"It is usually someone who has been to the (New) Jersey coast, Chesapeake Bay or to Montgomery County. Ticks need lots of humidity and flourish along the coast."
Lyme disease was first identified in the United States in 1975 after a mysterious outbreak of arthritis among residents of Lyme, Conn. The illness usually starts with flu-like symptoms, including fatigue, fever, chills, headache, muscle and joint pain, swollen lymph nodes and a rash.
A rash is the most characteristic symptoms of the disease, although not everyone gets it. It begins as a red circular patch at the site of the tick bite, three to 30 days after the bite, then expands, often to a 2-inch-wide or bigger circle.
If untreated, Lyme disease symptoms can persist for years, causing arthritis, numbness, pain, paralysis of facial muscles, meningitis and, occasionally, irregular heart beats.
The disease can be confirmed through a blood test and treated with antibiotics. A Lyme disease vaccine has been developed for dogs, but is not expected to be approved for humans before 1997.
Another bacterial disease spread by blacklegged ticks is
ehrlichiosis, including Human Granulocytic Ehrlichiosis, or HGE, a severe and sometimes fatal illness discovered in recent years.
Last year, a 66-year-old Orefield man nearly died from ehrlichiosis after being bitten by a tick while mowing his lawn. John Seier lost liver and kidney function, was paralyzed from some of the drugs used to control his symptoms, and spent three weeks in a coma.
Many ehrlichia infections prove mild and can be cured with antibiotics tetracycline and its derivative doxycycline.
Dog ticks do not usually carry the bacteria that causes Lyme disease or HGE, yet the bite of a dog tick can spread Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which in Pennsylvania affects 10-12 people a year, generally starts with a sudden moderate to high fever, which persists for two to three weeks, headaches, malaise and a characteristic red, purple and black rash, usually on the wrists and ankles two to 14 days after infection. Diagnosis can be made with a blood test. It can be treated with antibiotics. The death rate is 4 to 6 percent.