Long Island harbors a large area of beautiful, recreational parks where ticks and other insects can be found. For medical reasons, ticks are important because they are vectors of microorganisms such as bacteria, virus or parasites. Not all ticks carry these infectious organisms, thus not all tick bites are dangerous or pose a risk for acquiring an infection. Still, people can contract an infection without recognizing a recent tick bite.
Some ticks can transmit the following infectious diseases [i.e. most commonly seen in Suffolk County]:
1. Lyme Disease
2. Ehrlichiosis
3. Anaplasmosis
4. Babesiosis
Most of these infections are cured by a short course of antibiotics. Sometimes, these infections can cause a more severe disease in some patients. Other infectious diseases that can be transmitted by ticks in Long Island are: Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Tularemia, and Powassan virus.
Our highly-trained doctors will help review and manage these infections when you are seen in our outpatient facility. For treatment purposes, we follow the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Guidelines (http://www.idsociety.org/Lyme).
As “Tick-Borne Diseases” are a topic of national research interest, we also have research projects underway to understand and provide new medical knowledge that will help other physicians to manage these infections for their patients. Our research explores how these tick borne diseases affect the health of humans. The more we understand these diseases, the better we can assign treatment modalities to patients.
Our ID division is seeking to increase patient access to specialists in infectious diseases with complicated tick-borne diseases, especially Lyme disease. With the support of NYS Senate, our aims are to improve early diagnosis of Lyme disease and to avoid its complications, to develop a translational research program to improve diagnosis and follow up over the course of tick-borne disease treatment, to continue expanding our current research portfolio on the pathogen discovery research after a tick bite, and to provide world-class seminars of tick-borne diseases to more than 1,000 primary care providers to improve clinical skills on early recognition and diagnosis of tick-borne diseases. Suffolk County and Nassau County harbor a population of 1.6 million people and Stony Brook University has a 30+ year record of experience in tick-borne diseases.
If you are interested in an appointment with our Outpatient facility please have your doctor’s office fax their last progress report along with your blood work to 631-444-7518.
Recommended websites
Tick-borne diseases: General information. https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/about/?CDC_AAref_Val=https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/about/?CDC_AAref_Val=hhttps://www.cdc.gov/ticks/about/?CDC_AAref_Val=https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/about/?CDC_AAref_Val=https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/diseases/index.html
Lyme disease: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/index.html
Lyme disease in NY: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/lyme-disease.page
Lyme disease (Spanish): https://www.cdc.gov/spanish/niosh/topics/lymedisease_sp.html
