in a plastic bag, then store it in the freezer. If there is a question about the tick bite later, this could be useful. Wood ticks, known scientifically as Dermacentor variabilis, are also very common in these parts. These are significantly larger than deer ticks, so are likely better noticed by us. These ticks will not spread Lyme disease, but they can harbor the causative agents of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (and other similar rickettsioses), tularemia, anaplasmosis, and ehrlichosis. Wood ticks can also induce a condition known as tick paralysis, where the attached tick produces a neurotoxin that can induce a rapidly
progressive flaccid quadraparesis (limp muscles that lack firmness). This terrifying condition can be cured by simply detaching the hungry arachnid. Preventing tick bites can involve a few strategies. Keeping the grass cut short around the house can decrease the amount of mice in your yard. Mice are favored hosts of the deer tick. Some animals are proficient at eating ticks, among them chipmunks, squirrels and opossum. Ladybugs, ants, and spiders can feast on ticks. Birds that live on the ground – chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, wild turkey and peacocks – are known to gobble them up too.
Tick repellent chemicals can be applied to the skin before a possible exposure (like a walk in the woods … or the backyard). DEET, picaridin, lemon eucalyptus oil, and IR3535 (a plant based chemical) have all been shown to be effective. Permethrin (derived from the chrysanthemum) can be applied to clothes. Checking your body (or your child’s body) for ticks is crucial, either after being outside or before going to bed. Finding the tick and removing it before it can transmit any bacteria is the preferred approach. If you have any questions about when to see your pediatrician about a tick bit, please don’t hesitate to call our offices.
Summer Activites
Summer Fun Awaits By Ned Ketyer, MD – Editor, www.ThePediaBlog.com
Two weeks after its previous update, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines for people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The new rules are clear: > If you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did before the pandemic. > Fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance. > If you haven’t been vaccinated yet, find a vaccine.
The recommendations reflect the reality that all three COVID-19 vaccines approved for emergency use and distributed in the U.S. for the last six months are extraordinarily effective in preventing serious disease from SARS-CoV-2. The evidence is also stronger that fully vaccinated people are unlikely to have asymptomatic infection or transmit the virus to others. While it’s still not known just how long protection from the vaccine will last, or how much the vaccines prevent emerging variants of the virus, it is clear that vaccine efficacy doesn’t fade quickly. People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Fully vaccinated people can be reassured
AHN Pediatrics • Summer 2021 • www.ahnpediatrics.org
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