Fucking ticks

[darkpink]

I'm very tick conscious. I'm careful about where I walk, and about what I wear. I wear long shirts and trousers, long socks, and if the trousers are loose, bicycle clips. I only go for short walks anyway. And I still find ticks on me. I worry about there being some I don't notice or can't reach (I don't have a partner). I don't feel able to sit on the grass to have a picnic or read a book. It's miserable, when being in the countryside is such a big part of life in Scotland.The deer we have here make the ticks much more likely to carry infections - especially the horrendous Weil's disease. How do the rest of you deal with this?

@Viggohytten

tweezers like these

I’ve got a different brand, but the tips are very fine, similar to these.

Thank you

@Caspianberg

The simple plastic tick twisters we find best. Cheap and easy to use .

Tweezers or the metal twisters are too easy to accidentally squeeze tick which you don’t want to do. And those ‘gadgets’ you push in etc just don’t work. Especially if you using on a pet as they are moving.

Can you post a picture? Im a bit confused now.

Grandprismatic yes I think you may be right. I think I heard midges prefer fairer skin maybe?
I am fair skinned and rheses negative and I always was savaged by midges while my brother never got touched by them and we would be standing next to each other

I've had several over the years due to wild camping in Scotland.

None of the ticks have ever swollen up on me (but they do on the dog) but I still got a rash after one that I failed to remove correctly on my thigh, it got to the side of a side plate (but consistent colour, no bullseye appearance) by the time I got to the GP. Antibiotics and it went down. But I still have a tiny bump on my thigh where I presume the head parts were left in and healed over. I wonder if maybe the GP should have dug them out.

If you've only got tweezers the trick is to only use just enough pressure to pull it out, don't grip too hard and split it. It's better to slip off with the tweezers a few times than crush it. But the tick removing gadgets are definitely best if you have them..

We have these tick twisters @sdd. For animals but work great on humans. We got them in pet shop

Thanks

A work colleague of mine got Lyme Disease, which was undiagnosed for about 6 months, which was too late for treatment with antibiotics.
He was previously a fit, active man in his late 50's. He ended up with pains in his joints and memory problems. It really is a horrible disease.

Ive read getting a diagnosis is really hard.

I think not all doctors are very clued up on it

They are more attracted to some people than others. I'm NW Highlands. I went on a school trip once where we all did the same things all day. About ten people had none at all, maybe five people had a couple, but two poor souls had them literally everywhere. They were obviously just tasty!

General wisdom around here suggests that they increased hugely in numbers around the time that crofters stopped dipping sheep. No idea if that's really why there's so many more than there used to be, but possibly a contributory factor.

Advice... I actually think it's better to wear shorts. You can then just look at your calves every half hour or so and check there are none crawling up. Then when you get home just check your feet. It's obviously going to be harder if you don't have white skin I guess.
If you do the trousers tucked in thing, they just crawl up on the outside and you can't see them at all, whilst they merrily dig their way under your top and start munching.

Re Lyme disease, you have 24 hours to get the tick off after the initial bite - they aren't thought to infect if you get them off in that time frame. If you've had one for longer, keep an eye on the bite site for the red rash, and any other likely Lyme symptoms. Get antibiotics within two weeks if anything develops. It is important to use a proper tool when removing, as you don't want to squeeze the body at all - this can supposedly push some of the blood back in and can carry Lyme with it.

We’ve carried a tick remover in our wallets for over 15 years and it’s very useful. I don’t think we’ve been on a walk in the countryside without one of us at least getting a tick or 2.

We found our first one on our 2 year old who’d been dressed in wellies and one of those kiddy suits that covered him totally leaving only his head and hands exposed.

Unfortunately the little pinprick (which we thought was a tiny scab of a midge bite) that we saw in his ear when we returned home from our holiday was a bastard tick! It must have been there for days. We removed it and then spent a nervous fortnight waiting to see if he became ill.

My 7 year old DD got one on her eyelid when we went camping one year. Try getting that off with a tick remover. Not pleasant.

