With everyone out in the woods after turkeys, mushrooms, or just a peaceful day in the woods stumping or scouting, don't forget o check for ticks!!! Had a co-worker who had one imbedded in their back shoulder, no ill effects but you can't be too careful.
Jason
I'm afraid they're gonna be bad in my neck of the woods this year. I've already picked a couple up, but luckily I found them before they attached to me. I hate ticks!!
Ticks come from Transylvania, just like the English Royal Family. I know this to be true because they have that Attila The Hun accent, "I vant to drrrink your blootd."
Yeah, they are bad around here. I used a LOT of permethrin spray this weekend and still got 2 on me.Damn, they itch!
I've pulled sixteen out of me so far. They be everywhere here in Kentucky.
Use permanone on your clothes.
I saw a show on TV the other night that said that a possum will pick off and eat 50 to 60 ticks a day and aren't susceptible to Lyme's disease. They don't look so ugly any more.
We've taken only 2 off our dog this year, none off of ourselves...and we live in Transylvania County,NC.
I've had 2 embedded in my skin the past year and both caused me problems.
X's 2 on permethrin.
Bad here in jersey also . Picked a lot off me as well . Don't forget to check your dogs . One of mine got lime last year .
O.k., permethrine on the skin ?, not good, check out Badger's bug spray especially for the kids ! Works great on the pets also. Since using this I have not gotten a tick on me. Also, crawling and flying bugs, can't stand mint!
They have now found out that whole Sylvia leaf extract does even better than antibiotics when fighting lymes !
Permanone gets sprayed on your cloths before you wear them, not on your skin. I hang my cloths on the cloths line, spray them, especially around the waist, pant leg bottoms, sleeves and neck areas but all over in general. After about 5 minutes on the line and they are good to wear. I've read it works after a washing too. Any insect that lands on your cloths is dead, not just ticks.
Permethrin also is sprayed on your cloths, not on your skin. It lasts through quite a few washing too.
Tony Dean told me one day when we were bluegill fishing, the reason he always wore bright blue was because ticks hate sky blue and want nothing to do with it. Sky blue works for turkey hunting as well, because the turkeys don't think that you are a turkey hunter.
Yeah but other turkey hunters might think you are a turkey. I always heard to never wear red, blue, white or black during turkey season.
Roy, Permanone is a brand name and the active ingredient is permethrin, I believe.
I always wonder about that because turkey hunting is suppose to be a close quarter game, but then considering some of the antics of the run and gun kids, anything is possible.
I shot my clubs field course and I had 3 attached to me yesterday. This is going to be a bad year
Yeah, I picked one up tearing down the club's last 3D shoot.
hello, my name is rob and i have lyme disease.
there is only a "tick season" because these are the times of year we go afield.
in actuality, ticks are prevalent year 'round, no matter what the temperature or precipitation.
my spaniels would come back from running in the woods and covered in ticks right in the middle of a nor'east january winter snowfall with a foot of snow already on the ground.
many diff'rent species of ticks are everywhere, all the time. so are skeeters. BOTH bug types can infect a human with spirochetes (lyme disease - the special bacteria that's in a class all of its own).
there's a lot of nonsense going around about lyme disease, and for the most part it can be hard to get at the real truth behind this epidemic tragedy that's befallen humanity. research carefully and know yer options if, and when, you get infected ... and how to know for sure IF you are infected with spirochetes AND its deadly co-infections.
Mid Maine here. They are bad this year. No bites for me, but have found them on clothes. Permethrin spray coming up.
Ticks are bad here, I have permetherin sprayed clothes for when I cut wood and work in the field, no ticks embedded in two years, I am diligent do not want any tick borne disease.
I have a separate set of camo sprayed I use during Turkey season.
I have done some reading on the suspected source of the Lyme disease. I did not know that it is also in mosquitoes. In this corner of the our state, so far, deer ticks are rare. The wood tick has its peak and by September it is less of an issue. Go east a little way or south and it is a whole different deal. A family friend called and told me about a deer he shot in November, that was crawling with little ticks and wondered if those were deer ticks. I presumed they were. Another I talked to at lunch the other day was down in the lower Loess Hills. He said that from a hill, he watched turkeys all over one field and rolling around raising a ton of that Loess soil dust in the process. He was not adequately prepared himself, and told me to stay on the dirt if at all possible down there. He had sprayed his pants with OFF, it was not good enough. he had a bunch of ticks in his hair and several attached to his his head in his hair. He found several deer ticks on him with the wood ticks. He also said that he is never going back there ever again.
