Best way to not get ticks

so I was in the woods hunting all weekend. I was at work yesterday and I sat down on the toilet bowl and I saw a black dot on my inner thigh. I looked closer and it was a BIG A** TICK. I got a little freaked out so I tried to pull him out right away with my fingers. His mouthparts were in me good as I had to pull REAL HARD to get him out of there.

Some of his mouthparts are still in me and I have a small bulls-eye rash in the area.

My sister has lyme disease and I don't want to get it. What is the best way to prevent ticks while hunting?

I bought a can of OFF bugg repellent but I was concerned that the deer would smell it when I'm in the woods.

any thoughts?

 

I don't have insurance anymore, so I've got to be real careful of Lyme disease also. I usually strip down as soon as I get back to my truck and put on new clothes.

You better get that bullseye checked. next time don't pull it out! Light a match, blow it out and put the still hot match head on the tick, he will let go and walk out of you.

 

tuck it in

do your best to tuck your pants in your boots wear skeeter netting over you head or a boonie hat.

 

DON'T DO THAT!!

Remove ticks with tweezers, by grasping the tick where it imbeds the skin. This is the only sound method to remove a tick.

The match method, or the vaseline/grease method (suffocates the tick), usually causes the insect to puke back a tiny bit into you before they back out or die. Not only do you run the risk of Lyme Disease, you run the risk of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, as well as other nasties. Also, don't crush the tick between your fingers, as you then have just placed any infection you avoided on your finger tips.

Have the rash checked, as it probably wasn't Lyme if it was as you say a big A**ed tick, but could be another infection. Lyme is transmitted by the teeny tiny deer tick, and usually takes from 24-36 hours for infection. So if you check in the morning and the night, about twelve hours apart, you should find the ticks before you have problems.

My diet contains lots of B-Vitamins, Garlic, and vinegar (energy drinks, salad dressings, and pickles). I use apple cider vinegar for the salad dressings, and also take a dose of cider vinegar prior to going into the woods. Seems I don't taste too good to skeeters and ticks. Haven't had a mosquito bite in several years, and only one tick so far this year.

LD

 

Yes you need to get that checked out now. That bullseye is usually one of the first signs of Lyme. HOWEVER... I am living proof that you dont always get the bullseye. I to have lyme and it FREAKIN SUX. If the tick is carrying lyme, once it bites you, you too have it. PEOPLE, you should use repellant AND do everything else to prevent tick bites.

If you end up with odd symptoms that maybe the doctors cant even figure out, GET CHECKED for Lyme. Two of the symptoms I have are commonly mistaken for arthritis and goute. If you are diagnosed with either of these it would be smart to get tested for Lyme just to be safe.

I faught this for 8 months before I was tested. I can only pray that was soon enough to beat it. One Dr told me it was Gout, another said an allergic reation.
One more said Lupus. I was at the Dr office and in the ERs every couple of weeks for 3 months before I finally convinced one to test me for Lyme. I then took 28 days of meds. I got better. That is untill about 3 weeks ago. The symptoms have come back and I gotta go back to the Dr for more meds.

It would be worth everyones time to Google LYME. But understand that the symptoms are not limited to what is on the web sites.

 

Dave is correct. The deer tick is the carrier of Lyme and is about the size of a sesame seed and not all deer ticks carry LD. The "bullseye" rash of LD will usually spread and may get quite large. If your rash is just localized inflamation it will probably not get bigger than a quarter and go away in a few days. You probably had a common wood tick.

 

OH YEAH....one trick to remove the tick. With tweezers, grab as close to the head as you can. Slightly lift the body and twist it 180deg. This will LOCK the head to the body....then pull. The joint between the body and head of a tick is like cam lock and must be twisted to lock it in place. Less of a chance of loosing the head.

 

To prevent ticks on my dogs I sprinkle garlic powder on their food. Before I started doing this I was getting a few ticks off of them every night. after I started this, I only pulled 2 in 4 months.

 

"To prevent ticks on my dogs I sprinkle garlic powder on their food. Before I started doing this I was getting a few ticks off of them every night. after I started this, I only pulled 2 in 4 months."

Works well for humans too. For many years i have been taking an odorless garlic capsule every day. Have found ticks that have fallen on on my clothing but no tick has ever dug into me.

