Arkansas tick researchers put out call for “citizen scientists”
Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) are calling on citizen scientists to help them get a clearer picture of what kinds of ticks inhabit different parts of Arkansas and what pathogens they carry.
You can collect ticks yourself and send them to the research team. Or, if you live within an hour’s radius of Little Rock and have a lot of ticks on your property, you may be able to arrange for a researcher to come out to your place in person.
Lori Lynn Sikes, a Lyme advocate who lives in a wooded area and is constantly finding ticks on her dogs, said one of the researchers has visited her place a number of times. “He’s been very excited about finding ticks that we ‘aren’t supposed to have’ in this area,” she commented.
Sikes noted that most tick studies in Arkansas have been done in the northern part of the state. The current study hopes to collect ticks from all over.
If you have a tick to submit (only from Arkansas, please), here’s what UAMS suggests:
- Place tick(s) in a small ziplock bag with a moist cotton ball or piece of wet paper towel and seal the top of the bag with tape. Multiple ticks can be combined in a single bag if they all have the same history (e.g.; similar collection site/date, collected from same animal, etc.).
- Complete Arkansas State Tick Testing Form.
- Place the baggie and this form in a small padded envelope and ship to the address on the form. Alternatively, you can contact us at ARTickTesting@uams.edu to discuss whether it might be feasible for us to either pick them up or have you drop them off at UAMS.
Please add any research going on in Missouri. I was bitten numerous times while growing up in Central Missouri (Pulaski County). Did not know I had Lyme until I was 60. Now interested in hearing from others with Post Lyme Treatment Symptoms.
I want to see how I can get checked for this
My son has been sick for a year. Seizures, kidney failure, fatigue, nausea. They just figured out he has Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Thank goodness because it almost killed him.
He lives in Fairview, Arkansas in northern Arkansas, Marion County
Do the ticks need to be dead, alive, or either/or?
can you have more then one bullseye on different parts of the body. Not only at bite and I have a big hard knot at the bite site.
yes, you can have multiple bull’s-eye rashes. Even the CDC says so: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/signs_symptoms/rashes.html
Can we send in ticks that have been pulled off a pet or person? What if they are damaged?
I usually drop collected ticks into a small jar of alcohol or catch them on a piece of scotch tape.
Are any of these acceptable or not? With 5 dogs in a rural area, I check for ticks daily.
Recommend you contact the program and ask them. Their email address is in the blog posting above.
I am in Arkansas and am sure I have this, but I have had one test that was negative. Where in Arkansas is there a lyme-literate doctor?
Recommend you contact the Arkansas Lyme Foundation: https://www.arklf.com/