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HEALTHY Lifestyle
HEALTH
UPDATE
TICK TALK – TRUE OR FALSE
By Dr. Michael Pafford, MD Saline Memorial Hospital
Modern Gun Deer Season
starts across most of the state this
Saturday, November 9th, 2019,
so let’s talk about ticks. The forest
has been a source of myths and
rumors throughout the history
of mankind. Therefore, it’s only
natural that there would be myths
and rumors about ticks since they
inhabit the forest. But as we get into
this topic, you will see that some of
the most unbelievable things you’ve
heard about ticks might be true:
“I found a tick crawling on
me so I know I must have
tick fever!” – FALSE
Medicine has a habit of studying
the most peculiar details of illness,
and the question of how long a tick
has to be attached to you to cause tick
disease has been examined in detail.
There has not been a confirmed case
of any tick-borne illness when the
tick was attached less than 6 hours.
I know that may seem strange when
first considered. A person with the flu
certainly doesn’t have to cough on you
for 6 hours before you catch the flu.
So why is it different with ticks?
Most specialists think that prolonged
exposure is necessary because your
body’s own immune defenses in
the blood (humoral immunity) are
actually very good at clearing lesser
exposures before they can become a
full-blown infection. Regardless, the
take home message is that you are not
36 • Saline County Lifestyles
completely defenseless from tick-borne
illness. Get in the habit of bathing
as soon as you get out of the woods,
examining your skin while doing so.
“Don’t eat rabbit until after the
first hard freeze” – TRUE
Your Grandmother always said this
and she was right! One of the leading
tick-borne illnesses in Arkansas is
Tularemia and rabbits are a natural
reservoir for Francisella tularensis
(the bacteria that causes tularemia).
It is not completely understood
how waiting until after the freeze
decreases risk of tularemia, but it does.
Tularemia is most often contracted
through tick bites in Arkansas,
but skinning an infected rabbit
or eating the meat of an infected
rabbit can also transmit illness.
“You can only get Rocky Mountain
Spotted Fever (RMSF) in
the Rocky Mountains” – FALSE
The germ Rickettsia ricketsii causes
RMSF, and it is easily identified in
Arkansas ticks. We also have higher
yearly incidence of RMSF than
Colorado does. Which begs the
question:Why don’t we call it Ozark
Mountain Spotted Fever? This tickborne
illness is so large and varied,
that it could be an entire article
by itself. There are many different
Rickettsia cousins now known to cause
variants of this disease and there are
numerous different species of ticks
that can carry and transmit them.
“Arkansas is the center of
the tick-borne illness universe!”
– well, kinda
There is no true “center” of the
universe when it comes to tick-borne
illness, but a strong argument can
be made that we are the tick-borne
illness capital. Only two locations
on the planet have the highest yearly
total cases of Tularemia. Those
locations are Iraq and Arkansas.
This is based on CDC tracking of
incidence of reportable infections.
In addition to Tularemia, other
tick-borne illnesses were discovered
in Arkansas. Erlichiosis was first
reported at Fort Chaffee, near the
Oklahoma border. The bacteria
that causes erlichiosis was even
named Erlichia chaffeensis after
Fort Chaffee. Our state has been a
hotbed of research into tick-borne
illness for many years. Biologists
comb our state annually with nets
to catch ticks and understand
which bacteria live in them.
“An Arkansas tick bit me and
gave me Lyme disease” –
short answer, FALSE – long
answer, it’s complicated.
This one gets me grief every time,
because there are certainly people in
Arkansas whom a doctor has told that
they contracted Lyme disease here. To
any such person, I promise I am not