After moving from Connecticut to Ohio, Eve Marcus, an 83-year-old Oxford resident, found a tick on herself while tending to her garden. Only 10 days later, she experienced overwhelming back pains, fatigue and a large bullseye rash.
She saved the tick for identification, took a blood test and was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Due to early identification and a prescription of doxycycline, she recovered.
Since contracting Lyme disease, Marcus has worked to improve community education about ticks and Lyme disease by distributing tick identification cards around Oxford.
Lyme disease education is prevalent on the East Coast, where there are high numbers of cases, but anyone can contract Lyme disease anywhere in the United States, including Ohio, where 12 species of ticks are prevalent.
“Whenever I see people playing in nature, I am always thinking to myself that they are in the paths of ticks and most likely not educated about the risk they are putting themselves in,” Marcus said.
The most common ecosystems to be bitten by a tick include wooded shady areas with moist, thick vegetation such as grassy or brushy fields.
Professor David Russel of the biology department has contracted Lyme disease four times during his field work.
“Tick prevention is two-fold,” Russel said. “One part is being aware of ticks, tucking your socks into your pants, wearing light-colored clothing to see them on you, avoiding brushy areas and wearing permethrin. The second part is understanding a bit about ticks and Lyme disease.”
Lyme disease symptoms include nerve pain, headaches and stiffness, heart palpitations, dizziness episodes, shooting pains or numbness in the hands or feet, often before a bullseye-shaped rash.
Understanding Lyme disease symptoms is crucial for early diagnosis, which can help recovery.
“If Lyme disease is ignored, it can get into the smooth muscle and the nervous system and cause rheumatoid arthritis-like symptoms where it is just so entrenched in the deeper tissue of the body it causes significant damage,” Russel said. “And that’s tough to get out.”
The CDC has guidelines regarding steps to take if a tick bites you. It recommends checking your ears, hair, belly button, legs, knees and waist for ticks after spending time outdoors.
Other tick-borne diseases in the US include babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis, southern tick-associated rash illness, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tick-borne relapsing fever, tularemia and Powassan virus.
