ticks at festivals....

[pops1]

I live in So Cal and never saw a tick until I took a walk in the woods once in North Carolina. It was way up on my back and I was convinced it had dropped on me from a tree. While we don't seem to have many ticks here, we do have black widows in nearly every corner.

If it dropped from a tree is most likely a wood tick, they swell up with blood, but they don't carry lyme disease. I'ts the tiny deer tick that burrows in to lay eggs that you need to worry about. They can be so tiny they are smaller than the head of a pin and when you pull one out it will be very sore for several days.

[lenf12]

This thread is giving me the creeps...

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[Bertram Henze]

Thanks all for pointing out to me how healthy the dark and dusty bar rooms are that I play in ...

[pops1]

It just keeps getting better doesn't it.

[keithb]

If it dropped from a tree is most likely a wood tick, they swell up with blood, but they don't carry lyme disease. I'ts the tiny deer tick that burrows in to lay eggs that you need to worry about. They can be so tiny they are smaller than the head of a pin and when you pull one out it will be very sore for several days.

Before anyone gets too excited, deer ticks don't lay eggs inside the bite, they just need food to make the eggs

[lenf12]

Food, as in blood, full of nutrients. Ticks, full of bacteria to infect you and with a ravenous appetite. Ticks and spiders and snakes, oh my!!! OK, I'm totally creeped out now...

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[Russ Donahue]

One of my younger aunts had "tick fever" (that was what their doctor called it) back in the 1930s. She was a child and it messed her up pretty bad. Some of it never did clear up, like the arthritis (at 5 years of age, not normal for a child to suddenly develop arthritis in multiple joints).

All these years I had mistakenly assumed that "tick fever" and "Lyme disease" were the same thing, but according to ehow.com they're two different things, although both caused by things that ticks transmit via bites. If I've read this stuff correctly, the page claims that Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria so antibiotics are effective against it, whereas it says that "tick fever" is caused by a virus - if that's true then antibiotics wouldn't work, because antibiotics don't kill viruses (also here). Ok so anti-viral then, but oh wait this page claims that antiviral drugs are targeted to specific viruses, I don't see tick viruses listed there (although that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, maybe I just didn't research it enough).

More reasons to use bug-repellent etc: chronic Lyme disease. Chronic means you're stuck with it for life so you might as well get used to it. Among the possible symptoms:



Even (or perhaps especially) nowadays, I can see the potential for something like that to not be treated in time and become chronic, given that (for a variety of reasons) people sometimes put off going to doctors for anything less than some obviously-emergency thing.

Prevention sounds like a very good idea. Other people above have posted good ideas as to prevention.

I caught Lyme here in Maine three years ago. Came down with symptoms - including an enormous red bulls eye around the bite site - within a week and spent about 8 weeks recovering. Think bad flu with aches, pains and severe fatigue. Though the medicine took care of the major aspects I suffered a a significant loss of taste and smell. Others I know haven't been as lucky with muscle and other neurological issues lingering on for years now. If you are coming to the East coast and will be in woods or fields for a festival, assume there are ticks carrying Lyme and dress/prepare accordingly. Those of you in areas unaffected by Lyme are lucky...

[Charles E.]

I picked up a tick at the beach in North Carolina over Christmas! We have been having unusually warm weather, not cold enough to kill the little buggers.

[Salmon Man]

A few words, as I've learned more about this than I wish I had (for the right and wrong reasons). First, to the OP, central and upstate NY has an enormous problem with Lyme Disease. I'm a veterinarian and have seen stats on vet clinics in the central Hudson valley showing that over 50% of dogs in some areas, at any one time, test positive for Lyme Disease. This is on the same antigen test that most human Lyme sufferers usually test negative on. Lack of accurate testing in people has allowed a large fraction of the medical community to completely discount the existence of chronic Lyme Disease. It can be hard to get treatment for LD. Not everyone affected gets a bulls-eye rash and sometimes, the rash occurs in a place where it's not seen. If not treated within weeks, the disease can become permanent and can set off auto-immune hell. Avoid tick bites as much as possible and get treatment early if you suspect Lyme Disease.

[Lord of the Badgers]

If it's red as you say, better safe and to the doctors for Lyme test

[pops1]

If it's red as you say, better safe and to the doctors for Lyme test

Too many tests come back wrong, I have antibiotics on hand so if I get a bite I can take them right away and kill it while it's easy to kill.

