With the population of deer ticks reaching record numbers, and their habitat range ever expanding, it is no surprise that tick borne diseases are increasingly on the rise.
If you are like me and love to be outside or if you have pets that like to hang around in your yard, eventually you are going to start looking for solutions to avoid contracting lyme disease… or something worse.
Ticks can transmit a barrage of nasty pathogens which can cause diseases. Diseases such as:
- Anaplasmosis
- Babesiosis
- Ehrlichiosis
- Lyme disease
- Rocky Mountain spotted fever
- STARI (Southern tick-associated rash illness)
Along with about ten others, including ‘Tick paralysis’, a rare disease thought to be caused by a toxin in tick saliva. The symptoms include acute, ascending, flaccid paralysis that is often confused with other neurologic disorders or diseases (e.g., Guillain-Barré syndrome or botulism). Fortunately, within 24 hours of removing the tick, the paralysis typically subsides.
According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control) “Tickborne diseases can result in mild symptoms treatable at home to severe infections requiring hospitalization” Although treatable with antibiotics, these diseases can be difficult for physicians to diagnose. However, early recognition and treatment of the infection decreases “the risk of serious complications”. (So see your doctor immediately if you have been bitten by a tick and experience any of the symptoms described here.)
But as they say, prevention is the best medicine. So if you don’t want to stay indoors the rest of your life, or keep your pet house bound, what can you do?
Get an Opossum.
Well, I guess you can’t just go and get an opossum, but if you have one hanging around (just a figure of speech. It’s a common misconception that opossums hang by their tails. Although opossums do have prehensile tails they do not hang from trees by them.) do not get rid of it.
At first glance, opossums might appear frightening. If you are like many people, you might see an Opossum and think “POSSUM!!!”, totally freak out and run away. As soon as you are safely inside, hiding in bed beneath your blankets, you frantically search for the number of your local pest control.
But they are actually quite harmless. The Opossum is your friend …Or at least your ally in the battle against the tick population.
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