Lyme Disease & Prevention

For the last century we have known that Lyme disease has been around, but awareness and confusion of the disease had not risen until the late 1980s.

Human and canine Lyme disease manifest in two different ways. In humans, after being bitten by a tick that is infected with the infectious agent, Borrelia burgdorferi, most people will develop a rash and possibly flu-like symptoms. Later, joint pain will occur in some people even developing neurologic abnormalities associated with the disease. A small portion of infected people will also develop a disturbance with their heart rhythm called A-V block. At future dates infected people can experience times of arthritis and some chronic neurologic manifestations.

The most serious problem shown in dogs that have been infected is glomerular disease. It is a type of kidney damage that occurs when the immune system is kept stimulated for a long period of time by an infection that doesn’t clear. In comparison to the attention it has received, Lyme disease it not a huge disease in dogs.

The main way Lyme disease is spread is by the deer tick, Ixodes scapularis. The female tick will lay a cluster of eggs, around 2000 in the spring of the year. Small six legged larva will then hatch and attach to a host that is close enough to them, this is usually a small rodent like a mouse. If this mouse is carrying the Lyme disease spirochete then the larva can become infected here. The larva will then lay dormant for a year and become active again the following spring. At this time they larva will molt and become a nymph, this is larger and will sometimes stay on the mouse or attach to a larger host. The nymph will feed for a few days and then it will drop off and lay dormant again until later in the summer when it will molt into an adult tick. If the nymph was infected when it was a larva it can infect its host as it feeds, if not it can become infective as a nymph before it molts to an adult. The adult tick will seek a larger host such as a deer, but they can also attach to humans and dogs as we have been approaching their habitat more and more. The Lyme spirochete then can infect the new host as it feeds.

The tick is a blood sucking parasite and in order for it to continuously eat it must be able to keep the blood flowing and not clot. To do this it regurgitates an enzyme that helps keep the blood flowing smoothly. It’s during this regurgitation that the Lyme disease spirochete is injected in to the animal or human. For this to happen, the tick needs to be on for a minimum of 48 hours. This means that if a tick is removed within 48 hours the chances of infection are slim.

Preventative control is an effective means of prevention. Some of the effective treatments that are available are: Preventic collar, Advantix, Frontline and Revolution. These products will either kill the ticks or cause them to fall off within the 48 hour deadline.

Lyme Vaccine! If you’re vaccinating your animal it should be done before the animal is exposed to the spirochete. Therefore the animal should be vaccinated as a puppy or if they are dogs coming from an area where the disease is not prominent to a place that has more infection. Annual boosters help maintain the immunity.
 

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