Spring is here and so are the Ticks!

Spring is the best time to hike, hunt and engage in all your outdoor fun activities. But it is also the most active season for ticks! Thankfully, May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month: a perfect reminder that we need to take tick bites seriously.

The blackhead tick (Ixodes scapularis) hosts the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Fighting off these bugs with TotalSTOP Icaridin-based repellent will protect you from ticks and the diseases attached to a prolonged bite. The United States Center for Disease Control reported that ticks will transmit the Lyme-causing bacteria after 36 to 48 hours on your skin.

Science has revealed that Icaridin-based insect repellents like TotalSTOP insect repellent have a prolonged efficacy of up to 12 hours. Its 20% concentration of Icaridin repels bugs and is a better alternative to DEET.

In the absence of sufficient protection, these little critters keep spreading their onslaught across Canada. Between 2009 and 2021, the Provincial Public Health Unit of the Canadian government recorded 14,616 cases.

Yet each year, the number of infected persons grow at a steady rate.

The worse part is that you won’t feel any pain as they bite. They’re almost invincible! According to the CDC, the tiniest ones are the deadliest. They are called nymphs. Compared to adult ticks, nymphs are hard to detect. They quietly suck blood while transmitting the deadly Lyme-causing bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi.

If you spend plenty of time around bushy areas, rock walls and trail sides, watch out for ticks! They are almost everywhere! Consider protecting your pets too; they’re convenient targets for ticks since they can’t fend for themselves.

Entomologist, Dr David Claborn, have warned that these ticks are tough insects. They can survive most environmental conditions.

How to Detect Lyme Disease Symptoms

Untreated Lyme disease can lead to severe health conditions including heart and neurological complications, and chronic joint inflammation. Protecting yourself with an insect repellent seem trivial but it will keep you safe from tick bites!

Image by Jerzy Górecki from Pixabay

The earliest signs of Lyme disease occur thirty days after a tick bite. The erythema migran rash is the most obvious sign you’ll notice after a bite. It can expand to about 12 to 30 inches.  It is rarely itchy or painful and its appearance vary from persons to persons.

Apart from rash, you may also experience feverish conditions like chills, headache, joint ache, and swollen lymph nodes.

Advanced symptoms manifest days or months after a bite. Without medical attention, you’ll have swollen knees, severe headache, facial palsy, pains in joint, muscles and bones. Irregular heart beat, dizziness and numbness, and spinal cord inflammation are also symptoms you’ll experience.

If you notice any of these symptoms, you need urgent medical help. But shielding yourself from a bite is the ultimate solution to avoiding Lyme disease and its unpleasant symptoms.

How to Repel Ticks this Season

Choosing the right clothing, insect repellent, and protective gear is a necessary prerequisite for an outdoor trip. Here’s how your checklist should look like:

The right clothing:

Wear clothes that do not expose too much skin. Also, consider wearing light-colored clothes; it makes it easier to locate ticks. Wear socks and shoes that protect your legs. A good insect repellent will cover up your lapses.

The perfect insect repellent:

An Icaridin-based insect repellent like TotalSTOP protects your skin by blocking the tick’s ability to locate you. Several health bodies endorses it, the World Health Organization (WHO). US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

Unlike DEET-based insecticides that melts nylon materials, the active ingredient in TotalSTOP, Icaridin does not damage your clothes and gears, and it is perfect for you if you have delicate skin. It won’t cause skin reddening like DEET does. If you plan to stay outdoors for a long time, the repellent offers a 12-hour protection from mosquitoes and ticks. Additionally, the Icaridin ingredient in TotalSTOP allows for easy sunscreen absorption.

How to Use TotalSTOP For Tick Bite Prevention

It is convenient to use Icaridin-based TotalSTOP insect repellent. The convenient packaging makes it easy to carry around. You may choose the bottled spray or wipe. Regardless of your preference, you have guaranteed protection against ticks.

TotalSTOP is lightweight, and non-greasy. We recommend applying the repellent on exposed skin areas at a 12-hour interval. Depending on the duration of tick exposure, three times daily would suffice.

As the world prepares for another Lyme Disease Awareness Month, an effective insect repellent is an excellent move to reducing the number of cases this year.