Lyme Disease . Routinely check your skin for ticks When you work in grassy or wooded areas you should protect yourself from ticks. Two species of ticks in British Columbia can cause disease in humans. The Rocky Mountain wood tick is found in the B.C. interior dry belt from the U.S. border north to Williams Lake and east into Alberta. If these ticks remain on the body for several days, their bites can cause tick paralysis, which usually stops shortly after the tick has been removed.
Symptoms start with numbness in the feet and legs, making walking or standing difficult.
These ticks can also carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but the disease rarely occurs in Canada. The western black-legged tick lives in vegetation in the warm, moist coastal areas of Vancouver Island and along the mainland from the U.S. border to Powell River. Its range extends eastward along the Fraser River to Hope and north to Boston Bar. The bite is often painful and may result in a slow-healing ulcer. In rare cases, some western black-legged ticks carry bacteria that may cause Lyme disease, with symptoms such as a red skin rash, fever, headache, fatigue, sore throat, and swollen glands.