted fever causes fever, headache, nausea or vomiting, stomach pain, and muscle pain.
Heartland virus causes fever, fatigue, decreased appetite, headache, nausea, diarrhea and muscle pain.
“In many regions of the U.S., their infectious outbreaks overlap and knowing the tick species and carefully noting disease symptoms can help determine what disease we are dealing with,” says Sam Steel, NALP’s safety advisor. “Both of the bacterial diseases are treatable with doxycycline if early detection through blood tests confirms their presence in the victim(s). Heartland virus has no known treatment medications and is, fortunately, the rarest of the diseases.”