I just got "Ticked"!

[gmack5]

I was sitting in my Computer room, minding my own business, when I felt a tickle on my leg (Wearing shorts) and I just reached down and felt a smalish "lump" on my thigh. I grabbed whatever it was and held it up so I could see what was crawling on my leg.

IT WAS A TICK! Yucko! I hate those things!

So tommorow it looks like I'll head into town and buy some kind of "Tick Spray" and souse my Computer Room.

With all the reports over the years about "Lyme Desease", I'm kind of concerned about them.

LOML got Lyme Desease several years ago, made her deathly ill, and if I tell her I found a tick in the house, she'll make me spray the whole darn house!

[JTimmons]

Oklahoma and ticks go hand and hand. They're going to bad this year too with the mild winter we had. Had a couple of them 2 years ago latch on to me, no health problems thank god, but the spot they sank into itched for about a month.

[just4funsies]

Spraying OUTSIDE your home will help with the problem inside... Also, if you're Googling for more info, try spelling the name "lyme" disease...

[mater]

I read the fleas,ticks and other insects would be worse this year because of the mild winter we had. I believe I would go ahead and spray the whole house especially if I spotted one. Like you I hate for those things to get on me.

[Mrs. Wallnut]

Since we have dogs we are constantly looking at the dogs and feeling around on them for ticks. We have found a few on the dogs. And we just us a flea and tick tube of medicine for the dogs. Put a couple of drops on the tick and then on the neck and by the tail and usually we dont ever see them again. And since the children play outside all the time in the summer we have shown them what a tick looks like and our daughter is the one that spotted a tick on the dogs ear last year, so she knows what they look like.

I don't like them either they are nasty little things and when they get a puffed up from eating it is worse. I can't even pull them out of the dogs when that happens we just use that flea and tick stuff on them and with in a day they are dead.

[Russianwolf]

The ones that carry Lyme are Deer Ticks and they are extremely small. The one you pulled off your leg most likely was a Dog Tick which are pretty harmless. You also likely picked him up outside and brought him in, so they haven't invaded your house.


Acouple notes from The American Lyme Disease Foundation Website. http://www.aldf.com/FAQ.asp

What species of ticks can transmit Lyme disease to humans?
The deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) in the eastern United States and its close relative the Western black-legged tick (Ixodes pacificus) on the Pacific Coast are the only tick species currently known to transmit the Lyme disease spirochete (a type of bacterium) to humans. Other tick species have been observed to harbor the spirochete but apparently cannot transmit it to their human hosts.

What does a deer tick look like?
The first thing to remember about deer ticks is that they come in three different sizes and color patterns, depending on which stage of their lifecycle you're looking at. Just as humans have successive life stages (e.g., child, adolescent, adult), a deer tick hatches from its egg as a light tan, translucent larva (about the size of a period in newsprint), molts into a blackish nymph (about the size of a poppy seed), and eventually molts a second time into a brick-red adult female (about the size of a sesame seed) or a black adult male (slightly smaller than the female). Improved photo images of the deer tick's three life stages and other species of ticks for comparison will soon be posted on this web site.

[germdoc]

I've had Lyme disease, no big shakes. I'm pretty used to ticks--my kids ask me to pull them off the dog, and I tell them, leave them alone, they'll get full and fall off. Just look for legs on any plump raisins you pick up from the carpet before you pop it in your mouth.

I will say that being an amateur guitarist and having long fingernails on my right hand sort of makes me the master tick-remover of the family.

[Bruce Cohen]

Just be happy you're not in NY, we're experiencing a rahs (no pun intended) of bed bugs, mainly from people staying in hotels and bringing them home.

Double Yucch

Bruce

[billwmeyer]

It is odd how the timing of some threads work out. My wife had a sore that wasn't healing, and Thursday morning there was a perfect ring of dots around it. She also had a rash on her side. The doctor said lyme disease. It was caught early and will she will be antibiotics for awhile. She was tired over the weekend, but that symptom has now disappeared. We are not supposed to have deer ticks around here, and the type of tick here is supposed to carry a milder form of the disease.
Bill

[germdoc]

Bill,

I can tell you with some certainty your wife didn't have Lyme disease, unless she traveled to another part of the country recently. Here's a map of LD distribution:



There is a similar disease called STARI thought to be transmitted by the Lone Star tick (see below) that causes a rash but not much else in the midportion of the country. (See http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/stari/index.htm)



We live in one of the highest incidence areas of LD in the country--over 300 cases per year in our county of 100,000. We see a TON of LD. During the summer months I will often see 3-4 cases a day. Interestingly, in my observation the anxiety about LD is often higher in places that don't actually have LD than in those that do.

Fascinating germs, fascinating critters.

[billwmeyer]

Germdoc,

Thanks for the info. I live in extreme Southeast Kansas, and I notice that though nothing is noted in my county, the Missouri counties across the state line have noted incidences. My wife is currently being treated as having Lyme disease with antibiotics, if it is by chance STARI, would the treatment be the same? She has a follow up appointment in about a week. I really appreciate your reply.
Bill

[germdoc]

Treatment is the same with doxycycline.

[mdutch]

Yeah, I've heard of that Lyme disease. Down here in Texas, we mostly get what we call Lime disease.

Symptoms are usually a headache, nausea, and lethargy brought on by too many margaritas at the lake yesterday....

[billwmeyer]

Germdoc:

That is what she is taking. Thanks!!

Bill

[Joe Lyddon]

AKA Debugging your computer... room!