‘It filled me with fear’: New Brunswicker warns others about tick bites

Every year, more parts of Canada are reporting a risk of ticks and tick-borne illnesses. Sarah Plowman on the reasons behind the spread.

Lisa Snider and Shelley Dixon live a few kilometres away in New Brunswick near the border with Nova Scotia.

Recently, both were bitten by ticks but hadn’t noticed at first.

“I just thought it was a mosquito bite that maybe I had scratched,” said Dixon, a beef farmer in Point du Bute, New Brunswick.

That’s because when she looked in the mirror, she couldn’t spot anything abnormal.

Later that day, her grandkids saw a tick on her ear. A family member removed it with a tick tool.

Snider first felt a bump on her back about two weeks ago. It was a tick, but it hadn’t attached and could easily be removed.

More recently, she noticed another bump on her back. She couldn’t see it and didn’t think much of it. The next day, she looked again and took a photo. The bump had legs.

“It filled me with fear,” she said.

Ticks can transmit bacteria and viruses that can cause diseases, such as Lyme disease, anaplasmosis and babesiosis.

Snider managed to pull the parasite out.

“Those things really hang on for dear life, even though it’s really tiny, it hung on for dear life. So I was just freaking out,” she said.

Tick population in Canada

Ticks are often found in wooded, grassy or marshy areas. Canada has more than 40 different types but the most problematic are the eastern and western blacklegged ticks, according to Mount Allison University biologist Vett Lloyd.

Blacklegged ticks, also known as deer ticks, aren’t new to New Brunswick, but Lloyd notes that when the winters were harsher, more ticks would die off.

“Now, we’re not killing off as many ticks in the Canadian winter, and the female tick that gets a nice healthy blood meal in the fall can then lay 2 to 3,000 eggs. So you can see that the tick population is going to take off really quickly,” said Lloyd.

The risk of tick-borne diseases is growing as ticks become more resilient and spread to new parts of Canada.

“As our winters are less cold and shorter, we’re allowing ticks to survive and thrive in more northern latitudes. And we’re seeing Lyme pop up in regions that it hasn’t been identified before and in addition, in regions where we’ve seen it before we’re seeing more Lyme as well,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an Infectious Disease physician while speaking with CP24 earlier this week.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, there were 5,239 cases of Lyme disease reported in 2024 — a new record.

The federal agency notes cases are often underreported.

Lloyd points out anaplasmosis is also becoming more frequent. It’s caused by another type of bacteria, and it attacks blood cells.

“And without blood cells, you end up in the E.R. department pretty quickly,” she said.

The tick expert and her team of students and researchers at Mount Allison University are trying to find new ways to test ticks and people for tick-borne illnesses.

“We’re testing for different pathogens and we’re trying to find out new tests that do it faster, quicker and cheaper,” she said, adding the ultimate goal is a home testing kit.

Living with lyme disease

Keith O’Flaherty of Ryan River, Nova Scotia has lived with Lyme disease for six years.

“It’s been hell,” he said. “It has totally destroyed my quality of life with the symptoms that I have experienced.”

Once very active, he describes being a shell of his former self and experiences a barrage of symptoms including weakness, memory loss and chronic inflammation.

“You run into situations where your joint pain in your knees and your elbows and other areas is so severe that it limits your function,” he said.

O’Flaherty said he was bitten by a tick in May 2019 but didn’t notice.

He said it was engorged for about four to five days. When it came out and he flushed it down the toilet, never thinking anything of it.

For about two weeks he experienced headaches, fatigue, soreness and weakness but figured it was the flu.

For two years he made frequent trips to the emergency room and doctor’s office. He says he received many tests, including an MRI, CT scans, bloodwork and testing for rheumatoid arthritis.

“The first year of it, I asked to be tested for Lyme disease, and I was told I never had Lyme disease, and I assumed, okay, you’re the doctor, you know that,” he said.

A year later, he requested another test. He was positive for Lyme disease.

“It took me two years to get diagnosed. And then at that point it’s too late because I now have what’s called a long-term chronic Lyme disease,” O’Flaherty said. “Canadians and the Canadian government and the Nova Scotia government need to take it seriously.”

Prevention is the best defence

Donna Lugar, the vice chair of the Nova Scotia Lyme and Tick-borne Diseases Association, said prevention is important.

She recommends showering quickly after coming inside and doing regular tick checks.

Public Health Agency of Canada recommends people wear light-coloured clothing and long sleeves and to tuck your shirt into your pants and your pants into your socks. It also recommends people apply insect repellent containing DEET, or Icaridin, to clothing and exposed skin.

Lugar knows in the summer, people tend to wear shorts, flipflops and T-shirts.

“If you are going to be out and about in areas that, you know, have grasses and whatnot, put a small lint roller in your pocket and you can roll that over your skin, you can roll that over in your clothes and that can pick up any, non-attached ticks,” she said.

She also recommends putting double-sided tape on boots when gardening, so ticks get stuck to the tape instead.

In Shelley Dixon’s case, she was prescribed an antibiotic as a precaution and has since learned that tick that was on her did not have any disease.

Lisa Snider has also learned the tick she found attached to her back likely doesn’t have Lyme disease. She placed it a bag and put it in the freezer in case she develops any symptoms and wants to have the tick tested.

If you do get a tick on you

Lloyd said if you have a tick on you, you’ll want to remove it quickly.

“The longer the tick is on you, the more chance it has to transmit any pathogens,” she said.

She said the least desirable way to remove it is with your fingers. Instead, use tweezers or a tick removal tool if you have one.

“Pull it off slowly and gently, then, it’s a good idea to keep the tick,” she said, noting you may want to get it tested in case you get sick.

Lloyd said you’ll want to consult a health-care provider.

“What’s available to you? Depends on where you are in the country. Many parts of the country, your pharmacists can help you deal with it. Other times, you have to go find, a doctor or equivalent.”