Tick-Borne Diseases and Their Symptoms
Here's the full rundown of what ticks in this country can actually give you, what it looks like, and how fast you need to move on each one.
Most commonLyme Disease
Caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, transmitted by black-legged ticks. The bullseye rash everybody talks about, doctors call it erythema migrans, shows up in about 70 to 80 percent of people who get it. It spreads out from the bite, sometimes with a lighter patch in the middle, sometimes not in any particular pattern at all. About 1 in 5 confirmed cases never even gets a rash.
Early on you'll see things like fatigue that feels off, fever, chills, headache, aching joints and muscles. Can start a few days after the bite or take a few weeks to show up. Catch it early with antibiotics and most people are fine. Let it go and Lyme can turn into joint problems, heart rhythm issues, and nerve trouble including facial paralysis and shooting pains.
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
Despite the name, this shows up all over the country, not just out west. It's one of the nastier tick diseases we've got, and it can kill you if antibiotics don't start soon enough. Symptoms come on 2 to 14 days after the bite: high fever, a bad headache, and often a spotted rash that starts on the wrists and ankles. That rash doesn't always show up early, so don't wait on it. If you've had a tick bite and a sudden high fever with a bad headache shows up, get to a doctor that same day. Doxycycline works great if you start it soon enough. The timing here genuinely matters more than with most of these.
Common, responds well to treatmentAnaplasmosis and Ehrlichiosis
Two different bacterial infections that look almost identical: fever, a bad headache, sore muscles, chills, all within one to two weeks of the bite. Anaplasmosis comes from deer ticks, ehrlichiosis mostly from lone star ticks. Both clear up well with doxycycline once you're on it. Left alone, either one can turn into respiratory failure or organ damage.
Emerging concernAlpha-Gal Syndrome
A lone star tick bite can set off an allergic reaction to alpha-gal, a sugar found in red meat and some dairy. It's a delayed reaction, showing up 3 to 6 hours after eating beef, pork, or lamb. Can range from hives and stomach cramps all the way to a full anaphylactic reaction. A lot of people never connect it to a tick bite because months or even years can go by before the first reaction. There's no cure. If you start having a strange delayed reaction to red meat and you've spent time where lone star ticks live, an allergist can run a blood test for it.
This one's personal for us. My wife has it, and it took a long while before anyone figured out why. If you've got hives or stomach trouble or some kind of reaction a few hours after a cookout and nobody can explain it, bring up alpha-gal yourself. A lot of doctors won't think to test for it on their own. See the alpha-gal page for how big this thing has actually gotten.
Powassan Virus
Most tick diseases need the tick attached for hours before they can pass anything to you. Powassan can do it in as little as 15 minutes. Most folks who get it have mild symptoms or none at all. When it does cause brain swelling, you're looking at fever, headache, vomiting, confusion, weakness, and in bad cases, seizures. About half the people who get hit hard neurologically end up with lasting effects, and roughly 1 in 5 severe cases is fatal. No specific antiviral for it. Still rare, but it's showing up more in the Northeast and around the Great Lakes.
Blood parasiteBabesiosis
A parasite that gets into your red blood cells, kind of like malaria, carried by deer ticks. A lot of people barely notice it or have nothing at all. In older folks, anyone immunocompromised, or someone without a spleen, it can turn into high fever, heavy sweating, jaundice, even organ failure. Needs its own antiparasitic medicine, regular Lyme antibiotics won't touch it. Mostly seen along the coast of New England, New York, New Jersey, and up in the upper Midwest.