Mirroring the national trend of rising emergency department (ED) visits due to tick bites, physicians with Vanderbilt Health are seeing the same and are treating an increasing number of patients with tick bites each month as temperatures continue to rise across Middle Tennessee and more people spend time outdoors.
Perhaps attributable to changing weather patterns and rising temperatures, Vanderbilt Health’s Emergency Medicine physicians around there region began treating patients with tick bites in March this year.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the incidence of tick bites across all regions in the U.S. began a rapid increase in March. By May, there was an average of 99 ED visits for tick bites per 100,000 total ED visits. In the Southeast region of the U.S., which includes Tennessee and seven additional states, for the month of May the tick bite incidence was 37 per 100,000 total ED visits.
- In March, patients with tick bites began presenting at Vanderbilt Health’s hospitals in Shelbyville, Tullahoma, Lebanon and at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, with physicians treating a total of 10 patients that month.
- By April, patients began presenting to Vanderbilt University Hospital’s Adult Emergency Department in addition to other Vanderbilt Health hospital locations with a total of 30 patients treated that month.
- The month of May, the most recent data available, saw a total of 37 patients with tick-related complaints presenting to Vanderbilt Health’s adult and pediatric emergency departments.
Patients have presented with a range of complaints including tick bites located on their upper arms, lower legs, lower backs and scalps. Other patients have asked to have ticks removed in the emergency department setting or requested treatment due to tick bite-related symptoms such as joint pain.
In Tennessee, the most common tick-borne diseases are Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis and alpha-gal syndrome. According to the Tennessee Department of Health, six medically important tick species live in the state, and many Tennesseans encounter ticks in their own yard or neighborhood.
“Some of the things that you can do to be proactive during tick season are to be aware of entering high grass and going into underbrush settings where deer and other animals like to rest, as these are places where tick encounters are more likely, and you’ll need to do tick checks,” said Cosby Stone, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Vanderbilt Health.
“Purchasing the supplies you would need to remove ticks at home (tweezers, rubbing alcohol) is also valuable, because the sooner you remove an embedded tick, the lower the chance that it can make you sick. Lastly, camping sprays with the active ingredient permethrin can be applied to your outdoor clothes and left to dry outside overnight. This ingredient helps to kill ticks on contact and is good for five washings before being reapplied,” he said.
