By Kaitlyn MacNeill
The summer season calls for more awareness on tick safety in Nova Scotia. With people spending more time in fields and wooded areas, experts want Nova Scotians to know best safety practices for ticks and tick-borne diseases.
Doctor Jade Savage is a professor of biology at Bishop’s University, and a long-time researcher of tick behaviour. Dr. Savage says ticks can be identified by their distinct appearance.
“They tend to look superficially like very flattened spiders,” said Dr. Savage. “People tend to confuse them with spiders, but they are very compact. They look almost like eight-legged frisbees.”
Ticks vary in sizes depending on species. The blacklegged tick is common in eastern Canada and is, according to Savage, relatively the size of a sesame seed. The American dog tick is currently the most reported tick species in Nova Scotia and is about twice that size.
The blacklegged tick can transmit Lyme disease during its nymph stage and its adult stage. While adult ticks are clearly visible, a nymph tick can be as small as a poppy seed. Nymph blacklegged ticks are most active around June and July in Nova Scotia.
“Nymphs are a problem because they are often hard to see at that stage,” said Dr. Savage. “People rarely notice the tick is attached. In terms of disease transmission, ticks at the nymph stage are very problematic because of their size.”
While blacklegged and American dog ticks are the two most common species
in Nova Scotia, Savage says people should be wary of migrant ticks. Foreign tick species are often transported to new climates by birds migrating north at the start of spring. The Lone Star tick, for example, is becoming more prevalent in Canada after being brought in by migrant birds from the south.
When coming across a new tick, experts recommend using the eTick.ca app to identify it. eTick.ca was first pitched by Savage to the Quebec government as a collaborative citizen research initiative. Now, it’s an app used by Canadians to record, identify, and track tick sightings across the country. The eTick app collects data on tick sightings every day, which is publicly available to other users.
According to tick expert Dave Shutler, who helps run eTick in the Maritimes, the app collects one hundred to one thousand times more tick data than government employees could.
“They don’t have the resources to go and look for ticks, not at any scale that would be useful in terms of data being generated,” said Shutler. “So with eTick, we’ve been gathering data from across Canada in a sufficient way. I’ve been helping handle the Atlantic side of that.”
Despite the vast amount of tick population data collected annually by eTick, the Public Health Authority of Canada has “pulled the plug on funding,” said Shutler. While he said Savage has been doing negotiations and may have secured some funding, “it won’t be at the same scale it previously was.”
Protection from Ticks
Donna Lugar has been involved in Nova Scotia tick research for the past 17 years. If you’re going out into a field or wooded area, Lugar advises you to wear long socks pulled up over your pants. When you arrive home, throw your clothes in the dryer for 10 minutes and hop in the shower. Then, have a partner check your body for ticks, or use a handheld mirror to check parts of the body that are harder to view. Ticks gravitate towards moist parts of the body. Finding ticks early is critical: it takes up to 24 hours for a tick to transmit the Lyme disease bacteria.
You can also use one of several insect repellents approved to use against ticks but follow product directions carefully. Clothing treated with permethrin repels and kills ticks but can be dangerous for domestic cats.
When it comes to identifying a tick bite, Lugar says there are large misconceptions surrounding what a Lyme disease-infected bite can look like. Lugar says that while most people believe the Lyme rash appears in the shape of a bullseye, this is only seen in a small percentage of cases.
The Lyme rash can start out as a small red mark and grow over the course of several days. It is not usually itchy but can be warm to the touch.
“Watch it every day,” said Lugar. “If it continues to grow, you can be pretty sure it’s a Lyme rash. But it doesn’t have to look like a bullseye. I’ve seen people leaving Facebook comments, saying ‘oh, that’s not a Lyme rash, it doesn’t look like a bullseye.’ Well, that’s wrong.”
According to Lugar, about 20 per cent of people with Lyme disease don’t get a rash whatsoever. Other signs of Lyme disease include drooping of the face and swollen knees.
Nova Scotia now allows pharmacists to assess and prescribe an antibiotic for the prevention of Lyme disease. You will need a valid health card, and
there is no charge for the assessment, although you may have to pay for any prescriptions.
Treating Lyme disease with Antibiotics
When it comes to the treatment of Lyme disease, there’s been heavy debate in the medical community about how long Lyme disease should be treated through antibiotics. Nova Scotia guidelines say 10 to 14 days of antibiotics should be sufficient, while federal guidelines call for 21 days. Nova Scotia guidelines also call for the use of intravenous antibiotics if the Lyme has gone to a patient’s heart, joints, or brain.
There are also guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), which specifically call for a single dose of antibiotics within 72
hours of receiving the bite. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is a European association, which similarly recommends 10-14 days of antibiotics.
Lugar says that with all these options for treatment, healthcare professionals should choose which guidelines to follow based on their assessment of a patient’s symptoms.
“It’s still a little controversial, but ultimately any healthcare professional can have their own opinion about it,” said Lugar.
Lugar says the next steps for Nova Scotia are getting adequate Lyme disease education for our healthcare providers, as well as a clinic dedicated
to treating Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.
The Nova Scotia Lyme Advocacy Group started a petition advocating for these needs, which was tabled at the legislature in early April.
“We really need healthcare professionals who are educated in all things tick,” said Lugar. “Unfortunately, we don’t have that right now. It’s
something we’re not looking at adequately. We need more awareness, more prevention, and more education. I would love to see Lyme disease
become a healthcare specialty in itself.”