 

Where do you find these?

 

Umm...

road hunt?

greg

 

"Where do you find these?"

Odorless garlic capsules can be found at any drug store. The brand i am currently using is Spring Valley.

 

Spray your boots and clothing with peremethrin spray. Before you put them on.

 

How to avoid ticks? Don't do this:



pax

 

Definitely be checked for Lyme Desease. Also, in your neck of the woods there, another WAY more deadly (yes, it can kill) cousin of Lyme exists. It's called erliciosis (SP?). It quite often goes completely undiagnosed because little to nothing is known of it. The first cases weren't really truely known until about 10 years ago I think. I know a guy who contracted this from a tick bite in New York state somewhere. It is not pretty.

 

The best advice is to avoid tall grass, tuck in pant legs, and strip and check for ticks as soon as you get home. If you remove the tick quickly (with tweezers, not by burning or suffocation) your risk of getting lyme disease is greatly reduced.

Lyme disease is named for Lyme CT. Rumor has it that the bacteria somehow got from Plum Island to the CT shore and started this whole mess. Plum island is where the gov't stores (they say they don't anymore, but who knows) biological weapons/disease (ex. bubonic plague, anthrax, etc.) The rumor is that the Lyme disease bacteria was engineered to be antibiotic resistant, but that's heresay as well.

Plum Island does have excellent bluefish and striped bass fishing, but it creeps me out a little everytime I fish there. Something about armed guards watching you with binoculars....even the nuclear power plant doesn't do that.

Ok, my story and rumor spreading is over for now.

 

Nah, too early... and a lot of the antibiotics weren't even invented yet (of course if you're an Amurrican, you can't get antibiotics that were invented 30 years ago, like roxithromycin.. unless you order them on the Internet ). (Plum Island was a real scandal, just don't overestimate the abilities of 1960s biology )

Anyway, the best way to remove ticks: Import fire ants, wait 20 years, and there's hardly any ticks (or anything else) left alive!

 

Garlic is for wimps. I found that chemotherapy works. Heck, even the mosquito's wouldn't land on me this year.

 

garlic pills really work?

 

There's stuff you can spray on your clothes - "Coulston" or "Duranon" are the brands I seem to recall - that repel ticks. I believe the active ingredient is permethrin.

I've used it on my clothes both in the USA and in Africa, where they have "tick fever" . . . so far, I've avoided both that and Lyme disease.

 

permethrin works, I talked to a few guys from the national guard who discovered this spray a few years ago and tried it myself, it's fantastic. If you are a spring turkey hunter or an early season deer hunter it's a must have.

 

In NY I hiked in the Adirondacks every weekend for years and never saw a tick. I moved to Kansas and this place is loaded with them. We have a couple of dogs and during the summer I'll pull one or two off them every day. We treat them with Frontline so the ones I miss die within 24 hours. The best thing I have used to remove ticks is a little plastic crowbar made just for that purpose. They come in a two pack for about $5 so you get a small one and a large one for engorged ticks. You just slip it under their body, give it a twist and pull them out. Unlike tweezers it doesn't compress the tick's abdomen so there is less chance of squeezing nasty stuff out of the tick and into you. They have pictures of how to use it at their site.

http://www.otom.com/


There is another site selling the same thing rebranded as the Tick Twister. They have a video of it in action at http://www.gandbmarketing.com/ticktwister.htm

I'm guessing the crazy Kansas tick population is probably related to the rabbit population which is high enough that the season runs from Jan 1 to Dec 31 with a daily limit of 10.

 

wow, that lil plastic crowbar looks like a great idea

 

If I lived in Kansas I would be sick of eating rabbit.

 

I've always heard that wearing panty hose will keep the ticks off. Okay, no, I never tried it, let's get that out of the way right now. I would imagine, though, that Dennis Rodman might not have a lot of problems with ticks.

I don't see the numbers of ticks down here that we had where I grew up back in the woods. Hogs get 'em, always seeing 'em when I skin a hog. Deer get 'em, too. I just don't seem to get 'em for some reason. Maybe I taste bad or there's too much vinyl chloride in my blood (30 years in chemical plants) or something.