This Year Might Be the Worst Tick Season Ever. Here ’ s Why

Marci Silbert wasn’t walking far on the evening of May 6. She, her husband, and another couple were visiting friends for dinner, and after eating, took a brief stroll down a short path to a small pond on their hosts’ property in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. They lingered for just a few moments, and then walked back. But that was all it took. The next day, her husband noticed a tick embedded in his forearm. Silbert had one on the inside of her knee, and the husband in the other couple had one on his thigh. Out of an abundance of caution, they went to the hospital, had them removed, and were given prophylactic prescriptions for doxycycline to prevent Lyme disease. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “I have a dog and I had been walking her in the woods for 12 years, and I’ve never gotten a tick,” says Silbert. “And then three of us got one on that same excursion. The spring seasons have been really, really bad in the past few years.” Time was, it wasn’t so hard to avoid ticks. They had a season (April to September), a range (parts of certain states where the temperature and precipitation conditions were just right to support them), and a predictable roster of species (like the deer tick and dog tick in the Northeast, and the Gulf Coast tick near the Gulf of Mexico). But ticks have lately busted down the door. Go for a walk in the woods—or even your backyard—and you may come home covered in them. Send your ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change Disease Environment healthscienceclimate Source Type: news