"lyme disease" bacterial infection is right up there in the pandemic class diseases such as aids, ebola, zika, and west nile virus.
there are more than a few theories circulating about the origins of lyme disease and spirochetes, here is a popular one ... https://sites.newpaltz.edu/ticktalk/social-attitudes/story-by-smaranda-dumitru/
the type of tick that can carry the lyme disease spirochete is ... ALL of them, anywhere and everywhere. so don't be concerned what type of tick just stuck its proboscis into your blood stream, just get it out without it regurgitating its nasty stomach contents into your system, and then seek proper health care help, which does NOT need to be antibiotics.
the general consensus is that once you have lyme disease, it's systemic and you have it for life.
there is an excellent chance that along with the lyme spirochete you will also inherit some even nastier co-infections, such as babesia and ehrlichea, which can be just as difficult (if not more so) to control than the spirochete
early lyme detection is paramount. all the current crop of tests for lyme are not foolproof - false negatives and positives abound - it is pure gambling.
i had lyme for over 6 months - it was never properly detected, i was treated for tendinitis and given anti-inflammatory drugs that caused liver issues. the "cure" for me was accomplished through a very savvy naturopath (who's office is a town away from lyme, CT) and i became asymptomatic within 2 weeks. i was lucky. i get checked twice a year. lyme symptoms have come back several times, and treatment abated those issues.
Rob,
You give a real mish mash of information and I have to take you to task on parts of it. Please note that I live two towns away from Lyme CT and have know people who have died from complications due to Lyme. I am an environmental scientist and have spent the last four decades of my life predominantly outside, within shouting distance of the epicenter of Lyme disease. I have been treated for it several times. I have pulled as many as 18 ixodes ticks off of me at one time.
Is it possible that Lyme disease entered the US via Plum Island - Sure, but there is no good evidence to support it. Its just an unsupported conspiracy theory. Why propagate that? The lab in Italy tested Otzi the iceman's blood and found Lyme disease. If it was present in Italy 5000 years ago, there are many ways that it could have come to the US.
Can you show me any scientific evidence that any or all ticks carry Lyme Disease? I mean peer reviewed articles in scientific journals? What about the same for mosquitos? If not it is irresponsible to claim that this happens.
You say the treatment does not need to be antibiotics. Are you a doctor? Do you have any kind of medical license? If not you should not offer any opinion on this. Its great that you found something that worked for you, but you have no place advising others unless you are appropriately trained and licensed.
You are correct in that lab tests for Lyme can be inaccurate and come back as both false positives and false negatives. But it is not pure gambling. And you can ask for a better test - the Western Blot.
You are also correct in that ixodes ticks (deer, and black legged ticks) are out year round, even in the middle of winter.
Yes, there are other tick borne agents out there (babesia, ehrlichea and now Powasson) that are of great concern. This is something people should know about.
Please be careful with the information you put out. In a case like this, it needs to be evidence based.
I wish you the best in your recovery from Lyme disease, and I empathize.
Bob
Interesting read, Rob. Scary, too.
bob,
the problem with "lyme disease" isn't only the bacterium itself, it's the medical and journalistic society that clearly has little clue as to what the hell "lyme" is really all about, its diagnostics, certainly its treatment, and only spreads more conflicting disinformation.
my link to the plum island article was just that, a link - i did not render nor have an opinion on that article, other than to use it as a reply to part of pavan's post.
treating ALL ticks as carriers of "lyme" is part of preventative medicine - whether or not there is scientific evidence of this or not. who really cares? i'd rather pass on to everyone to beware than to patiently await "the truth" from the scientific community. so far, i haven't seen any and doubt i ever will, unless our gov't finally declares a war on "lyme disease".
i've gone full circle on the matter of antibiotics and avoid them like the plague, because they ARE the antidotes i will need to be effective later on in life, rather than earlier. there is a time for antibiotics and lyme, but not as a blanket prescription (in this Rx crazy society).
no, i have no doctorate in either the medical or scientific community. my wife and i spent the last 8+ years researching, sorting out, and sifting through all "facts" about "lyme disease" and have had extensive testing by noted "lyme doctors" such as daniel cameron in NY, which was a huge bust and waste of time and money.
