How Do You Know If a Tick Has Lyme Disease?

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Dr. David Hill and today we're going to be talking about how to know if a tick carries Lyme disease. Now that's kind of tough because you can't ask the tick if it carries Lyme Disease nor can you really test the tick. However, Lyme Disease, also known as Borrelia Burgdorferi lives only in one species of tick that we call the deer tick. In most parts of the United States, a few people call it the bear tick. This does look a little different from some other kinds of ticks. It doesn't have a white blob or dot in the middle of its body. It's usually brown to black; but the key is when they're very young, they may still carry Lyme disease and it's really hard to tell it from any other tick because it looks pretty much like a poppy seed with tiny little legs. So knowing whether the tick carries Lyme Disease or not can be very difficult indeed. The good news is that millions of tick bites occur every year in the United States and a very small handful of those lead to Lyme Disease. So the key is to be on the lookout for symptoms of Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses. You want to be aware if somebody has a significant fever, joint pains, headaches or rashes after they've been traveling in a tick-infested area. Anywhere where there's high grass counts, you don't have to have trees overhead; in fact, ticks don't really drop on you from trees; they jump on your legs from the grass or brushes or shrubs and then kind of crawl up to somewhere warm where they get their mail. If you notice a lesion where there might have been a tick bite, that looks like a target, a red target with rings of red and then pale around it; that is almost diagnostic for Lyme Disease. And the earlier you treat it, the more likely are you'd be able to cure it. So if you see a lesion like that, be sure and report to a doctor immediately. If your child has been playing in the woods or even in the backyard and presents with the symptoms we talked about; with the fever, joint pains, headache or just seems to be increasingly fatigue or ill, it's worth getting a doctor to check them out. There are some blood tests which can help and there are some very easy to use antibiotics which can present, prevent a potentially life threatening disease. So deer ticks, brown; maybe too small to tell what they are; Lyme, not terribly common. Kids sick after playing outside, probably needs to be evaluated. Talking about how to know if a tick carries Lyme Disease, I'm Dr. David Hill."