Q&A: N.S. has the most ticks in Canada — here's how to protect yourself
The Nova Scotia government recently put out a reminder for people to protect themselves against tick-borne diseases, saying tick populations are growing in every part of the province — in both urban and rural areas.
Vett Lloyd, a biology professor at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., and the head of the Lloyd Tick Lab, shared tips with CBC Radio's Information Morning Nova Scotia on how to deal with the insect.
This interview has been shortened for length and clarity.
Does Nova Scotia have more ticks than usual this year?
Unfortunately, yes we do. It was a good winter for ticks. It was a mild, long, cool fall [and] a long, cool spring — a perfect season for ticks. Unfortunately, people are finding them and when we go out, we're finding huge numbers of ticks too.
Congratulations to all of Nova Scotia. You win not only the regional contest for who has the most ticks, but nationally. New Brunswick is following behind. P.E.I. is getting a steadily increasing number of ticks.
The thing is, once a female tick grabs a blood meal in the fall she will then be able to lay about 2,000 to 3,000 eggs. Their populations can increase really quickly.
How is this information tracked?
They're not being tracked in a national way, so they're tracked by proxy — so how many people submit pictures of ticks to the government tick-tracking site, eTick.
We monitor them indirectly by the number of people who send them in to get tested. And obviously we're only encountering a small number of ticks and some people who are just used to them just kill them and get rid of them.
Lyme disease is the main concern with ticks, but we've seen other pathogens that are showing up in recent years. How much of a concern is anaplasmosis?
Veterinarians have been monitoring anaplasmosis for the past 10 years or so and they've seen it increase in frequency and also — along with the ticks — spreading northward.
Anaplasmosis is a scary disease. If you get sick from it, you get very, very sick and you end up in the [emergency room]. If you're lucky, your ER doctor will realize quickly the fact that you've run out of blood cells. It does respond to treatment, as long as you get treatment.
Is anaplasmosis potentially fatal?
Yes.
Can you get multiple kinds of illnesses from ticks? Can you get anaplasmosis and Lyme disease?
Unfortunately, ticks are basically crawly bags of pathogens, so they will frequently have more than one pathogen and they can pass it on, which means that you just get extra sick.
It's not just Lyme disease and anaplasmosis. We're also worried about babesiosis, which is a type of parasite. Those are the big ones coming up in this region. It's grim, but at the same time, people need to get outside and enjoy the outside. Quivering inside isn't going to help.
There's also pediatric Lyme arthritis. Last summer, a memo was sent by the provincial medical officer of health to health-care practitioners to look out for it. What do you know about that?
In an older adult, you would expect arthritis. But if you have an eight-year-old or a 10-year-old suddenly developing arthritis — particularly if it's just in one knee, but not both knees — that memo served to alert physicians that they should think about Lyme disease in that case.
So with more Lyme disease, it's showing up in kids. Kids are small, they run around outside and they emit a lot of carbon dioxide, so they're super attractive to ticks.
If there's more ticks, are we more likely to see tick-borne illnesses?
Unfortunately, yes. But we can modify that to some extent by people just becoming more alert about prevention and doing tick checks.
We know they're attracted to moist, warm areas, so people need to check armpits, groins and all of that. How do we properly remove ticks?
If you're coming in from outside, do a tick check. That's a really good line of defence.
Before you go outside, there are prevention things you can do. There are really good tools for dogs, various tick repellents and things that kill the ticks before the ticks feed long enough to give disease. There are also Lyme vaccines for dogs.
For humans, the idea is that we have less hair so we're better at finding ticks [on ourselves]. From the ticks perspective, we don't smell as good [as dogs].
The tick sprays, bug sprays that say they're good for ticks, are generally a good idea. If you're in a high-risk area, you can get clothing that has a repellent in it — commercial or you can make it yourself.
When you come in, do a tick check. Strip down. Yes, check moist areas, but if your tick is hungry it could be anywhere. You're looking for freckles with legs. Freckles are not supposed to have legs. If they do, get it off you.
There is a lot of mythology about how you remove ticks. Getting it off you is the main point. The bit that will be left embedded in your skin is the mouth part, which is not actually a risk to you.
You don't want to squish the tick gut contents back into your bloodstream and you don't want to smear it on cuts.
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