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how many ticks have you gotten this year?

 

I haven't gotten one since I was a child, but I'm thinking it will be the end of that trend soon.

I just found one dug in between my ring and middle finger. Must have gotten it the day before. My entire hand is swollen really sore. Hate them little buggars :unsure:

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Have had several on me so far this year. Have had a total of 4 dug in deep in the last 2 weeks (2 big, 2 little). Makes me really nervous--my mom always warned me about Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. I've never known anyone that had it--how about you guys? Is there anything (ie:spray, etc.?) that will help keep them off? I use sportsman spray that contains 40% DEET---thinking I'm going to try the max edition that contains 100% DEET.

 

Just so you know, I'm in North Carolina--home of GeoWoodstock 5 so if anyone is headed out this way for that event, be prepared for ticks!

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Ticks are something we have to deal with when going off pavement around here and i've already had to remove my fair shair of them this year. I know of some areas nearby where you get covered in them, depending on the time of the year you go out. Theres always that thought about disease in the back of my head but for the most part, they are more of a nuisance than anything.

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I was also curious about DEET use with ticks. I've heard a number of various claims about the effectiveness or lack thereof...here is some info. I found that may be useful:

 

DEET and ticks: DEET will repel ticks and decrease the chances of tick bite, but depending upon the concentration, it may not provide total protection against I. scapularis. Little is known about the effectiveness of different concentrations of DEET against I. scapularis. Concentrations of DEET that might prevent tick attachment may not deter a tick from walking across the skin to unexposed and untreated areas. When applied to clothes, 30% and 20% DEET was found to be 92% and 86% effective against I. scapularis (deer ticks), respectively, but skin applications were reported to be only 75 to 87% effective against crawling ticks in a second study. For blacklegged (deer) ticks, DEET concentrations around 30 to 40% probably should be used, although the effectiveness of higher (>50%) and lower (<20%) concentrations against I. scapularis needs to be examined more closely. When applying a repellent against ticks, particular attention should be given to the shoe tops, socks, and lower portion of pants.

 

Permethrin: Several products contain 0.5% permethrin (e.g. Duranon Tick Repellent, Repel Permanone, Cutter Outdoorsman Gear Guard, Permethrin Tick Repellent), which is for use only on clothing or other fabrics such as mosquito netting or tents. A synthetic pyrethroid insecticide rather than a true repellent, permethrin works primarily by killing ticks on contact with the clothes and can provide high levels of protection against tick bites (and mosquitoes). Permethrin is available as a 0.5% aerosol spray, mainly in lawn and garden centers or sports stores. Permethrin has low mammalian toxicity, is poorly absorbed through the skin and is rapidly inactivated by the body. Skin reactions have been uncommon.

 

Source: http://www.dph.state.ct.us/BCH/infectiousd...T%20and%20ticks

 

*edit*

 

One thing we do that we believe helps is to also spray around the bottom portion of the vehicle when we arrive. I don't know that there is 100% protection, but we have fairly good success avoiding ticks.

Edited by egami
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How about sharing all the tried and true ways of getting them off after they have dug in,,,,or even the ones that did'nt work so good. I heated a strait pin up with a match. Touch the little guy on the butt to make him pull out,,guess I held it there to long cuz I just killed it,,,,,,, :unsure:

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How about sharing all the tried and true ways of getting them off after they have dug in,,,,or even the ones that did'nt work so good. I heated a strait pin up with a match. Touch the little guy on the butt to make him pull out,,guess I held it there to long cuz I just killed it,,,,,,, :unsure:

 

I've never had a problem working them out with my fingers...would be interesting to hear others feedback on that aspect for sure though.

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How about sharing all the tried and true ways of getting them off after they have dug in,,,,or even the ones that did'nt work so good. I heated a strait pin up with a match. Touch the little guy on the butt to make him pull out,,guess I held it there to long cuz I just killed it,,,,,,, :unsure:

Yeah, don't do that. All you'll accomplish is making the tick throw up some of his contents into your bloodstream.

 

The only way to get them out is to pull them straight out, without squeezing them (and pushing the contents of the tick into your bloodstream). This is easier to do with a credit card that has a slot cut into the corner so you can get under the tick's body and pull it out.

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You need to be very careful removing ticks because if you heat them with a pin, or the hot head of a match, or if you squeeze them with tweezers or with your fingernails, they will regurgitate. If the tick is infected with Lyme disease, or any of several other parasitic infections, you are much more likely to get infected. :unsure:

 

There are pictures of the different types of ticks and lots of good information about ticks, the possible infections, symptoms, treatments, as well as the disturbing "politics" of Lyme disease on the Lymenet site.