[Steve Ostrander]

Last summer I was working on an archaeological dig in the UP of Michigan and I picked up a couple of wood ticks. I think that Lyme disease is transmitted by deer ticks but they all give me the creeps.

When I was a kid I was swimming and picked up a leech. Yikes!

[bingoccc]

Lyme is just one of the risks. Beware of these little beasties. http://www.cdc.gov/ticks/diseases/

[sturob]

I guess coming from the southern US I'm more afraid of bedbugs in the hotels than I am about ticks/chiggers from the outdoors. Although ticks can carry nasty diseases, at least bringing one home doesn't mean you'll be burning your bedding (or whatever) to try to get rid of the bedbugs.

There aren't any specific treatments for viral tick-borne diseases, but there is effective treatment for Lyme disease. Lyme disease usually has a very, very characteristic rash called "erythema migrans" that looks like a bullseye. Someone mentioned a relative who suffered long-term effects from "tick fever;" if I remember correctly both viral tick diseases and Lyme disease can have long-term sequelae ranging from joint pain to cognitive deficits.

Someone else has mentioned that bug spray can mar the finish on a guitar or mando. For the purpose of ticks, it's probably enough to spray your ankles/shoes and lower pant legs if you're wearing pants. That's what I do in tick/chigger areas and haven't pulled off a tick in years.

Gosh, all this tick-talk brings back so many childhood memories. Campho-Penique, if that even still exists, was a favorite method of getting ticks to disengage. I can still smell the camphor.

Maybe that's why I've had Lyme disease.

Stuart

[pops1]

You may not get a rash but still get Lyme disease and it can travel to anywhere in the body. They are like little corkscrews that can infect (with time) any part of your body.

Are we having fun yet.

[KEB]

Perhaps living in a cement city they may not be an issue. Personally, I would rather be on alert for ticks than live in a cement city.
- - - Updated - - -

Got a new verse or two for Dark Hollow I'm working on

I'd rather be in a cement city
where the ticks refuse to bite
Than lyin' in a hospital full of pity
with a nasty case of Lymes

I'd rather be pickin' bluegrass
In a field or old race track
than pulling a tick off my [ear]
and another off your back.

Hmm... maybe I'm not destined to be another Joe Newbery.

[Tobin]

Gosh, all this tick-talk brings back so many childhood memories. Campho-Penique, if that even still exists, was a favorite method of getting ticks to disengage. I can still smell the camphor.

The method my folks used is a cigarette lighter or match. Holding it next to the tick will cause them to disengage, and then they can be safely removed. Or that's how I remember it anyway. It's been a long time since I had a tick. I'm not sure how I'd feel about doing that today, especially in the more sensitive areas where ticks like to hide. That could go bad real quick-like.

Whatever method you use, don't ever just grab the tick and pull it off! Their head will break off and stay stuck in your skin.

[bingoccc]

What I've learned is that any trauma to the tick's body, when its head is in you, can cause it to vomit. This is like injecting the bad stuff into your body on purpose. Don't burn it or squeeze the body. There are cheap devices out there (I've something called a tick key on my key chain) that can do this. Tweezers, used very carefully at its head, can too. Having to get the head out after may be a better option than causing the tick's stomach contents to inject into your blood stream.

[Isaac Revard]

Wear long sleeves, boots and pants. A few squirts of 100% deet on your favorite hat, neck and other exposed areas and you're good to go. Worked in ranger school, it will work at any festival....guaranteed.

[mrmando]

"What can I say? I like bluegrass too!"

[Hany Hayek]

Interesting discussion for a mandolin Cafe .
Here is what I found on google posted on science magazine 6 hours ago:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/...ll-us-counties
I live in Egypt. I saw 2 ticks in my 44 years. One when I was around 10 years old, my grandma took it off our turtle leg. The turtle was coming from Algeria smuggle in the plane
The second on I saw was on a friends dog. He took it off and it started digging into his own finger, he had to burn it with a lighter.

[pops1]

There is a tool we get from the vet that looks like a tiny crow bar that you slide onto the tick but you don't pry it off, instead you twist and it twists right out. Really slick and doesn't cause the tick to vomit. If you think you will be in tick country these are cheap and the best way I have found to relieve yourself the this pest.

[mrmando]

Weird. I read this thread and then the next thing I know, my son has found a tick on one of our chickens.

Going to go read the Powerball thread now.