They are tenacious, clever bastards clinging on in places you can’t reach. My poor DH is very hairy and is a nightmare to examine. I’ve found them in the crease at the back of my knee and on my neck. And I never go walking with bare legs, tuck trousers into socks etc... I reckon they cling on to your socks and then leap on when you get indoors and remove your clothing.

They can be anywhere where there are hosts like sheep or deer. I think they’ve become more prevalent across the whole of the U.K (I imagine places like Richmond Park must be rife with them)

I think everyone should be more tick aware and taught how to remove them safely. There is so much bad advice about vaseline, burning them off etc.

I think ticks and midges are a scourge and they genuinely put me off walking and camping in Scotland when the kids were younger. I just wish there was a portable testing kit where you could remove a tick and test whether or not it is carrying Lymes disease. If they were just an irritant I wouldn’t mind - it’s just the fact that Lymes is such a debilitating condition.

Just looking at the seresto collar for dogs. It is supposed to protect for 8 months. Wondering if this may be good idea to stop dog bringing ticks in to house. Has anyone used one of these?

I found a tick in my stomach the other week. It had either come off my DH clothes after he had played golf or from carrying in loads of wood a neighbour had cut for us. I had been doing some stretches on my stomach on the floor and thought it was fluff at first.

A lot of people i work with have had them and warned everyone not to use tweezers as you can squeeze the tick or break it. So I bought a tick removal card ages ago. I used the card to remove the tick and it came out easily. I freaked out at the bastard and squashed it while screaming.

Never had one before. Am not too far from Crieff.

Anyway. Get a proper tool, people, and keep an eye out for the bullseye.

Friend’s dd with Lyme that went undiagnosed for years has had major issues. Fatigue, joint problems, at one point needing a wheelchair. I read a few years ago that it is possible that Lyme gets misdiagnosed as other diseases pretty often, as people commonly don’t know that they were bitten and it takes some time to wreak havoc. It really is frightening.
DH once developed a bull’s eye type rash on his chest. It was in a place where he would have seen a tick if it had been there for any length of time, so it must have been there only briefly. He had a lengthy prescription of antibiotics.

Best way to kill then is to drop them in to a cup of bleach, there was a very good bbc program about them called

Under the skin

They ruin people's lives with lymes , the sooner you get them off the less chance of them infecting you

Keep a tick remover in your glove box and check after walks if you can . The tiny ones are the ones most likely to carry infection

20% of them roughly in Morayshire in Scotland carry lymes according to that bbc program

Oh and they also said if you are remotely worried go to doctors for antibiotics and they should prescribe them. A lot of doctors aren't clued up on ticks unfortunately according to the expert on that show

I use seresto collars as I don't feel comfortable with the pesticide pills dogs swallow where the effects can last months.

At least with the collar you can whip it off if there's a reaction.

The collars do act as a repellent but our dogs have had ticks on them with the collars but as soon as the ticks bite, they die quite rapidly which should minimise risk in the house.

Dan it's not available at moment

Yes I mean those basic tick twist tools someone kindly posted above.

My cat sometimes gets them near his eye! These twist ones are the only ones I feel safe using as worried with sharp metal tweezers etc near eye.
They are about £3-5 for a pack.

We even keep one in baby changing bag just incase.
Our house backs onto the woods, where deer live. So we seems to have loads. Dh and I have avoided, but baby bound to get this summer now he’s toddling about in grass

This has been useful, I've ordered a couple of tick cards. I'm contemplating never going outside again though!

That and the rise in jellyfish due to global warming, lovely.

I was half considering getting a dog. No longer.

@darkpink

I was half considering getting a dog. No longer.

They are Trojan horses for ticks aren't they 😲

We caught a mouse in our house in a humane trap and it had a massive tick on its head . Blleerghhh. Mad me feel quite green. The dog has only ever had one that we have seen.
But really the nymph ticks are so incredibly tiny that most must get missed on both humans and pets.

I'm wondering how we managed to get through 14 years of retriever parenting without seeing any ticks!