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I think PolskiKrol or I probably holds the record so far!! We started out on a trail and ended up on what we concluded was a deer trail, and a poor one at that, narrow with low hanging branches... by the time we realized we didn't want to be there it was too late to turn back..."I kept saying, the cache isn't worth this, I'm NOT having fun!" but onward we pushed. Every time we hit a little clearing, we picked 20 or so ticks off of each of us. Thats not even an exaggeration. When we finally got to the cache, it was on a dirt road. DOH, we took the road back to the car....

 

This morning when I was getting ready for work, I found a tick on my ankle. I think he came off of my sock, can they survive the washer...AND the dryer?! A few weeks ago one bit me... I got antibiotics immediately. While lyme disease is rare, it's not a risk I'm willing to take. Know someone who had it for a loooong time and didn't know; it's not something I'd want to deal with. The bulls eye doesn't always occur and the tests are unreliable. It's better safe than sorry, if you've been bitten, get antibiotics.

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We usually just scrape them out with our fingers and on rare occasions use tweezers. The last time we had to pull out tweezers was when our nine year old had one embedded in her lower eyelid at the lash line. We had been camping and one attached while we were asleep. She was a cool customer and didn't freak out at all.

 

When we are in the field and pull them off, we usually attach them to tape. As soon as we get to a trash can, we roll the tape up and dispose of it.

07b39113-0d90-49c5-b99f-3836c00d09e2.jpg

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By the way the day we got 20 ticks apiece on multiple occasions, we were down in South Jersey.. In Lebanon.. Don't see as many up here, or as big a variety..

So. Jersey has 'em by the bucket load and in all varieties. That picture of ticks on tape was from a .1 hike towards a cache! They have a mosquito control comission down here and really need a tick control commission, too!

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Have pulled over over 20 from pants legs and shirts.

 

I must have missed one, cause I found one still attached and engorged a couple of days later. Yuck.

 

I am taking the antibiotics just in case. I started to have a low grade fever a week later, so the doctor said better safe than sorry.

 

The good thing to remember is that only a very small percentage of all ticks carry Lyme Disease. And for transmission, the tick needs to remain attached for 24+ hours.

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The percentage of ticks infected with Lyme disease, or other parasites, depends on the location. In some parts of the country, as many as 60% of the ticks have been found to be infected. In other parts of the country, the percentage is very low, as you state.

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We have pulled a good couple dozen off of us. The ticks are just WAY to numerous this year...and me being scared of anything that resembles a bug, am NOT happy about it.

 

Our record though, is from our 18 month old dog. I noticed she was COVERED in them the other day, and stopped counting at 50 as I was removing them. After a long bath, I continued to pull them off, resulting in another 25 before the night was over.

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I was out grabbing a few caches on Angel Island last weekend and at this one cache I picked up 5 or 6 on my legs. I brushed them off before they could embed in my skin. That was the first time I have encountered them in the field, but I am always on the lookout!

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Never had a tick in my entire life... then a couple weeks ago I was helping a friend place a cache and we were walking up this overgrown fire road and ran into a lady with her dog. We asked about the accessibility of the road and she said it was public, but to watch out for ticks :laughing: ... I gulped and looked down to find 7 or 8 of them on my pants legs and promptly freaked out :laughing: . Good thing my caching buddy is an old hand when it comes to ticks. He had to talk me down.

 

DCC

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Permethrin does work, at least for me that is. Also excellent for keeping Chigrers off too. But what I use may seem a little harsh for some of you folks. I go to my local feed store and buy the kind they use on cattle. Just dulute it down with water like the directions say (I think it's something like 19 to 1) then put it in a spray bottle and spray your clothes with it.

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Permethrin does work, at least for me that is. Also excellent for keeping Chigrers off too. But what I use may seem a little harsh for some of you folks. I go to my local feed store and buy the kind they use on cattle. Just dulute it down with water like the directions say (I think it's something like 19 to 1) then put it in a spray bottle and spray your clothes with it.

 

I looked at some of that today (going camping later) and every kind I saw said not safe to use on humans.

 

made me think a few bites might be less harmful.

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one on my neck while caching, one on my shirt and one on my arm while camping. None dug in, just crawling around.

 

hate those things! creep me out. Found a couple on the dogs too, the Frontline does a great job at killing them/keeping them away.

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My Brother, Youngest & did I GCYHEC and they were bad.

