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Other stories in "Hiking"

• Isle Royale reverie
  Whichever face it shows, the Lake Superior wilderness is beguiling.
• Hiking the North Shore
  For most, it's the preferred way to soak up the scenery.
• Duluth's hiking heaven
  On Superior Hiking Trail, enjoy the wilderness, then return via bus, taxi, shuttle or bike trail.
• Bird walks
  In spring, a symphony of trills and chirps draws hikers into the woods.
• Hikes with benefits
  For exercise as well as edification, tag along with an expert.
• Hiking in Duluth
  The city sections of the Superior Hiking Trail are spectacular.
• 12 great fall hikes
  For a perfect day, hit the trail and do some sightseeing, too.
• Devil's heaven
  In the Baraboo Hills, a splendid park makes people come running.
• Tracing the Ice Age Trail
  In north-central Wisconsin, a slow-moving monolith left a playground for weekend wanderers.
• Walk 'n' roll
  Thanks to a bike trail, backtracking on the Superior Hiking Trail is a thing of the past.
• Michigan's Pictured Rocks
  There's a lot of scenery crammed into one stretch of Lake Superior.
• Goin' on a treasure hunt
  We jump on the geocaching bandwagon and get hooked.
• Greatest hits of the Ice Age
  In Wisconsin, the best walking trails are gifts from the glaciers.
• Walking in Duluth
  Trails along creeks, ravines and bays provide stellar hiking in the heart of town.
• Quiet time on the North Shore
  Late fall is marked by stark beauty, cheaper stays and the gales of November.
• Trek to Timm's Hill
  The highest point in Wisconsin is the gateway to a forest full of trails.
• Along for the walk
  In fall, join a group hike through the glowing forest.
• Five ways to walk the Superior Hiking Trail
  On a guided trip, you can pay a lot or a little.
• King of the hill
  With a huff and a puff, hikers earn a view of fall colors.
• Peak hiking
  For Highpointers, nothing but a summit will do.

Preventing Lyme disease

The bite of a deer tick can cause major headaches, and more.

The ticks are out.

Regular ticks are bad enough, scuttling into hidden niches on the human body and gorging themselves on blood. But their ick factor pales next to the danger posed by deer ticks, which can transmit Lyme disease.

A deer tick needs to be attached to the skin for 36 hours to transmit the disease; even then it’s easily treatable if caught promptly. But if untreated, symptoms include fatigue, fever and achiness; eventually, it can lead to nerve damage and joint pain.

Robert Sitko of Stillwater, Minn., a beekeeper who tends apiaries in the heavily infested St. Croix River Valley and likes to go camping, knew he was at risk. One year, he saw the tell-tale bull’s-eye rash of Lyme disease on his body and went to a doctor, who prescribed three weeks of antibiotics.

That was that — until a year later, when he ran a 105-degree fever and landed in the hospital. That time, it was anaplasmosis, also known as ehrlichiosis, another bacterium transmitted by deer ticks.

Now, Sitko does everything he can to avoid being bitten be a deer tick. He tucks his pants legs into his socks. He checks skin and clothes religiously. He uses insect repellents.

He might have taken the vaccine if it hadn’t been discontinued for human use, but he gets a shot of it for his German shorthair every year.

And after he found a deer tick while cutting trees in his back yard, he drove to a sporting-goods store and bought a canister of Permethrin clothing repellent.

“What you do is spray it on your clothes, let it dry two hours, and it’s supposed to last six weeks or six washings,’’ he said. “Supposedly, it kills ticks on contact. I thought, that’s the perfect thing for people going on a week’s camping trip.’’

Dr. Russell Johnson, a microbiologist who studies agents of Lyme disease University of Minnesota, says the product does work.

“It works very well,’’ he says. “In fact, it kills ticks within seconds of contact.’’

Depending on location, Johnson said, 40 to 60 percent of adult female deer ticks carry Lyme disease. The first ticks out mostly are adults; the nymphs that appear from mid-May to early July carry the disease at about half that rate, but all are looking for blood meals and are harder to see.

Deer-tick nymphs appear as black dots; adults are the size of a sesame seed.

Western Wisconsin and the St. Croix Valley of Minnesota are considered hot spots for Lyme-carrying deer ticks, but they’ve expanded their range northward and westward to the lakes region of Minnesota, Johnson said.

Preventing infection

To prevent infection, tuck in shirts and pants. To make ticks easier to see, wear light-colored clothing.

Spray skin and clothing with bug spray containing 30 percent DEET, or spray clothing with Permethrin; an aerosol can that will spray three sets of clothing costs about $10. And check carefully.

Robert Sitko suggests running hands over skin to detect the smaller ticks. If you find one, pry it off gently with tweezers. Ticks also can hide themselves in folds of clothing and crawl onto the body later; Johnson says putting clothing in a dryer for 10 minutes will kill them.

And here's an ingenious idea: Wrap a strip of duct tape, sticky side out, around your cuffs to keep ticks from crawling up your legs and arms. If you want to be especially safe, wrap it around your collar, too, to keep them out your hair.

About 80 percent of people will develop an even red rash that may look like a bull’s-eye rash, Johnson said.

But even if you don’t, and you develop an unexplained fever or ache about two weeks after spending time in woods, consider the possibility of Lyme disease.

Wisconsin still is the epicenter of Lyme disease in the Upper Midwest, with 1,814 cases reported in 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Minnesota, 1,283 cases were reported.

In Iowa, 123 cases were reported in 2007, and in Illinois, 149 cases. In Michigan, only 51 cases were reported in 2007.

Last updated on April 11, 2010