Tick Bites
Preventing Tick Bites By Wearing Gaiters
Ticks are nasty! Their bites can cause untold misery. The infections they transmit can cause disability and even death. We know too many people who have experienced bouts of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fev…
Are Tick-Borne Illnesses More of a Problem?
Summertime is tick season. As soon as temperatures start to climb, ticks come out of hibernation. That’s bad news for pets and people who like to get out into nature. Tick-borne illnesses have doubl…
How Can You Prevent Tick Bites?
As we move into summertime and look forward to outdoor activities such as biking, hiking and camping, a lot of people start to worry about Lyme disease. While this infection can be serious, it is not …
Show 1380: Avoiding Lyme and Other Tick-Borne Di…
In this episode, two experts draw on the latest research about avoiding Lyme disease and other infections that may be transmitted through tick bites. Why are these conditions so difficult to diagnose?…
Show 1344: Managing Meat Allergy and Other Tick-…
If you are like us, you welcome the first warm days of the season with joy. And then you start to fret. How can you avoid tick bites? Many people recognize Lyme disease as a serious health threat from…
A New Way to Prevent Lyme Disease
Tick bites can transmit a variety of serious diseases, including Lyme disease. A specific germ causes this infection. It is a spirochete in the genus Borrelia. In the US, B. burgdorferi is usually r…
Warning: This Will Be a Bad Summer for Lyme Dise…
This may be an especially bad summer for Lyme disease, according to disease ecologists. The tick-borne infection caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi was named Lyme disease after Old Lyme Conn…
Show 1167: Will a Tick Bite Make You Allergic to…
For some years, emergency doctors and allergists were puzzled by people who started having extremely serious allergic reactions in the middle of the night, a long time after they had eaten or drunk an…
Will Tick Bites Make You Allergic to Red Meat?
Most people are aware that tick bites can transmit infections such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Lyme disease. There is another condition caused by tick bites, however. It’s called alpha-gal a…
How Aysa, an AI App, Helped a Mother with her Ch…
Nicole Pharr is used to keeping a close eye on her daughter Madison’s skin. Madison is prone to eczema and has had highly sensitive skin since she was a baby. Still, Nicole was concerned after her d…
Show 1128: What You Need to Know About Tick-Born…
If you’ve spent time out in the woods this summer, or if you hope to hike or bike outside, you need to know about ticks. Ticks are not just icky; they can also carry dangerous diseases. In fact, tic…
The Right Clothes Can Protect You from Ticks
Avoiding tick-borne diseases starts with preventing tick bites to the extent possible. Outdoor enthusiasts are turning to a new tactic: the right clothes, which are those coated with permethrin. Testi…
How Can You Keep Mosquitoes Away?
Summertime, and the livin' is easy, or so the song goes. (Here's the magnificent Ella Fitzgerald singing it.) But summertime also brings its share of biting insects, and keeping them away is not alway…
Severe Anemia After Treatment of Babesiosis
One tick-borne disease, babesiosis, has been increasing its range dramatically in recent years. The same ticks that carry Lyme disease (Ixodes scapularis) also transmit babesiosis. That is why we are…
A New Tick-Borne Infection Causes Illness
Scientists have found a new type of infection carried by the same ticks that spread Lyme disease. It is due to related bacteria called Borrelia miyamotoi and can cause a high fever, chills, severe he…
Why Lyme Disease Can Last So Long
Scientists have found out why Lyme disease can sometimes linger long after the patient has finished antibiotic treatment that should have wiped it out. What Is Lyme Disease? Lyme disease is caused by …
Treated Clothing Repels Ticks
When tick season arrives, it is important to use every means possible to prevent tick-borne disease. An initial step is to wear treated clothing to keep them off. Q. I enjoyed your article about tic…
How to Keep Ticks from Biting
Considering the diseases that ticks can transmit, it makes sense to be as prudent as possible in avoiding tick bites. Q. I am phobic about ticks, having had Rocky Mountain spotted fever as a result of…
Bourbon Virus Is Transmitted by Tick Bites
Add the Bourbon virus to the growing list of tick-borne infections. After the death of a man in Bourbon County, Kansas, last summer, doctors scrambled to identify the virus that killed him. It has nev…
CDC Admits Lyme Rate Is 1000% Higher Than Expect…
The CDC is catching up with something that patients have known for a long time, ie, that Lyme disease is more common than most health professionals have realized. This week the Centers for Disease Con…
Take Care with Tick Removal
Q. What is the best way to remove a tick that has attached itself to your skin? I have read on the Internet that you should put liquid soap on a cotton ball and dab it on the tick. In theory, this is …
Joint Remedy Wards Off Fleas
Q. I have always been the one in any crowd of people to whom bugs would flock for a meal. I always thought I just tasted good to them. After an automobile accident about a year ago I started takin…
Tick Bite Leads to Scary Allergy
Tick-borne diseases like Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever are quite frightening enough. Since the turn of the 21st century, doctors have begun to recognize a new hazard from tick bites. I…
New Bacteria Cause Tick Fever
Researchers have found a new species, but it is no cause for celebration. The new, still unnamed species, is a germ transmitted by tick bites. In humans, it causes fever, headache, fatigue and muscle …
Tick-Borne Disease More Common
Add another serious disease to the list of tick-borne infections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that babesiosis has become 20 times more common in the Lower Hudson V…
Don’t Trifle with Tick Fever
Q. You have written about ways to remove ticks. My advice to anyone who pulls off a tick is to save it. If you have symptoms, remember to take it to your doctor or the ER. I forgot to take my saved ti…
Mouthwash Kills Ticks on Contact
How should you remove ticks? Most people get really worried when they discover a tick burrowed into their skin. There are now so many tick-borne illnesses that we have almost lost count. There's Lyme …
Liquid Soap Won’t Scare Off Tick
Q. My brother-in-law sent me an email about how to remove ticks. It was attributed to a school nurse who suggested applying a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball and covering the tick with the cotton…