our current conclusion is not to put much if any faith in western medicine, and not to trust western doctors in general. a bold statement, but one based on personal experiences with doctors in NJ, NY, CT and PA over a period of 8 years.
the only truth i have with my "lyme" experience is that it was abated via a naturopath, jeffrey klass in guilford, CT, who made the "lyme" diagnosis inside of 10 minutes and was "cured" inside of 3 weeks. a fluke? a placebo? maybe. see, this is where we're ALL at with "lyme" disease - no one really knows for sure what the hell they are doing. no one.
while "lyme disease" IS a pandemic issue, along with all the other bacterial and viral pandemics, nothing in the world right now is worse than the benzodiazprene pandemic the WORLD is dealing with right now, thanx to big pharma and western doctors.
r.
Rob,
I can see we have been down many of the same paths. Lyme disease is a terrible thing and we simply don't know enough about it. We need a lot more research and a lot more awareness - yes we need a war on Lyme. Until that happens we are both stuck working it out for ourselves. Again, I am glad that you found something that works, and wish you well.
Bob
I've pulled at least 200 off myself and the dogs this year. We spray and do what we can but them little buggers still get through at times.
I have the same lack of trust in the local medical doctors here. I have been misdiagnosed both of the last two times in ten years that I bothered going to them. Ten years ago they declared that I just had a virus that I had to get through. Roller coaster fever, everything, other than bananas and chocolate milk, tasted like salt, rapid heart rate. Six months of that and 50 pounds lost I called a homeopath, cancer. A month later I was on the toughest canoe trip that we ever went on in Canada. A few years ago, I was feeling like crap, then my wife had thyroid trouble. I was in no shape to handle the stress and passed out one evening. I had an irregular heart rhythm and could barely move. They declared that I needed heart surgery, further testing said there was nothing wrong with my heart. I went back to the homeopath, Lymes disease and a fungus over growth attacking my lungs and gut. He said it was in its first stages and was optimistic. The symptoms have left and so far not returned, but I do take some very fancy supplements that make me poop. I should add that I went prescouting that year for turkeys on a warm day in late February when the snow was melting fast. I had an inch wide red spot under my arm for a few days that I thought was just a minor rash. By late April I was feeling sick.
We have an abundance of ticks around our home. So far my wife, indoor cat, and myself have all had ticks buried into us. My wife's had a red ring that expanded by the second day. She got antibiotics and it seems fine. They always scare me though, especially with so many misdiagnosis. One of the archers from our local club went through Lyme disease years ago and still suffers from some of the effects.
They are really bad here this year.
Yup. They are possibly the worst I've seen them at this time of year. Lost count of how many I've pulled off. Been using permethrin but still found some. They did look like they didn't want to be on my pants though. Nothing is guaranteed. Check and double-check.
I've always wondered what precipitated this plague. I'm 73 and when I was a kid here in Jersey, spent most of my time in the woods. At that time I always wondered what a tick was. Never saw one nor had one on me. The dog got a flea (know what they are) and tick collar. Climate change perhaps? No empirical evidence but to me very coincidental.
everyone has their pet theory about the origins of lyme disease. plum island aside, scientific research seems to now declare that lyme has been around before the existence of humanity.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2643339/The-bacteria-longer-humans-Lyme-disease-discovered-15-million-year-old-amber.html
whatever. it's here. it's a pandemic. be careful. know what to do.
Seems the big deal is people no longer burn off fields and even grass around houses like they used to do to thin them out. There is so much benefit to periodic burning, it was one of the main ways natives made prime hunting areas by creating feed for game. We should get back to that, but never will, civilization has gotton to civilized for that, everytime lightning strikes it seems to burn down a bunch of fancy houses.
Ticks are truly terrible, but its the chigger that was created by the devil. I will never forget growing up in the Ouachita Mountains, my days in the woods, longbow and dog, then grandma stripping me bare naked on the front porch with a giant sized Case folding knife in hand, to dig the chiggers out off my private parts. A few lucky times the neighbors came over to watch, that knife and its doings in front of an audience, worse than getting poison ivy down there.
I just read this week a method of tick removal that I will try for sure, which will not leave the head of the tick embedded in the skin. Take a cotton ball and place a few drops of dish washing soap onto the cotton. Rub onto the tick until he/she backs out and the cotton will capture the tick. Hope this works for all of us.
Be safe out there.
