If a tick attaches to a mouse, deer, or other animal that is carrying the bacteria called Borrelia, and the tick becomes infected. It may then spread the disease when it attaches itself to you. Tick populations tend to be higher in elevations, in wooded and grassy areas where the creatures they feed on live and roam; including deer, rabbits, birds, lizards, squirrels, mice, and other rodents. They can also be found in urban areas as well as on beaches and coastal areas of the country.

This is the season for Lyme disease, and one should be careful walking through glens or high weeds with exposed skin. Saddle River’s deer population is huge and the incidence of Lyme could be quite high. You can be bitten by a tick and not know it until a targeted bulls-eye lesion appears on your skin. This lesion is fairly typical and should not be missed, but sadly it is missed in over 60% of cases. Generally, in the early stages after the tick bite with infection there are no symptoms. Blood tests immediatly after a tick bites you are generally negative. It takes a few days to weeks for the tests to become positive. If the rash is typical and/or you present the deer tick to a doctor (which you have just removed from your body) antibiotics can be given empirically until the disease is confirmed.

This is summer time and the biggest concern we have here in Saddle River is about the huge numbers of deer. They seem to be everywhere, causing accidents, offering themselves up as food for the new crop of coyotes, and causing disease. All deer are carriers of ticks and ticks cause several diseases, the most important one being Lyme disease. I informally took questions from our residents and those of some neighboring towns that also have deer problems.