Pets can give you Lyme disease: Blockbuster federal report
THE federal Centers for Disease
Control confirms it: Your pets and other animals - including the mice in your cupboard -
can give you Lyme disease by bringing infected ticks into your house.
That means you can be at risk of infection even if you
are housebound and seldom venture beyond your doorstep.
And because the body builds no immunity against Lyme
disease, you can be infected over and over.
The threat of Lyme never goes away.
To improve your chances of staying well, check your pets
for ticks and remove them promptly per the instructions you’ll find below.
Here, from the CDC, is handy
“question-and-answer” primer that can help you protect your pet’s health -
and your own:
Can animals transmit Lyme disease to me?
Yes, but not directly. People get Lyme disease when they
are bitten by ticks carrying B. burgdorferi.
Ticks that carry Lyme disease are very small and can be
hard to see. These tiny ticks bite mice infected with Lyme disease and then bite people or
other animals, such as dogs and horses, passing the disease to them.
What is Lyme disease?
Lyme disease is a bacterial disease caused by Borrelia
burgdorferi (boar-ELL-ee-uh burg-dorf-ERR-eye). Within 1 to 2 weeks of being infected,
people may have a “bull’s-eye” rash with fever, headache, and muscle or
joint pain. Some people have Lyme disease and do not have any early symptoms.
Other people have a fever and other “flu-like”
symptoms without a rash.
After several days or weeks, the bacteria may spread
throughout the body of an infected person. These people can get symptoms such as rashes in
other parts of the body, pain that seems to move from joint to joint, and signs of
inflammation of the heart or nerves.
If the disease is not treated, a few patients can get
additional symptoms, such as swelling and pain in major joints or mental changes, months
after getting infected.
How can I protect myself from Lyme disease?
Whenever possible, you should avoid entering areas that
are likely to be infested with ticks, particularly in spring and summer when nymphal ticks
feed.
If you are in an area with ticks, you should wear
light-colored clothing so that ticks can be spotted more easily and removed before
becoming attached.
If you are in an area with ticks, wear long-sleeved
shirts, and tuck your pants into socks. You may also want to wear high rubber boots (since
ticks are usually located close to the ground).
Application of insect repellents containing DEET
(n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide) to clothes and exposed skin, and permethrin (which kills ticks
on contact) to clothes, should also help reduce the risk of tick attachment.
DEET can be used safely on children and adults but should
be applied according to Environmental Protection Agency guidelines to reduce the
possibility of toxicity.
Since transmission of B. burgdorferi from an infected
tick is unlikely to occur before 36 hours of tick attachment, check for ticks daily and
remove them promptly.
Embedded ticks should be removed by using fine-tipped
tweezers. Cleanse the area with an antiseptic.
You can reduce the number of ticks around your home by
removing leaf litter, and brush- and wood-piles around your house and at the edge of your
yard.
By clearing trees and brush in your yard, you can reduce
the likelihood that deer, rodents, and ticks will live there.
Questions? Comments? Write to me here at my blog or send
your comments to National Lyme
Report , the Lyme-patient advocacy newsmagazine I launched in May, and that in just
three months is read by over 5,000 unique visitors each day.
For more federal government-sourced information on Lyme
from the CDC, click More on Lyme
Copyright © 2009 4-Page Media, Inc./Your World
Report. All rights reserved.
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