April is Lyme Disease Prevention in Dogs Month

Lyme Disease is on the Rise

By Ronald G. Biese, DVM

Ronald G. Biese, DVM

 

Ticks have long been a pesky bug, but over the past two to three decades they have become more than an annoyance.   The dreaded deer ticks can carry several organisms that can create significant illness in humans, as well as our furry little friends.  Most people have heard of Lyme disease.  This is a life threatening disease transmitted by deer ticks.  An infective tick will inject Borrelia burgdorferi (the technical name of the organism that causes Lyme disease) organisms into its unsuspecting victim when it takes a blood meal.  This process can take 24-50 hours.  Once the animal has the infection in its body, a few things can happen.  In dogs, 90% of the time the dog will fight the bacteria off and have no issues at all.  The other 10% of the time the dog will develop clinical signs including lameness/stiffness while walking, lethargy, loss of appetite, joint swelling, vomiting, fever, rarely it does cause neurologic sings, and even death.  The organism can affect the joints (most commonly), kidneys or the nervous system.  The clinical signs that are manifested depend on which tissues are affected.  If a dog dies of Lyme disease it most likely destroyed the kidney tissues to the point of kidney failure.  

 Parasite Prevalence Maps

Treatment for Lyme disease in dogs is an antibiotic for 28 days.  The best antibiotic is Doxycycline which has become difficult to get because the human market discontinued making this drug.  Therefore, veterinarians have to have it compounded at a veterinary pharmacy at a higher cost than it used to be.   Treatment is often very effective in curing the dog of the disease.  However, some of these victims will die of kidney failure before treatment can be instituted. 

There is a mysterious fact about this organism.  Through research we know that after treating an animal (even humans), the B. burgdorferi organism can be found in tissues of the animal, especially in the joints.  Scientists do not know why it is still present and what problems may arise from their presence.

Ticks transmit several other organisms like Lyme, but are completely separate organisms.  Many of these can also cause serious illness in our fury friends.  All of the tick-borne diseases are significantly increasing in numbers in our area, and likely throughout the country. 

Prevention is extremely important to help our fury companions stay healthy.  There is a vaccine available to help prevent Lyme disease that is over 90% effective.  This will help prevent the disease if an animal were to get bit by a deer tick.  The other way to prevent illness from tick bites is using a product to keep the ticks off of them.  If the ticks die when they first bite the dog or if they never want to crawl on the dog in the first place, they can’t get any diseases from them.  There are many products on the market that prevent tick attachment or even kill ticks quickly if attached to help prevent Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases.  Ask your veterinarian more about which products work best.