You just may want to think twice before heading out on a hiking adventure in North Carolina this, or any other, year. There’s a deadly tickborne disease spreading rampantly through the Tar Heel State and it’s one you’ll want to avoid at all costs. I should know; I was diagnosed last May with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, a disease I’d never even heard of until I got the news of the diagnosis.
Hiking in North Carolina is oh-so much fun. With so many wonderful places to explore, it's no wonder it's one of the most sought after activities when seeking an escape from the real world.
But you just never know when the "real world" will creep into your woodsy adventures, leaving behind a deadly disease that, at one point in history had a fatality rate of 80%.
About 5,000 cases of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever are reported each year in the U.S. And although every state in the contiguous United States has a history of RMSF, there are five states where it's most prevalent — and North Carolina is one of them! The rate of incidence is about 17.6 people per million per year in North Carolina. With a population approaching 11 million, that's 193 cases per year in the Tar Heel State alone.
Most of us can't avoid going out of doors altogether, but we can certainly perform routine checks of our skin and hair looking for ticks. Experts believe a tick needs to be latched onto your body for at least three hours in order for the parasite responsible for RMSF to be transmitted. The disease is spread all year long, but is more common from May through November in North Carolina.
In my case, even though North Carolina is one of the top five states for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, not a single physician (from my primary care doctor to the ERs I visited) tested for the disease. The longer a diagnosis takes, the higher your chances of dying from RMSF. Time is of the essence!
So be proactive. Know Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is prevalent in North Carolina and know the warning signs of a sudden onset of the disease. Insist on a test if it comes down to it. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is most commonly diagnosed through a blood test that takes several days for results to be returned.
Many people actually break out in spots primarily on their wrists and ankles, but other locations are possible, too. You should know that not everyone experiences a breakout. If it occurs, it will be anywhere from two to five days after the onset of a very high fever.
Other symptoms include issues with breathing and fluid in the lungs. Still other signs are headache, vomiting, nausea, muscle pain, stomach pain, and malaise.
If caught early, most cases of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever can be addressed with a short course of antibiotics. But the effects of the parasites injected into the body by the tick and the subsequent die-off of those parasites can linger for months. In my case, I was still having difficulty walking and managing day-to-day tasks four and five months after my fever had subsided.
In the end, family members were dispatched from South Carolina to retrieve me on what I considered to be my deathbed in North Carolina. They brought me to South Carolina where a talented diagnostician saw the potential for RMSF and tested me immediately. I was lucky. Again, know the signs and insist on a test. If your doctor won’t order a test, find another doctor that will.
What you can do to help prevent prolonged suffering and possibly even death from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is arm yourself with loads of information to become familiar with the symptoms. You’ll find the most comprehensive information on the Internet on the website of NORD, the National Organization of Rare Diseases.
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