Even the mightiest can be laid low by a tick

[Mesquite]

Interesting little read about RM

Clicky here

Mind you I don't think the advice at the very end of the same article in the Daily Mail is the correct way to remove ticks.

 

[Paul_B]

After the Antibiotics he was straight back to the gym. Perhaps that is the reason he became so big, he couuldn't do as much exercise due to Lymes desease!!

More seriuously the story over Lyme desease reminds me of another notifiable desease caused by a parasite. That is Weil's desease. Anyone heard of that? Basically its a parasite carried by rats and released by their urine IIRC. It is most likely to be contracted in either stangnant water or rivers after a spate or flood. Reason being the flood or spate has flushed out farms where rats are common into the rivers and the likes of Kayakers and canoeists contract it. Also if you work in the water supply industry you even get given a card with the risks and stating that you are a worker who is at risk of being exposed to this condition. Its so if you turn up really bad you get the treatment. Reason being that by the time you get youru test results back you could have really bad health conditions such as kidney failure with Weil's desease (leptospirosis). Treatment with Weil's desease, even suspected cases is to treat first with antubiotics then see from test results if the victim has it. The symptoms are cold / flu like symptoms hence they get ignored. I know a couple or people who got it. One was in a coma for 6 weeks and spent the best part of a year afterwards being unable to do anything strenuous.

Anyway I digress but both Lymes desease and Weil's desease are notifiable deseases in that anyone gets them their case is reported to the appropriate public agency. if you are in a risk activity you really should know about them. It is good RM is helping to publicise Lymes desease but how many of you know about both Lymes and Weil's desease??

 

[Bigfoot]

^

Would you believe the assistant manager of a Glasgow nightclub died from Weil's disease several years ago? The disease was linked back to the regular flooding that ocurred in the club (it was at basement level ) and apparently there was also regular rat activity.

 

[zeBarOOn]

Yikes.

I've never had a big typical looking tick before but I've had a few very small black insects on me. Does anybody have any experience of them?
They are very small and easily missed.

 

[HHazeldean]

I went to the New Forest for a weekend and I came back with 11 ticks on me in various places. Lucky I didn't catch anything really....

 

[ex member mick sturbs]

We get tics on Dartmoor obviously , and my black lab gets them quite often , there has been loads written about the right way to remove them , but what works for me and the dog is , wait untill the little blighter has gorged himself , sneak up on him with a lit cigarette , burn his bottom , swiftly pull him out as he relaxes his grip with the intense heat and pain, with tweezers, quite satisfying too . Not medical advice before i get slated , but me and the dog have always sorted tics with that method !!

 

[Tony]

Good article, make you think more about what you're up to and where you've going

 

[Ryan Woods]

We get tics on Dartmoor obviously , and my black lab gets them quite often , there has been loads written about the right way to remove them , but what works for me and the dog is , wait untill the little blighter has gorged himself , sneak up on him with a lit cigarette , burn his bottom , swiftly pull him out as he relaxes his grip with the intense heat and pain, with tweezers, quite satisfying too . Not medical advice before i get slated , but me and the dog have always sorted tics with that method !!

But due to the stress they may well spill their guts (and the bacteria) into you. Hence it is not advised on the Borrolosis website. But if it works for you so far...

 

[Ryan Woods]

After the Antibiotics he was straight back to the gym. Perhaps that is the reason he became so big, he couuldn't do as much exercise due to Lymes desease!!

More seriuously the story over Lyme desease reminds me of another notifiable desease caused by a parasite. That is Weil's desease. Anyone heard of that? Basically its a parasite carried by rats and released by their urine IIRC. It is most likely to be contracted in either stangnant water or rivers after a spate or flood. Reason being the flood or spate has flushed out farms where rats are common into the rivers and the likes of Kayakers and canoeists contract it. Also if you work in the water supply industry you even get given a card with the risks and stating that you are a worker who is at risk of being exposed to this condition. Its so if you turn up really bad you get the treatment. Reason being that by the time you get youru test results back you could have really bad health conditions such as kidney failure with Weil's desease (leptospirosis). Treatment with Weil's desease, even suspected cases is to treat first with antubiotics then see from test results if the victim has it. The symptoms are cold / flu like symptoms hence they get ignored. I know a couple or people who got it. One was in a coma for 6 weeks and spent the best part of a year afterwards being unable to do anything strenuous.

Anyway I digress but both Lymes desease and Weil's desease are notifiable deseases in that anyone gets them their case is reported to the appropriate public agency. if you are in a risk activity you really should know about them. It is good RM is helping to publicise Lymes desease but how many of you know about both Lymes and Weil's desease??