QuoteOriginally posted by D. Key:
I just read this week a method of tick removal that I will try for sure, which will not leave the head of the tick embedded in the skin. Take a cotton ball and place a few drops of dish washing soap onto the cotton. Rub onto the tick until he/she backs out and the cotton will capture the tick. Hope this works for all of us.
Be safe out there.
personally, a very DUMB idea.
there is NO PROBLEM with leaving a tick head/proboscis under the skin after removing its body, but you will be almost guaranteed that a tick that's been disturbed by squeezing its body and or applying a chemical to its body because that bug will regurgitate its stomach contents into your blood stream. you do NOT want that to happen, that's when the nasties enter your body.
the cotton ball soap thing can have the same bug reaction as using nail polish or match or burning string/rope/cigarette/cigar. big gamble with yer life. no thanx.
it's not the tick head or body that's the issue, it's what's inside the tick's body that you don't want inside yer body.
Rob:
Thanks for the clarification. I guess if it's on the internet, it isn't always true. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
So, then what is the preferred method of pulling ticks, Rob? Just yank them off?
I've used a hot match head before.
a pair of fine pointed QUALITY tweezers, who's points actually meet and mate, OPENED and pushed down AROUND the tick, which pushes the skin down as well, then close the tweezers to grab as little of the body as possible, hold tight, pull out with a quick flick.
not having that good tool, and if you have fingernails on a thumb and forefinger, attempt to do the same.
no tweezers and no fingernails, grab down as close as you can, pull and flick.
i've never always had a good experience using other tick removing tools.
Thanks for that tip. I have a set of tweezers in my Swiss army knife. If they don't work I will "pick and flick". I will no longer use the burn method!
I never expected this amount of response to this thread, just wanted to offer up a reminder for everyone. Thank you to all of you who have offered up a lot of good information. I've been very lucky through the years, I've only had 4 or 5 on me, and none have been burrowed in, that being said I'm definitely not taking any chances with these nasty little critters.
Jason
On a canoe trip a ranger showed me what she does. She puts a single drop of deet on the tick, when it start to look like it is fighting the smothering effects, she takes her pocket knife and gently rolls the tick over on it back, then takes a tweezers and grabs the tick by the head and pulls it out with its feet up. She said that in that rolled back position the jaws of the tick are in the right position to slide out.
deet, permethrin, nail polish, soap, heat - anything you do to tick a tick it off can make it unload it's internal bacteria into your internals. like gambling? feeling lucky? your decision as how best to remove ticks. i'll stick with the "neck/head" tweezer grasp - it has the ability to keep the bugger from barfing nasty bacteria into my blood stream.
Yep allways pulled them out of me and my dogs with tweezers or my fingers . The head was stuck in me most of the times . Then I treated me and the bite with my old doctor buddy . Johnny walker
I am allergic to almost all bug dope so I never use it. The gently turning them belly up does seem to make them come out easier.
I carry an adhesive lint roller with me in the woods. When I see a tick on my dog (they are easy to see on a yellow lab) or clothing the lint roller picks it up before it can get hidden. Don't forget to roll your back when you see one on your legs because there is usually one out of sight also (and then look closely at the dog because there is usually one working into her hair if you see one on the surface). I try to keep them off so they can't get attached.
QuoteOriginally posted by D. Key:
[QB] Rob:
Thanks for the clarification. I guess if it's on the internet, it isn't always true.
Are we not on the internet?????
Anyway, dirtguy mentioned a few other nasties carried by ticks including Babesia that causes Babesiosis and can be fatal to those without a spleen or an otherwise compromised immune system. No one advised of that 5 yrs ago when mine was removed and I live in the Northeast where it is prevalent. So if you or someone you know is at risk be extra cautious of ticks in areas where Babesia has been documented.
Where I mostly play in the outdoors in N.E. VT I have not seen a tick in 16yrs I've been up there. But just 40 or so miles south I have so it looks likes they are coming. Anyone know how fast a tick crawls?
Informative but spooky thread.
My brother died at the age of 14 in 1975 from a tick bite on a visit to relatives in West Virginia. He was fine for a week after removing the tick, then he got really sick. The doctors misdiagnosed it as Scarlett Fever. Turned out to be Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Very nasty disease. I've got relatives that live there who got it and survived, but came away with damaged eyesight. He'd be 56 now but for an evil little bug.
DannyBows, very sorry for your loss, to lose a brother at a young age must be very tough, especially to something like a small bug!
