ER Visits Surge and Experts Urge Caution amid Record Tick Season

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The current tick season is reported to be the worst in decades, with emergency room visits for bites and cases of Lyme disease increasing. According to the CDC, 71 out of every 100,000 emergency room visits were for tick bites, which is a 25% increase over last year. This figure excludes visits to urgent care facilities and doctors' offices. Each year, about 500,000 Americans contract Lyme disease from tick bites, and a majority of people fully recover from the bacterial infection following earlier detection and proper treatment with antibiotics, CBN News reported. On the other hand, roughly 20 percent of these infections are elusive from early detection, resulting in severe joint pain, vision problems, neurological issues, hospitalization, and death.

"Definitely it's a big year for ticks and a big year for tick-borne diseases," Johns Hopkins infectious disease microbiologist Thomas M. Hart, PhD. 

Hart, along with Johns Hopkins scientist Nicole Baumgarth, DVM, PhD, is also warning of additional tick-borne diseases beyond Lyme disease.

"I'm thinking about Babesiosis, an increasing disease of a small parasite that infects red blood cells and threatens the safety of our blood supply," she said, "or Alpha-Gal syndrome, an allergic reaction to eating red meat."

Additional tick-borne diseases include: Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Powassan Virus, Anaplasmosis and Ehrlichiosis, and Tick-Borne Relapsing Fever. According to experts, tick bite prevention recommendations include covering up in tall grass/wooded areas and tucking pants into socks. It is also recommended to use bug spray and wear light clothing. 

"When you come inside from doing high-risk activities, so these are going to be things like hiking, golfing, gardening, do a thorough tick check, and then shower immediately to wash off any ticks that might have sort of caught a ride," Hart said.

Having a tick-free border near the home is also effective since ticks cannot jump or fly. 

"Ticks love forest edges. So if you have a forest edge up to your yard or in your neighborhood, you can try to rim this edge with a couple of feet, two or three feet of mulch or gravel, just because this will be a difficult place for ticks to crawl through," Hart said.

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Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.