April 24, 2009

• The best approach is to (a) wear clothing that deters ticks and maximizes their visibility, i.e. light colored fabrics and pants tucked into boots or socks, and (b) check your body thoroughly (including a vigorous brushing out of the hair) for the little bastards when coming in from woodland wanderings. That said, I can clearly recall a case--maybe in the NY Times?--where an individual exhibited strong symptoms of Lyme but treatment was ineffective and no tick bite could be found... until the MD checked the person's pubic area, where the tick was comfortably feeding, obscured by vegetation. Seems the patient in question had met her boyfriend in the woods for a sylvan tryst and, well, you know the rest. Tick removed, treatment given, no further problems. If you're looking for a good essential oil repellant, pennyroyal oil works well if you want to keep natural, but it's contraindicated in cases of pregnancy. I've used natural bug repellants for years and have yet to report a tick bite (and I've spent long stretches living and camping in the forest). Ankle flea collars are not recommended unless you want to make a fashion statement.
• Synthetic repellents with high concentrations of DEET work but it's nasty stuff. Eucalyptus oil works well as a natural mosquito and tick repellent, if you don't mind smelling like a koala.
• ...I can clearly recall a case--maybe in the NY Times? Sounds just like this episonde of House.
• Pants tucked into boots or gators, light-colored, light-weight long sleeved shirt with cuffs fastened and tucked into pants, hat, bandanna around neck. All this prevents ticks and sunburn. If you know you're headed into a bad bad area, you can put tick collars on the OUTSIDE of your pants legs or just tape your pants legs. I don't leave a tick collar on my dogs, but I will fasten one on the day we go out on the theory that one day won't hurt them, and even though the insecticide hasn't been absorbed systemically, there is still some repellent action. Oh, and don't spray your skin, do your clothes with DEET--if you can stand it. Avon Skin-So-Soft actually works as a repellent on me and the horses, but YMMV. Take vit B daily, and pop it right before you start your hike. Bugs tend to avoid B takers. Some people swear by garlic, so eat Italian if you're camping out ;) Try to avoid tromping through the brush, but remember, ticks can jump, there's no guarantee. If there is no path, just do your best and brush down after. Remember, with all that, ticks can creep under your clothes and hide in the folds, so check yourself over well--shower that evening if you can and scrub all the possibles, including the back of the neck. Shake your clothes outside. There have been plenty of times I've found a tick crawling on the bathroom floor or in the hamper. Now I dump clothes directly in the wash and right to the dryer. Check your dog over well, too, including 48 hours after. Takes a tick a while to latch on and get swollen. They hide well in fur. Check your horse between the hind legs and under the tail. (They always have one or two between April and July.) If you do remove a tick, do NOT squeeze or twist him. Use a tick remover or a very pointed pair of tweezers, slide it under him and lift him off. Try to get the mouthparts. Wipe with alcohol. After one hike down the Bruneau Canyon in the spring with the kids, I picked over a hundred swollen ticks of the dog three days after. We knocked ticks off each other for ten minutes back at the truck, and still found them crawling while riding back in the truck. This necessitated a clean out and total strip down dance in the middle of the Owyhee desert. None of the four kids had any latch on. I didn't have any; husband still had one crawling on his waist when he went to shower. We have those damn dog-ticks that swell up green and six times their pre-suck size before leaving you with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. *shudders* Needless to say, I consider myself an expert tick-hater.
• *sniffle*
• There, there, fishy. Your picture wasn't on that page, and I know you're not a vicious bloodsucking parasite.
• Back in days of my youth, when I lived farther south, we'd occasionally bring home some pretty hefty ticks. Naturally anxious to torment our tormentors, we'd hold the really full ones in the flame of a match until they popped (the legs would wriggle wildly... very gratifying to tick-haters). But on a more constructive note, if they're really hanging on sometimes smearing them with Vaseline will induce enough asphyxia that they'll back right out of their bite, alleviating the danger of residual mouthparts.
• Ticks will head for your crotch or armpits regardless of whether you were gettin' yer monkey on in the ferns. I got bit a few years ago. I found the tick while standing at the urinal -- at work, no less. I did end up getting Lyme disease, but it's not guaranteed that it came from that tick. I may have missed another one: at its smallest (nymph) stage a tick is smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
• Stomper, my only hope is that the nymphs haven't been around so much they've picked up the disgusting diseases the adult ticks are sure to have. A little tick biology. You really ought to be flattered the tick chose you for one of the only three meals it might have in its short life. Here's a fun pic of the type we (mostly) get out here. Hard to miss 'em when they've had a good dinner, and easy to lose yours when you spot 'em.
• Now I feel special.
• OMG, that dog tick looks like a PICKLE! I use vitamin B, seemingly to attract ticks. Now then, Penny Royal, obsessive cleanliness, vasaline on the bastards found... What about swallowing two old (out dated) hits of doxycycline from the lost bottle? Anybody? Within a day or two, I mean, has anyone tried that and failed to prevent stomper's special fate?