I believe that, if a tick has become imbedded, you already have inside you whatever nasty stuff he is carrying. Just my thought only. I spray my clothes very heavily with permethrin, but I still get a few. So far, I haven't contracted Lyme or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, but I did get Alpha Gal allergy, a really nasty thing that makes a person react allergically to any product from a mammal. It makes me wonder why I keep hunting deer since I can't eat it. As hunters, we would be really wise to seriously study ticks and the diseases they spread.
QuoteOriginally posted by Sam McMichael:
I believe that, if a tick has become imbedded, you already have inside you whatever nasty stuff he is carrying. ...
no no, that ain't necessarily true for the most part - they're sucking yer blood into their stomachs, not injecting their stomach contents into yer blood stream ... UNLESS you get them upset by prodding, squeezing, painting with chemicals or heating them up with cigarettes 'n' such.
back when the tick thing really took of here in mass I new some landscapers and tree workers who wore pantyhose under their pants and then tucked under the socks,,,,under the pants nobody gives you that look.. they said ticks would not go thru the panty hose and it kept them off their legs and out of their privates..
I know for early pheasant hunting here in the scrub oaks I wore them under my briar pants and never got a tick on my legs or privates but I did pull a few off in my waist band area above them under the gut I have.
had my wife pick me up a pair of skin toned XL's just in case I do find the time to go after turks ,,, ticks here look under any leaf and you will find them,, I've pulled maybe a total of 300 off me since this all started and I always wonder if my problems now are from ticks because i heard one lyme test doesnt work and one does..
QuoteOriginally posted by Tajue17:
... I always wonder if my problems now are from ticks because i heard one lyme test doesnt work and one does..
to date, there is NO proof positive test for lyme disease. false positives/negatives abound.
HOWEVER, there is a new urine test for lyme that may change that ... BUT until all the testing is done and 100% of all lyme laboratory test cases come back positive, and it becomes THE way to check for lyme, i would caution everyone to
DO NOT RELY ON ANY TESTS FOR LYME DISEASE. once you have had a tick embedded in you, and if no physical signs of lyme emerge within 24 hours, you have essentially two courses of action ... 1) antibiotics, or 2) homeopathy. the problem *I* have with antibiotics is the overuse of them and how as a result they can then fail you later on life when you really need them.
My friend who had the tick in them found it on a Friday morning after showering, by that by that afternoon symptoms were showing up. She was miserable Saturday, she uses homeopathy, and within a couple days was starting to have some relief from it. I have been passing along the information that everyone has been posting on here to try to help out.
Jason
Pavan.....ever been snipe hunting?
I started shaving them off years ago... just one quick swipe and they don't know what hit them ....no time to inject me I hope.
Any thoughts on that method Rob?
QuoteOriginally posted by Terry Green:
I started shaving them off years ago... just one quick swipe and they don't know what hit them ....no time to inject me I hope.
Any thoughts on that method Rob?
if embedded ticks are grabbed with fine tweezers below the body at at or above the head, that'd be the best course of action to prevent the flow of their body fluids to get into yer bloodstream.
swiping does work - i've used it in desperation when not prepared - but it's more of a gamble than using good tweezers that'll choke the buggers from reversing their blood sucking into a hypo going into their host (me, you, us).
I've had two deer ticks embedded in the last three years, both discovered within 48 hrs.in mid-March and cold as the North Pole. The only thing sticking out was their butt, unlike a dog tick bite. IMHO, anywhere I could have grabbed it would've squeezed body. I couldn't have gotten anywhere near the head unless I wanted to do the old snakebite X-cut...no thanks. My doctor had already told me to come in any time one was attached and let him remove it, which he did by basically prying it out with a sterile needle, so I have to believe he also favored the minimum disturbance approach. Having said that, there was no doubt in his mind or mine looking at that quarter sized purple bite area that I was already full of spirochetes, methylethylbads**t and God knows what else. I'll take a round of doxycycline every time, thank you very much, and if they build up a resistance to it I'll just have to pray they develop new ones. The bite area basically underwent necrosis as it healed, a lot like a poisonous spider bite, which I've also had the pleasure of experiencing. It still doesn't look right. Don't rely on the bullseye rash, lots of cases never have one. If you really want to be depressed, there an rare oldy making a comeback that'll make you wish you it was Lyme. Google Powassan Virus...no test, no cure, 15% of those infected and show symptoms are going to die and 50% of the rest will have permanent neurological damage....makes me want to go waller in the leaves!