Good shout. My mate is an engineer on the subway and he carries a Weills card.

 

[resnikov]

We get tics on Dartmoor obviously , and my black lab gets them quite often , there has been loads written about the right way to remove them , but what works for me and the dog is , wait untill the little blighter has gorged himself , sneak up on him with a lit cigarette , burn his bottom , swiftly pull him out as he relaxes his grip with the intense heat and pain, with tweezers, quite satisfying too . Not medical advice before i get slated , but me and the dog have always sorted tics with that method !!

Its said that you shouldn't do that to a tick as it "vomits" into the bite as you burn it and this is how you get infected with what ever its carrying. Will find link to the article about this.

links

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68760
http://www.tickbitepreventionweek.org/

 

[Everything Mac]

Yikes.

I've never had a big typical looking tick before but I've had a few very small black insects on me. Does anybody have any experience of them?
They are very small and easily missed.

I've been bitten by them a couple of times.

You get into the habit of checking yourself at night/early morning. - though it is hard to check your back.

They are usually easy enough to spot. Just remove them with a tick tool and be sure to get the head.


I hate the horrible little buggers.

Andy

 

[alan whelan]

The ticks are very small when they attach at frist and grow quickly to the size of a pea and than fall off.
You need to ckeck your self after every trip to the woods.

 

[zeBarOOn]

Do you find that this affects the ground dwellers more? I guess ticks will stick to clothes and get into your hammock set up all the same?

 

[andybysea]

The two stages on tick that bite humans are the nymph,and adult,the nymph is very small about seasame seed maybe a tad smaller,and mid brown colour(in talking deer tick here) and hard to spot, i either use pale trousers when walking to my fav camp spot through the ferns and regularly check my self and have been lucky to find the in time,or the adult black legged deer tick easy to spot about size of a grain of rice,though slightly fatter,red body black legs, if im not wearing pale trousers,i use a dutch coverall covered in permethrin, once down through the ferns and on the beach off it comes with normal clothes underneath,its worked well keeping them at bay,alot of deer's here that use the cliff ferns for bedding down,so alot of ticks.

 

[zeBarOOn]

Ah well that explains it. I've only ever had those pesky little nymphs on me! I'm glad I got them off the same day. Thinking back, we were walking through alot of ferns to reach camp too...

 

[sakotrg]

I managed to pick up a tick once whilst stalking didn't notice it until the following day and it felt like a ripe spot on the back of my arm.
I picked it off as if it was a spot and only then noticed that it was a tick.
A few days later I was feeling rather unwell with flu like symptons and aching all over.
Went to the doctors and explained all that had happend and he wanted to wait for the target circle to appear prior to giving me any antibiotics when I pointed out that the circle doesn't always appear and that for the sake of a course of antibiotics it wouldn't hurt.
He reluctantly gave me the prescription and a few days later I felt a lot better.
There's a female lawyer in Edinburgh that has been crippled by a tick bite and is trying to raise the awareness of Lyme disease.

 

[Shewie]

I've been pretty lucky so far and only picked up a couple that I know of, some places up on the west coast of Scotland are infested with the little bleeders. Last year at Loch Sween we only had to sit down for a few minutes and we were covered in them, only the tiny little browny coloured ones though which are easily brushed off before they get settled.

So far my bug kit consists of ..

Silver Gripper Tweezers
O'tom Tic Twister
Tick Out
Permethrin Bug Spray
Deet spray (I don't really use this much as I'm still not convinced about Deet)
Beaton's Midge Jacket
Wilma's Nordic Summer (the best midge repellent going)

Paranoid ? Maybe, but I spend a lot of time up in Scotland during bug season and nine times out of ten I'm camped next to water too. To be honest the tic tools have never been used but I like to know they're there, I suppose once I've used each of them a few times I'll find out which is best and drop the other two. My hammock and underblankets are thoroughly sprayed with the permethrin and usually if I remember I'll do my trouser legs too. For most trips a bit of common sense prevails, tics don't jump but they sit in wait on long vegetation until their next meal comes walking by and then they grab on, if you plan on hacking your way through waist high bracken then you are going to get quite a lot of new friends. Obviously deer areas are usually rife with them, that nice bit of flattened down grass by the beach is going to give you trouble if there's lots of deer sign about. I think the trick is not to let them get in the way of an otherwise happy camp but take a few basic measures.

 

[Ryan Woods]

heard the same thing: my mate went to GP with all the signs bar the bull ring circle and the doctor only reluctantly gave him a week's of antibiotics... because mate said his hands were arthritic but the doctor argued that his hands weren't swollen....