• Dan, if you take antibiotics without cause, AND MOST ESPECIALLY without following a proper course prescribed as necessary, I will personally, with malice, send my rampaging blood-thirsty hoard of ticks to attach themselves in places you do NOT want to imagine! Do NOT be screwin' with the antibiotics! Or go ahead. Keep takin' two and three here and there, some out-dated, some not, then, when the virulent little bacteria that becomes super resistant is developed from a bite from YOU, we will all revile you as a foul and disgusting beast infested with MRSA++. Yes, there is some evidence that taking two MAY be efficacious in preventing infection in individuals in a high risk area. However, talk to any doc that's dealt with plain ol' vanilla antibiotic resistance, let alone MRSA, and they'll tell you not to do it. Use preventive means to keep the ticks off you before your hike. Take time to check yourself after. You'll be fine. And if not, well, then at least you won't have built up drug-resistant Borrelia burgdorferi.
• Wise (and scary) advice. Listen to yer GramMa, Dan.
• Full course or nothing then. Thanks, GramMa! Hopefully there's no such thing as Lyme Disease in New Zealand, at least, and no fears of consequent join inflammation, fever, lethargy and the whole nine yards at the center of our beloved MoFi empire.
• *hugs GramMa* ... *checks herself obssessively for ticks*
• Dan Folkus, getting medical advice from the internet - which itself swarms with microbial intellects, bloating their hirsuit black abdomens on the warm juices of the credulous - is a fools' game, and can lead only to your horrifying and painful death. Hence, rather than polluting your bloodstream with the vain gibbersh of the commentators listed supra, inoculate your mind with the sage advice infra. Firstly, "ticks" are merely nature's way of telling you that you are "correct". Do not abjure them - do not scrape them from your person like a dirty, itching schoolchild! Instead, luxuriate in the fact that mother nature herself has seen fit to bless you with her imprimatur of rightness. Nothing untoward can come to you by displaying your tick marks proudly. Fie on any who would inform you otherwise! These naysayers are, if truth be told, covered with Gaia's CROSSES, indicating their wrongfulness in all things. "But, Lyme disease!" - I hear you squawk. Oh, you fool! Wouldn't ANYONE enjoy being blessed by the growth of plump, ripe limes from their every appendage and orifice? And why not lemons, or any other citrus? Would that all of us were festooned with such hesperidia! So, there is no need heed the cowardly warnings of fibrous drupes such as bluehorse, et al. Thus, in summary: lick a tick today, and blossom with tangy green fruits for all to share. Thank you for your attention.
• BlueHorse, you have my wholehearted sympathies merely for being in the same COUNTY with beasts such as the one represented in that photo. I'm guessing it takes firearms or something nuclear to dispatch something that monstrous--forget matches. And now, thanks to the quid, I'm thinking "lick a tick today" and picturing that photo, although with confusingly appealing citrus overtones.
• And then there's BUCK TICK
• *hides under something*
• Dan,it's pretty obvious that those people were emotionally sucked dry and infected with a rock-n-roll fervor. fibrous drupes such as bluehorse FIBROUS DRUPE?? *sputters* Who? What? Why? Where do you get off, you little bloodsucking Ixodida? And that's BlueHorse, to you, sir! MonkeyFilter: blessed by the growth of plump, ripe limes from their every appendage and orifice MonkeyFilter: if you don't mind smelling like a koala MonkeyFilter: Ankle flea collars are not recommended unless you want to make a fashion statement. Will someone please give fish tick some smelling salts and escort him out of this thread to a quiet room?
• Freshly squeezed... Yeah thanks, quiddy.
• You're doing that gender reassignment on purpose now, aren't you? *waggles mouthparts threateningly*
• Drat, did it ag'n, didn't I fishy? Careful folks! The tick's swelling up and she's about to explode.
• If the quidnunc kid was running the World Health Organization, this Mexican Lyme and Tequila Swine Tick Flu Pandemic would soon be brought to it's inevitable conclusion.
• Hey gang! The luau will be done soon, and right now they're doing Tequila shots in the other room. Anybody for a game of lawn darts? Dan Folkus offered to let us use his big red bullseye. Kinnakeet, you might want to just sit here next to the citronella candle and hold the flea collars or something.
• /prepares cockpunch with a squeeze of lyme
• *stretches out to expose bull's eye to shade, avoiding MORE deadly aim of doxycyclene sun*
• YOU PEOPLE ARE FREAKING ME OUT WITH YOUR TICK TALK.
• This is one of those special posts that makes me want to scratch my scalp. Ugh, it's itching RIGHT NOW.
• Don't worry, mechagrue, your time is coming... *evil laughter* I saw what you did there. *Leaves the party to summon the tick hordes*
• Why Is Romney Campaigning on Medical Quackery? He's going after the ultimate niche voter: Virginia’s Lyme disease conspiracy theorists.
• Torturing an engorged tick...