Ticks

[Treemonk]

Lymes can be fine if it is detected and treated early, if left untreated it can be horrendous, I know of 3 people who have had a lot of time off sick and still have serious health problems due to late-treated Lymes. One good friend ended up wheelchair-bound on oxygen until the doctors finally worked things out and started on some very heavy antobiotics.

Also, don't mess around with all the vaseline, cigarettes, white spirit, back of a knife rubbish - stressing or squashing the tick will make it vomit its stomach contents into you and this greatly increases the risk o f contracting Lymes. Get an Otom - they really are the best thing out there.

 

[Treemonk]

Oh, and I forgot, tick numbers are on the increase because of the milder winiters and swelling deer populations. Lymes carrying ticks also spreading through the regions too...

 

[andybysea]

<cough> Noted!

As for ticks,well im glad its cold at the mo,keeps them docile.

 

[Wayland]

<Cough>

Although as Gary says you can get them from most vets and many pet shops.

<Cough> Sorry Lurch <Cough> Didn't notice that. <Cough> <Cough>

 

[Toddy]

Didn't know you (cough) carried them; excellent

I always had to send folks to their vets before now since I couldn't find an on line link for them and they couldn't always find them, and some vets doubled the price too

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Lurch]

Yeah, but unless you need summat else postage sucks.
Still if vets are boosting their charges......

 

[the interceptor boy]

Hi guys,
i am not an expert but in the tropics Tick are everywhere, in the summer months, and when i was a boy we used petrol and wood ash to treat ticks, first you twist and pull up the tick(s), then you dab a bit of petrol and then follow by wood ash to stop bleeding if there is any, but do not stressed the tick as said before, if you are the woods you wont have all the medical help, so wood ash is the norm, also for treating blood sucking leeches in infested rivers around the world and temperate zones.
hope this help, or go the Pharmacy and buy yourself a kit, or your local doc/ vet.
i never had any problem with ticks, but a lot with leeches while fishing/ swimming/ or crossing a river. In Thailand ticks and leeches are a delicacy, so beware of them!
the interceptor boy.

 

[Toddy]

There's a charity trying to raise awareness of the issues of Lymes disease and the like, called BADA-UK

http://www.bada-uk.org/

They only recommend the use of the O'Tom tick remover. They do sell them to boost their funds and raise awareness of the issues. (no slight intended to Lakeland Bushcraft who get a sterling rep for both price and service)

This advert is full of information as is their site.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/OTOM-TICK-REM...14&_trkparms=72:1301|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Rod]

The risk of ticks is hugely exaggerated.

.....

I may have been lucky in my out door time, but to the best of my knowledge, I have never had a tick on me.

Simon

Blimey You are lucky. I have had 3 in the last two years: all caught "in good time" as they say. Is there much wildlife in your local woods?

 

[inthewids]

I had 6 this years so far, luckily have not picked any up in the last 3 or 4 months, i hate the feling when you find one, cringe!! I usually find them when quite small so hard to get out, i always twist them out by hand.

 

[Humpback]

Out of morbid interest. How long do they hang on when feeding and when full do they drop off or stay attached and wait for seconds?
Alan (who is sitting here feeling itchy!)

 

[Lurch]

(no slight intended to Lakeland Bushcraft who get a sterling rep for both price and service)

None took!

 

[andybysea]

They drop off when finished feeding, i think they can feed for hours,and once theyve fed they dont need to do again for awhile, just watched invasion of the bodyscrathers, this guy went out with a ''expert '' looking for them in -2 snowy conditions,just dragging a piece of cloth over a small area of mossy/heather ground in a woods they picked up 5 in a few minutes, then guy hosting the programme then put one on his arm and let it start to feed,then the ''expert'' took it off with tweezers,and managed to break off part of its jaws in the guys arm,which he then removed with the tip of a knife,luckily the guy getting bitten was on a preventive course of antibiotics. Just goes to show i was wrong thinking your pretty safe in the winter.

 

[hen]

on Exmoor (and Dartmoor) the ticks are horrendous. Spring and early summer, when the grass is high and their numbers are at their highest, being the absolute worse.

On the moors and in our fields we would have an uncountable amount crawling up each leg. Maddening. We would always end up spending a lot of our day checking for ticks. Like I said, it drove us a bit mental.

The worst was when we got in the tent and they were crawling up the door, all over the groundsheet, sleeping mat and bag. It means that we had to check ourselves evening and morning. Clearly we were bringing them in on our clothing but mostly, of course, our mutt.

My dog gets COVERED in them. Well, not now that she's off frontline and on advantix. I always have an Otom in my pocket and whip the ticks out when I spot them on her. When she was on frontline I was spending upwards of an hour removing ticks from her - everyday. Advantix stopped that, it kicks tick backside.

It makes you go insane. It makes me want to go home to my bed - and that makes me even more mad.

Thats why I spent most of the summer researching on the net everything I could about the little gets. I asked our vet for all of the information he could get hold of too.

The very worst thing you can do is make them empty the contents of their stomach into you. So dont squeze it, suffocate it or upset it in anyway. Gently twist it out then kill it. :AR15firin

From what I hear Lyme disease can be serious. You might not see the full effects of it straight away as it has the potential to show up when you get older. So, my advice would be not to take risks and check yourself everyday when you're out and about.

 

[John Fenna]

I hate ticks - and leeches - I have pretty well given up wearing shorts these days because of the little b*gg*rs!
I carry a pair of Tick tweezers in my FAK but have been known to remove ticks from hard to see places buy scraping them out with a fingernail - this started when an idle scratching of the neck removed the cause of the itch (a tick) intact and ready to kill.
I hate ticks!

 

[Joezilla]

Normally, the best thing to do to remove them, above all the twisting and everything else mentioned, is to grab as close to the skin as possible. This helps prevent the mouth parts from embedding into the skin. I don't use flames anymore either. One time I was in lab and took a tick and put a flame to it under a microscope. I watched it "evacuate" some fluids through the mouth as it squirmed. Nasty.

The saliva from a tick mixes with your blood to form a glue, so it isn't just the mandibles that you have to deal with.

 

[thewanderer]

if you use AFTERSHAVE on a tick especially when there are small they will un hook themselves s the dont like the alcohol but u can feel em riggle if no joy try tweezers grab and turn anti clockwise and gently pull should come right off done it many a time

 

[thewanderer]

used to be that parts of dartmoor were worse than others for ticks they used to be really bad round the gutter tor and cadover bridge area but some other places seemed to be very sparse

 

[thewanderer]

depending on the tick they will feed slowly over a couple of day period starting at the size of a pinhead slowly bloating to the size of a pea which is when ul see them on yer dog then theyl drop and not feed for a period depending on the regularity of food

 

[hen]

this is a picture of a red ring around a tick bite on my dog (the tick is still attached at this stage). I took the picture so we could show the vet.

The vet said a lot of stuff about how difficult it was to test for Lymes so early and that we should just put her on a course of antibiotics and wait and see if she develops arthritis in the next year. She hasn't developed it so far and this photo was taken at the beginning of this year. We have been taking preventative measures for arthritis by giving her cod liver oil everyday and not letting her do too much excercise all at once. That in itself would never prevent arthritis, just slow it down maybe.

The red ring may have been caused by an infection other than Lymes (just a dirty bite that got infected). We'll probably never know if it was Lyme Disease now.

Have any of you seen anything like this before?