Important facts you should know when it's getting buggy outside

When enjoying the great outdoors trekking through a mountain trail, wading through a river, treading through a desert, or in your backyard, you run the risk of exposure to insect bites.

A natural tick control repellent is the best solution but there may be times when this is not easily available.

Ants, arachnids, bees, dragonflies, fleas, flies, mosquitos, ticks, and wasps are just some of the insects that can sting or bite but this article focuses mostly on different kinds of ticks.

Under normal circumstances, most of these insects will not bite unless you are invading their property or they consider you as a potential threat to their environment.

What is a tick?

A majority of people think of a tick as a blood sucking insect and this is simply not true.

An insect has six legs and an adult tick has eight legs. Ticks exist in many different sizes, ranging from as small as the head of a needle up to the size of a marble. A tick is born as a larva with six legs, coming from an egg, before reaching the stage of maturity known as a nymph.

An adult tick is known as a nymph and it has eight legs but it cannot jump or fly. A tick is classified as an arachnid, therefore it is more closely related to spiders rather than insects.

To reach the adult stage of a nymph from a larva, the tick must suck blood from different creatures which can be amphibians, birds, mammals, quadrupeds, or reptiles. A tick that carries bacteria risks infecting its host.

Three stages of a tick’s life

A tick goes through three different stages in its expected lifetime of three years. The tick must continue sucking blood to successfully transition from one stage to the next.

The first stage is that of a larva that has just hatched from an egg and it is the size of a dot in the letter i. These larvas suck the blood of birds and rodents until they mature to become nymphs.

A nymph tick is bigger than a larva but still smaller than 2mm with eight legs and it is in the most active part of its lifecycle. A majority of the tick species prefer to suck on the blood of a new host at every stage of their life.

At the same time, there are some tick breeds like the brown dog tick (Rhipicephalus sanguineus), which desire to suck on the blood of the same host for their entire life.

An adult tick is the largest and has the most potential to spread disease because it has gorged on the blood of different animals.

What are tick borne diseases?

A tick is a species of arachnids but it cannot jump or fly. This is the reason why a tick has to crawl up the body of its victim to find a nice spot to gorge on their blood.

Ticks usually crawl towards the groin, armpits, or hair to gorge on their victim’s blood. They generally enjoy feeding in warm and moist areas of the body.

The astonishing thing is that the entire body of the tick remains attached to its victim but it does not completely enter the host’s body. There is a possibility that you may not experience any symptoms at all if the tick does not carry any diseases.

On the other hand, people would normally experience some or all of the following symptoms if they are allergic to tick bites:

● Swelling

● Pain

● Skin rash

● Redness

● Itching

● Difficulty breathing or mnemonic flu

If you experience a bite from a tick that carries tick borne illnesses you can expect to experience the following more severe symptoms:

● Fever

● Rashes on the entire body

● Bulls-eye rash

● Stiffness in the neck

● Flu-like symptoms

● Swollen lymph nodes

● Weakness

● Nausea

● Extreme chills

Let’s look at the various diseases that you can get from a tick bite.

Babesiosis

This is a disease caused by ticks present in the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

The first symptoms of this disease can occur weeks or months after the tick bite. The tick responsible for this disease goes by the name of a deer tick or black legged tick.

The name of the parasite that infects the red blood cells is Babesia. This disease can occur simultaneously with Lyme disease. Some of the most common symptoms include:

● Yellowish discoloration of the skin and eyes

● Nausea

● Mood swings

● Abdominal discomfort

● Intense headaches

● Bruising of the skin

As the contamination increases the individual can develop abdominal pain or pain in the chest in coordination with excessive sweating.

Another sign of undiagnosed babesiosis is a recurring high fever. The following symptoms and conditions can occur in complicated cases of Babesiosis.

● Hemolytic anemia

● Liver impairment

● Cardiac failure

● Extremely low blood pressure

● Kidney failure

People who have a weak immune system or the absence of a spleen are at a greater risk of developing these complications. Senior citizens with prior health conditions are more vulnerable to developing complications.

Babesiosis is a condition that can generally be treated by a licensed general physician within the United States.

Lyme disease

Not all tick bites will immediately cause Lyme disease. Contracting Lyme disease is only possible if the tick has physically been in direct contact with an infected animal.

Lyme disease is a disease that is present all over the United States with increased severity in Northeastern states. The tick responsible for transmitting Lyme disease is known as the Ixodes Scapularis or the black-legged tick in layman’s terms.

The infected tick relays Borrelia Burgdorferi which is a bacteria that is transmitted when the tick bites the host. The symptoms will be apparent anytime between 3 to 30 days because the tick needs to be strapped to the host’s body for at least 36 to 48 hours to successfully transmit Lyme disease.

Some of the most common symptoms of Lyme disease are:

● Fever accompanied by headaches

● Exhaustion

● Chills

● Muscle pain

● Joint pain

● Circular red skin rash

● Flu-like symptoms

Lyme disease is a condition that can be treated by a licensed general practitioner in the United States.

One of the best ways to prevent tick borne illnesses is to always use a potent natural tick repellent whenever you are in the great outdoors.

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