“Zip literally was tipping over,” Franzel said, “and her back legs were not functioning hardly at all.” Hylsky said human cases of those ailments are rare in North Idaho, coming up a couple of times a year or, in some years, not at all.īut tick paralysis isn’t limited to humans - something Clark Fork resident Mary Franzel didn’t know until her dachshund Zip lost control of her back end after a hike. Dave Hylsky, staff epidemiologist with the Panhandle Health District, said those recreating in the North Idaho woods have four tick-borne illnesses to look out for: Rocky Mountain spotted fever relapsing fever Colorado tick fever and tick-borne paralysis, which happens when a tick injects a toxin into the body that cripples the nervous system for as long as the tick is attached. Idaho is home to the brown dog tick and the Rocky Mountain wood tick, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state lacks the resources to adequately track tick populations and based on anecdotal evidence, Lyme disease, which experts say shouldn’t be present here, seems to be making the rounds even among people who haven’t traveled outside Idaho’s borders. While lone star ticks may not be present in Idaho - go ahead, eat that steak - the Gem State has its own tick troubles to consider. However, Truthout reports that lone star ticks are on the move into the northeastern stretches of the country as a result of climate change, which is helping expand tick-conducive habitats. Luckhart said the most recent research, published in May, concludes that alpha-gal is limited to the lone star tick, which so far hasn’t made it out West. Shirley Luckhart, a professor of entomology at the University of Idaho. The spread of tick-borne alpha-gal is making headlines elsewhere in the U.S., but is it something to worry about in North Idaho? It doesn’t look like it, according to Dr. Those reactions look like a typical food allergy - hives, facial swelling, shortness of breath or anaphylaxis, abdominal pain and headaches - but symptoms don’t appear until hours after eating, making the condition hard to diagnose. The lone star tick, found mostly east of the Rockies in the United States, is depositing a sugar molecule called alpha-gal into its hosts, which can sometimes “trigger an immune system reaction that later produces mild to severe allergic reactions when they eat red meat,” according to the Mayo Clinic. As if the idea of a blood-sucking arachnid latching onto your tender flesh isn’t reason enough to shudder, ticks are getting more creative with the ick-inducing horrors they deliver.
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