Enjoying the outdoors? The ticks welcome you!

[troy]

Friendly PSA here. If you get bit by a tick and a week or 2 later, you start having symptoms similar to flu or dehydration, DO NOT MESS AROUND.

• Fever
• Headache
• Rash
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Stomach pain
• Muscle pain
• Lack of appetite

My brother-in-law almost died this week as he lay in a hospital bed without a diagnosis for 5 days before a 2nd infectious disease doctor finally suspected:

Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
https://www.cdc.gov/rmsf/index.html

Symptoms show up 1 to 2 weeks after bite. Within a few days of first symptoms, rash appears. If you don't get started on one of the very few antibiotics that are effective against RMSF within about 5 days of first symptoms, many survivors end up needing a toe, finger, limb amputated. If you don't get any treatment, you can die in about 8 days.

Similar tickborne disease is Ehrlichiosis. Similar symptoms and treatment.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-con ... c-20372142

Of course there is Lime Disease and that strange one that makes you allergic to red meat. Little bastards.

[ajayhawkfan]

Sorry to hear about your brother in law.

Ticks and the diseases they carry should not be treated lightly. A friend of mine from Bourbon County, KS has been fighting an unknown tick disease for about two years. It has incapacitated him at times where it was so bad he spend 9 days in the hospital a couple months ago. Over the two years he had spent over $60,000 in blood work!

I'm in the wood all the time. I'm a firm believer of Permethrin Insect Repellent Treatment for clothing. It keeps ticks at bay.

[safiri]

FYI: Ticks seem really bad this year. Not only I have I found a few from the suburbs (first I can remember), but a friend with a place at LOTO told me they are bad down there as well.

DEET bug repellant on your person (especially where clothing has openings or meets) and PERMETHRIN on clothing. DEET sprays will do some good on clothing. Much better than nothing.

And for another tick borne disease to worry about and encourage you to dose up on repellant: alpha-gal syndrome. Lone star ticks carry this one. I got one of those southern ticks in Grandview a month ago. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-con ... c-20428608 Basically you develop an allergy to all non-primate mammalian meat (and milk). So no beef, but monkey is fine. Just watch out for ebola. So far I don't have any symptoms of alpha-gal.

[Savage]

Cliff notes version: We got back from vacation, playing frisbee with my boy and dogs and they were "runnin' & gunnin" hard, that evening our puppy was limping, hurt back leg, next day it was swollen. Gave it a few days and he was walking using the back leg, day later it seemed like he was getting worse in all limbs. Swollen joints. Odd. Took him in, ran labs, they suspect tick born illness.
Gave him abx and NSAID. Got worse 2 days later. Took him back. Suspect tick born illness, "shin splints" and "growth spurt pains". He's just been laying around this week, we've been carrying him around, feeding and watering him in bed. Finally doing better today.
I was holding him in my lap on our driveway for about 10 minutes the other evening and I found a tick on me while showering. I was pissed! I hate them.
I used my new tick remover to get him out and used peroxide. Hopefully I'll be OK.

I bought some of that stuff Eddie stated he uses but I've never used it. After reading the warning label I was afraid I might be giving myself some neurological issue in 10 years.

[ajayhawkfan]

I bought some of that stuff Eddie stated he uses but I've never used it. After reading the warning label I was afraid I might be giving myself some neurological issue in 10 years.

I have been using it for almost 20 years, I'm not normal but don't believe that was the cause.