Lyme Disease
Lyme disease is one of the seven most common diseases reported in the United States to the CDC annually (www.cdc.gov). The rates have gone from 10,000 cases in 1992 to over 30,000 cases in 2009. 95% of these cases were found in the northeast and Midwest regions of the United States (Committee on Lyme Disease, 2011) . More cases happen in this area of the country due to the close proximity of deer to population. The bite itself isn’t the problem, rather the pathogen being spread in mammals from the bite. Lyme disease occurs when a tick penetrates the skin of mammals and the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi enters. Borrelia burgdorferi is carried by ticks named the Ixodes dammini, which is the main vector for Lyme disease. These may also be known as I. scapularis, and may be found on deer (Schilling-McCann, 2010). ¬¬¬In addition to Lyme Disease, ticks may also carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever or Tularemia (Smeltzer et al, 2010).
Ticks can be found in many places outdoors during the summer months. As a preventative measure, we should always be aware of ticks, but during the warmer months extra precautions should be taken. Wooded and high grass areas should be avoided. Light colored clothing, long sleeve shirts, and pants should be worn when entering these areas. If on a trail, the center of the trail is where travelling should occur. Ticks like to travel to host by means of “questing”. Although a common misconception about ticks is that they jump. Instead, ticks stretch out over high grass areas, using their back legs to hold on to grass and extending front legs to grab whatever host may pass. This makes the center of the trail harder to reach (http://www.cdc.gov).
Protection from ticks is also important for househ...
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...per steps are utilized when outdoors. Always be aware of your surroundings for you and your pets. Summer months are the most dangerous and easiest times to come in contact with a tick and later result in Lyme Disease, but it can be caught at anytime. Remember that signs won’t become apparent for at least one month. Be cautious when outdoors by using repellants and reapplying when and if needed and visually inspecting yourself, animals, and surroundings. Make sure you aren’t unknowingly carrying the tick inside your home. When inspecting your clothes, always use heat to kill any remaining ticks even if undetected, check body thoroughly, and shower after being outdoors. Pay attention to early warning signs that can easily be brushed off as flu. Early detection is key in curing and treating this preventable disease, and preventing further damage to neurological system.
White-tailed deer, along with the rest of the Cervidae family, are facing a possible epidemic. Although the disease has not spread over the entire range CWD is efficiently transmitted between individuals. CWD is to the best of our knowledge 100% fetal and incubation can take a few years allowing for many possible transmissions. There also at this time is no form of vaccine or treatment for infected cervids. Despite efforts being put forth to control CWD, being a free-range family of animals proves control to be extremely difficult.
The biting midge (Culicoides imicola), which is responsible for this disease’s transmission, is usually contained within Mediterranean Europe; where the conditions have been exactly what the midge demands to survive (Society for General Microbiology NP). However, with an increase in average temperature of six degrees, the midge has been allowed to travel northward threatening the cattle throughout the area and even as far as England (Society for General Microbiology NP). The spread of the midge’s territory has led to an increased number of their population, along with the amount of infected cattle.
The most common way this disease is transmitted from one animal to the next is through mosquitoes. A mosquito carrying infective heartworm larvae bites a dog and transmits the infection to them. The larvae grow, develop, and migrate in the body over a period of 6 to 7 months, in which time they become sexually mature male and female worms. this is the prepatent period. The worms then reside in the heart, lungs, and associated blood vessels. The worms begin to mate and release microfilaria into the blood stream. When a mosquito bites an infected dog it takes in some of the microfilaria in the blood. After 10 to 30 days there is larvae in the mosquito’s salivary gland which can then be passed on to the next dog the mosquito bites.
Lupus is a chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when your body’s immune system attacks healthy tissue and organs. This inflammation can damage many different bodily systems. Lupus commonly affects the joints, skin, kidneys, lungs, brain and heart. Many people with lupus have found relief for some of their chronic pain through practicing a few different styles of yoga.
When someone has lupus they have a different outlook on life. For patients with this disease, even the easiest task can be painful to the body or joints. Lupus is not contagious. “Lupus is a disease of the immune system. The immune system protects the body from inflection”(http://lupus.webmd.com). With lupus, the immune system attacks the tissue in many parts of the body. Lupus affects women more than men(www.womenshealth.gov). There are many different types of lupus, and each symptom affect different parts of the body. With treatment you can obtain and fulfill a healthy lifestyle.
The Web. 18 Jan. 2014. Levy, Sharon. A Plague of Deer. BioScience 56.9 (2006): 714–21.
Polio is a viral disease. It cripples thousands of people and infects even more every year. Even though millions are inoculated, and the polio disease has been successfully purged from hundreds of countries still thousands of people and developing countries are infected and still people are dying. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) polio affects the Central Nervous System, or CNS; by infesting the intestines and transmitting it into the nerves thought the blood vessels. There the virus spreads through the nerve cells to the brain stem or other motor units, while forever damaging the nerves.
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is caused by only one thing. Rocky Mountain Spotted fever is caused by a tick bite from a tick that carries the Rickettsia Rickettsii. This organism can be fatal to humans if it is not taken care of quickly. In most cases of RMSF the tick was attached for 6 to10 hours and the person may never find the tick on them. RMSF cannot be spread from person to person (2). RMSF can take 2 to 14 days for any of the symptom to show up. (5).
the animals and cattle as well. The disease was so contagious that touching even an object that had
This disease may be on the brink of being eradicated entirely but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the grossest things that anyone has ever seen. The parasite enters the body via unsafe drinking water. When people drink water infected with water fleas that have have been hosting the larvae of the parasite. There are no symptoms, to begin with, but about one year later, blisters on the feet or legs begin to develop and then the adult fully developed worm crawls out of the host body over a period of a few weeks. It’s said that the pain is intense and can incapacitate a person for weeks at a time. The pain can also continue for months after the infection. The parasite needs to infect a person at least once a year in order to continue. There were an estimated 3.5 million cases in 1986 but the disease has been greatly reduced over time and only 22 cases were reported in 2015. This disease will probably be the first parasitic disease to be completely eradicated in humans.
Imagine being sick for months and months. Each day you discover new symptoms, and the ones you already had are continually getting worse. You go to the doctors because it has reached a point where you have Googled all your symptoms, Web MD says you are dying, The doctor says that your labs came back normal and therefore “it's all in your head”. The eventual diagnosis was Lyme Disease which is a vector-borne illness, that is transmitted by an insect bite, spider bite, and in some cases sexually transmitted. The effects of the disease on a Lyme patient’s body differentiates from person to person due to the fact that Lyme is not the only infection you acquire when you develop Lyme Disease. Lyme bacteria
Longhorns carried the ticks but were immune to the fever. A few farmers were so
electric fence ticks like the slow heart of something we fed and bedded for a
Lyme disease is the most common systematic, bacterial, tick-borne disease with symptoms that include severe headache, rash, arthritis, fever,joint aches, and cardiac abnormalities. The journal article, “Lyme Disease In Outdoor Workers: Risk Factors, Preventive Measures, And Tick Removal Methods” has written by Brian S. Schwartz and Michael D. Goldstein. The article depicts a statewide cross-sectional case study of risk factors of seropositivity...
Fact: People that read about the diseases spread by mosquito and tick bites naturally assume that the parasitic bite of a bed bug carries the same potential. However, studies have shown that there's almost no evidence that bed bugs actually spread any of the diseases they carry, such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and even HIV. That doesn't mean that scientists are ruling out the possibility of it ever occurring: they've just never seen it happen.