HOMETOWN HEALTH: “My whole body hurt” : Botetourt man gets unusual tick disease

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - A Botetourt County man is sharing his experience with Ehrlichiosis, a tick-borne illness he said he had never heard of until a trip to the emergency room led to a diagnosis.

Butch Carter said he has already removed several ticks from his body this year and called it “a pretty brutal tick season,” including what he described as lone star ticks and deer ticks.

Carter said he is used to pulling ticks off after working outside and then going about his day feeling fine. But he said that changed in September, when he woke up feeling “really lousy,” with a fever and body aches.

Carter said he initially thought he might have COVID-19, but a home test came back negative. He said he went to the emergency room and his primary care office and was misdiagnosed twice with a viral infection, while his symptoms worsened for nearly two weeks.

Carter said he told his wife, Debbie, that he felt unusually bad and decided to go to the emergency room at Carilion.

At that visit, Carter said a doctor told him he likely had ehrlichiosis. Carter said he was familiar with lyme disease and alpha-gal, but not ehrlichiosis.

Dr. David Kerkering, Director of infectious diseases at Carilion Clinic, said ehrlichiosis is spread by lone star ticks and black-legged ticks and can mimic COVID-19 or the flu. Kerkering said not every tick carries ehrlichiosis, but if so, symptoms can appear within a week or two after a bite.

“As you know, most men don’t like to go to doctors. This headache is generally severe enough that men will go to the doctor,” Dr. Kerkering said.

Kerkering said the bacteria that causes the infection primarily come from deer and mice and can be passed from a mother tick to its offspring.

Kerkering said ehrlichiosis is curable. Carter said that in addition to flu-like symptoms, he experienced atrial fibrillation and high liver enzymes, and that over a period of months his health “started to trend normally.”

Kerkering recommended precautions for people spending time outdoors in grassy or bushy areas in the woods, including wearing long sleeves and long pants with socks and using tick repellent containing DEET. He also advised checking children and pets for ticks after they come inside.