All about tick bites & Lyme infection
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Resources and background info for you to reference in the moment for you and your family
Lyanne Pinto and I discussed all things tick bite and Lyme during a podcast. Listen in here!
Let's start with prevention strategies to avoid a tick bite, to use when heading outside with pets, in the woods, or when golfing in areas where deer co-exist, or in a known Lyme-endemic area.
Tip #1 - Prepare to prevent: Tick repellants
Repel ticks with a variety of insecticides (natural or not):
Deet - damages plastic, clothing, polyester/outdoor wear.
Permethrin-treated clothing is a prevention measure against tick and mosquito bites; although it doesn't provide complete protection and should be combined with other strategies.
Picardin/icardin 20% (Ben’s repellant); use on skin. Modelled off a plant extract from the pepper family/piperidine.
Lemon eucalyptus and other essential oils.
Cedarcide: https://cedarcide.com/?srsltid=AfmBOooDyToouN-HTsIJwgkujnWO27oFupsGUIzmoDmHFxTNfSuttXZE
**Natural products require re-application (similar to natural sunscreens).
Ultrasonic machines that generate a frequency that insects do not like (for hunting, for eg.)
Cover up: tuck in socks; wear long pants; ideally wear a hood if in the bush.
Once home: place clothes in the dryer for 40 minutes (hot). Consider a hot shower. Check yourself and kids in a variety of areas: hairline, creases, belly button. Leave shoes outside, in a mudroom or garage. Same with backpacks.
Tip #2 - What happens if you see a tick bite on the skin?
Bring along with you when outdoors a proper tick removal tool, which can be found at pet stores, outfitters like MEC, or use tweezers and try to get the whole body of the tick out of the spot where it may be burrowing into the skin.
Tick storage: seal well in a plastic jar with a closed lid or ziplock bag (100% sealed).
Consider sending the tick to https://geneticks.ca/ for testing. Cost is $60-$400 depending on how many vector-borne species you want to test (the lab helps you with this depending on the type of tick observed and the geographical region).
You can also submit a tick at no cost to https://etick.ca/ (found on a human, animal or in the environment). Keep in mind this is for information collection and public health data surveillance, not to inform your personal health decisions.
Tip #3 - Treat for a potential Lyme infection (& monitor for a bull's eye rash, flu-like symptoms, or fatigue)
The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) recommends against the use of a single 200 mg dose of doxycycline for the prevention of Lyme disease. Not only is it unlikely to be highly efficacious, in the human trial failed therapy led to a seronegative disease state.
Based on animal studies, ILADS recommends that known blacklegged tick bites be treated with 20 days of doxycycline (barring any contraindications).
Given the low success rates in trials treating EM rashes for 20 or fewer days, ILADS recommends that patients receive 4-6 weeks of doxycycline, amoxicillin or cefuroxime. A minimum of 21 days of azithromycin is also acceptable, especially in Europe. All patients should be reassessed at the end of their initial therapy and, when necessary, antibiotic therapy should be extended.
ILADS recommends that patients with persistent symptoms and signs of Lyme disease be evaluated for other potential causes before instituting additional antibiotic therapy.
Naturopathic Doctors offer herbal and other complementary natural therapies that are arguably more broad-coverage for a variety of possible infections. For young children, sometimes this route is preferred by parents. In the absence of acute flu-like symptoms and with no bull's eye rash, herbal therapies may be advised.
Tip #4 - Look out for chronic symptoms (6+ weeks after the bite)
Chronic presentations can look very different, but almost always involve the following:
severe, persistent fatigue
pain (usually that migrates from joint to joint, or affects all the small joints, for example, or only previously injured areas of the body - Borrelia loves scar tissue).
cardiac Lyme (affects the neurological system and musculature of the heart)
neurological symptoms (tingling, patches of numbness that don’t follow our dermatome lines; loss of balance, vision changes, headaches, brain fog and neuro-psychiatric symptoms such as dramatic mood changes)
Poor sleep is very common
Digestive issues are very common (abdominal pain, bloating, impaired motility)
In women, it affects hormonal systems because the body is under fire, and may impact fertility
Pregnancy: Lyme is a vertically transmitted infection - it can cross the placental barrier from mom to baby. It has also has been shown to be sexually transmitted (Lyme is a spirochete and close relative to syphilis. More info here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10846734/)
In children: big mood changes and temper tantrums, leg pain, or pains that wake children from their sleep; seizures; cyclic fevers; fatigue; autism spectrum presentations.
**Lyme is a multisystem illness - making it difficult to diagnose for clinicians, and difficult to treat.
Tip #5 - Consider testing.
No test is perfect, and chronic infections lack high sensitivity. Here are a few testing for Ontario, Canada residents:
–Public health lab requisition - ND, MD or NPs can order tests for Borrelia and co-infections, assessing for IgG/IgM antibodies. This is a blood test.
–As NDs, we often recommend testing for latent viral infections as well… because they can mimic the fatigue we see in chronic Lyme infections. Think EBV (mononucleosis), Coxsackie Virus (hand, foot and mouth disease), Parvovirus B19 (also known as Fifth's Disease or slapped-cheek syndrome) or other parasites.
More specialized testing is available (costly) – US and Germany both have excellent laboratories.
More Resources
~a great family-friendly resource guide written by Alexis Chesney, American ND, ILADS member
Consider booking an appointment with a Lyme-literate practitioner for individualized assessment & detailed treatment advice.
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