Even after sweeping and picking them off our pants, socks, shoes, arms Etc. , Piglet III ended up with 15 embedded.

My wife was less than please when she had to pull 2 off of herself.

Me? None. :blink:

PP

Edited by pigpen4x4
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anyone have any experience with "natural" repellents?

 

I was looking for fly repellent in the pet department at walmart, and found a spray with peppermint oil, cinnamon oil, lemon grass oil, clove oil, thyme oil which supposedly repels ticks and mosquitos. Some stuff on the internets say it's effective, some say it's not. I figure it's worth a shot anyway.

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I actually am up to about 10 for the year. I actually had some on me in early March when there was still snow on the ground. Think it will be a long summer.

 

The most I ever had on me at one time was around 50. I had my dog with me and I pulled a probably the same amount off him. I gave him a bath and still was pulling them off for 4 days. I have had him vaccinated luckily. I guess I hit a nest or something.

 

Regarding the removal I am not sure if this works or not but... I was told when I was younger that they breath through there "skin" and that if you cover them in Vaseline that they was back themselves out to breath. Never had one embedded enough to have to give it a try.

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not sure i could handle leaving one embedded long enough for vaseline to work.

 

i went out with some friends the other day and upon getting back to the cars, they must have had 10+ collectivley. apparently ticks are attracted to C02 ( what you, and animals, breathe out)...as i am a smoker, we figured that cigarette smoke maybe repelled them? we figure the smoke was a noxious to them as every other non-smoker. haha, im not condoning smoking, but well...ticks ARE gross.

 

credit card idea is a good one.

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They have Front Line for dogs and cats and this seems to work really well. We should be able to get something similar for cachers. Actually asked my vet about if I could wear a flea and tick collar on myself when caching. Didn't get a real good response from him. Mostly he spent his time asking me if I needed to speak to a shrink.

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I found three so far on my clothes. One down by the river, one in the grass, and a tiny one from the lawn at a truck stop.

 

I have a policy, if they get on my clothes, I catch and release, if they get on my skin...they're dead.

 

By the way, thanks alot. I'm sitting in the library, but now I have the Heebie Jeebies

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I hope you'll put up with a newbie to the forum putting his two cents in, but I'm a paramedic, wilderness medic and backpacker. Dealt with a whole bunch of ticks.

 

I generally don't think much of single purpose gear, as everything is another piece of weight that has to be lugged around. However, I do carry a pro tick remover, a little compression tweezer thing that you slip under the body of the tick. A (rather drunken) discussion with an epidemiologist around a campsite one night convinced me that this was the best way to remove embedded ticks with the least risk of squeezing them so they puke their guts into you or leaving pieces embedded.

 

Sorry about the crappy pic - my camera's dead, and I'm using the cell phone.

 

ticktweeze.jpg

 

Better pic and more info here;

http://www.scs-mall.com/tick-removers/prod...p?number=PTRC2M

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how many ticks have you gotten this year?

 

I haven't gotten one since I was a child, but I'm thinking it will be the end of that trend soon.

 

None yet, but came back from a camping/caching weekend last summer with 5 ticks on me. Blech. Pretty sure one of them gave me a minor case of a tick disease, as a couple of weeks later I got a strange rash.

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Normally I'll find one tick per season or so... and rarely is it embedded.

 

I've been on hikes where other people come out with 10 ticks or more and I don't have a single one.

 

Well... my streak was broken this weekend. Went on a cache hunt, a nice easy stroll down a well defined path, then about 120 feet into the tree line. During the hike back to the car (maybe 1/3 mile) I probably knocked closed to 30 ticks off my pants.

 

When I got home, I immediately wen to the bathroom and stripped down. I found an additional 15 ticks crawling around my clothing. Coming out of the seams and the pockets. I found 3 ticks that had embedded already... and later that night I woke up when I felt two more crawling on my back. So my total for that day was 20 ticks on me at home and about 30 that I knocked off in the woods... 50 ticks, that's more than I've had the rest of my life combined.

 

However... as I understand it (and I don't know the story), basketladybee (I think I got that name right) was hospitalized last summer due to the sheer number of ticks she had on her from one cache hunt.

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I work with a woman who got Lyme disease from a tick about 10 years ago - she still suffers greatly from it. My geocaching has slowed down quite a lot since I found a bunch of ticks on me 2 years ago... I am too scared of Lyme disease. Especially in Long Island, NY - there is a very high rate of Lyme disease here.

Edited by Team Thompson
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