Ticks and Safety

Putting this thread here , but fishermen and hunters need to be aware.

Some think it is not a big deal; you might get Lyme disease, but it will pass. Not always so.

Sometimes (often?) the affects of Lyme disease can last for years.

Be cautious. Wear long pants and a long sheaved shirt. Tie off that shirt at the cuffs with an elastic or..
Pull your socks up over your pants.

Ticks often crawl up you body and go down your neck. What should we do about that?

Be safe.

https://www.ontarioparks.com/parksbl...lf-from-ticks/

https://www.everydayhealth.com/lyme-...-lyme-disease/

Some tips for self assessment:

Two of the benchmarks of lyme detections are the tick bite and the bullseye rash.
- the first time I had lyme, to my knowledge, I had never been bitten by a tick
- neither the first or second time did I develop a bullseye rash

So don't use the absence of these to discount the possibility of lyme.

Other symptoms:
- weight loss - I've always been weight concious - so I notice. I lost about 10 lbs each time I had lyme.
- irregular heart beat - missing heart beats - you should notice this as a flash of light-headedness - or if you try to take your pulse
- numbness in fingers
- cognitive awareness - I noticed this a few times - when I'm in the bush in an area I'm familiar with and I come across something I should recognize instantly - a road, a rock, a clearing - but don't, or when I'm travelling and am somewhere that should be familiar and I don't remember where anything is.
- headaches and neck pains
- severe shoulder pains
- severe hip and SI joint pains

Those are my observations based on having had lyme twice. You can have other symptoms - there are several sources of online check lists.

Here are some OOD news stories and columns on ticks, too, over the years: https://oodmag.com/?s=tick

Thanks Meghan.

Last year was a bugger for ticks for me. Partly because they were worse than usual (I think), but more so to me spending a lot more time in the bush working with a new dog. I got 6 tick bytes last fall and found *lots* of other ticks on my clothes. Was into ER twice for the double dose of doxycycline, but still got lyme - two weeks of doxycycline fixed it. Second time for me - also had it in 2017.

I already found one tick on my clothes last week. Looking at using permetherin and taping my cuffs to my boots for this year.

This year is pretty bad too with warm weather, was out with my dog scouting last weekend.
Collect about 6 of me and bunch from the dog
Thankfully, none latched to me

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with this warm winter I expect that the ticks will be a lot worse this year than the last few years. I don't take my dog in the bush at all now, at least not till I get to shoot another deer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sabmgb

with this warm winter I expect that the ticks will be a lot worse this year than the last few years. I don't take my dog in the bush at all now, at least not till I get to shoot another deer.

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Last year my pup was with me all the time and I gave him Simparica Trio not single tick latched on. Have ran out of pills this year - first walk in tall grass, had pull out 2 from him

So am going for refill

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Werner, thanks for posting your experience with Lyme disease. There are several signs on that list that I had not known about. I spray my boots, socks, pants, shirt, and hat with tick repellant for every outing. No guarantee that it will keep me safe though.

Pulled a tick off my beagle last night. Must have picked it up walking on a leash in the wilds of suburban Kanata.

"With this warm winter I expect that the ticks will be a lot worse this year than the last few years. I don't take my dog in the bush at all now, at least not till I get to shoot another deer." quote sabmgb


Be careful though. All you need is some grass in the back yard to have ticks.

can get them anywhere now a days. They get on a bird that flies into the city and falls off. I got one on me couple years back from the backyard garden and wife last year go one while working the front flower garden and we live in city

Got my first tick bite of the year.... Darn.

BTW - they've changed the guidelines on when you can/can't get the prophylactic 200mg doxycycline dose.
You can get this at a pharmacy now. The guideline they are using now is that the tick needs to be attached for at least 36 hours for you to get it.
Adjust your story accordingly.

Pet peeve... I'm not sure who came up with the 36 hour thing. A tick that has been attached for less than 24 hours can be burrowed in halfway to China.
Personal knowledge: you can get Lyme from a tick bite so brief that you didn't even know you got bit.

The same stupidity with the covid 6 foot rule - once someone writes something down, it's like friggin' Moses brought it down from Mount Sinai.



https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31449366/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by werner.reiche

Got my first tick bite of the year.... Darn.

BTW - they've changed the guidelines on when you can/can't get the prophylactic 200mg doxycycline dose.
You can get this at a pharmacy now. The guideline they are using now is that the tick needs to be attached for at least 36 hours for you to get it.
Adjust your story accordingly.

Pet peeve... I'm not sure who came up with the 36 hour thing. A tick that has been attached for less than 24 hours can be burrowed in halfway to China.
Personal knowledge: you can get Lyme from a tick bite so brief that you didn't even know you got bit.

The same stupidity with the covid 6 foot rule - once someone writes something down, it's like friggin' Moses brought it down from Mount Sinai.



https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31449366/

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Thanks. Good info.
"Adjust your story accordingly." LOL you should be a politician. :)

Before this week, I could count on one hand how many ticks I pulled off my dogs over the span of a decade in Simcoe County.

Last week after a single outing I found 5 on my clothes and 6 on my dog; all black legged ticks.

Still don’t miss that aspect of living in Niagara…

They are out in full force in York region. We keep our dog on tick meds most months out of the year. Bug spray with a high % of DEET works well on yourself/clothing. If you can get your hands on permethrin to treat your clothing with it works great.
As already stated, Lyme is a horrible disease and usually the tick is carrying many other co-infections. If you contract Lyme and leave it untreated for even a month or two you can end up with a years long battle trying to fight it

I've hunted the Long Point area of Norfolk County ( Ground Zero for Lyme Disease in Ontario ) all my life and retired here 5 years ago and have had many close encounters with ticks even after taking all precautions and as yet to come down with Lyme Disease. I consider myself lucky but I think due diligence in checking and quick removal of them has kept me safe. Most times it's the American Dog Tick people find and not the dreaded Black Legged Tick which of course is the carrier of Lyme Disease. I would love to see a vaccine for humans against this disease or at least a better blood test that can be done here in Ontario with quicker more accurate results as I believe tests now are sent to the States and have too many false negative results.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sharon

Thanks. Good info.
"Adjust your story accordingly." LOL you should be a politician. :)

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The really good political answer would be "I don't remember." :)

No ticks so far for me this year but I'm on the look out. Found 6 in my clothes last year and three embedded.

They're horrendous this year. Dogs have been fine but I've pulled a ton off myself and the kids.