SnugglyPumpkin

As ticks and tick borne illnesses are expanding their range, I think it's important for people to be educated about these things, and I think it's especially important to give people actual advice on how to protect themselves instead of telling them to just...avoid the natural world

Rough draft version of Tick Advice:

Ticks don't jump down on you from trees, they get on you when you brush against grass, brush, bushes etc.

Ticks get brought to an area when they get done feeding from an animal and fall off them. In the USA, the main tick-bringing animal is deer, but I've seen plenty ticks on feral cats and songbirds.

Ticks get killed when they dry out so drier areas with more sunlight are less favorable to ticks.

The above is useful for figuring out whether an area is likely to have lots of ticks, and how vigilant you have to be in that area.

Wear light-colored, long pants outside. Tuck your pants into your socks, and tuck your shirt into the waist of your pants. Invest in light, breathable fabrics idc

IMMEDIATELY change out of your outside clothes when you come back from a tick-prone area, wash them, and dry them on high heat to kill any ticks that might be stuck on.

Shower and check yourself for ticks after coming inside. Hair, armpits, and nether regions in particular. You can use a handheld mirror or rely on touch; an attached tick will feel like a bump kinda like a scab

While you're outside, you can just periodically check for ticks by running your hands down your legs and checking visually to see if anything is crawling on your clothes. Light colors make them easy to spot, and they don't move fast.

Combing through each others' hair to check for creepy crawly critters is a time-honored primate ritual and is not weird. When hiking, bring a friend who will have your back when you feel something on your neck and need to know if it's sweat or a tick

- If you’re camping, check your towels, blankets, and anything else you’ve hung up before letting it touch your body. Ticks are drawn to wet towels and find it an easy jump to a person.

- If you’re out with a dog, check them over thoroughly before you pet them. Anti-tick medication can kill ticks that attach to your dog, but they can still hitch a ride on fur and then jump on you. Consider getting an outdoor comb and wear gloves while checking.

- Invest in a pair of fine-tipped tweezers to remove ticks. There are a ton of special “tick removal” tools that will work, but they’re essentially a riff on a basic set of fine-tipped tweezers. The fine tip allows you to pull a tick off without killing it while it’s attached. Standard, blunt-edged tweezers for eyebrows don’t work as well, because they can crush the tick’s body and release germs into your skin at the bite site.

- If you have a tick on or near your genitals, just go to a doctor. Just...just do it. Trust me. I’ve seen this happen. Do not engage with the junk tick.

- When you need to remove a tick, grasp it firmly with your tweezers as close to the skin as you can get it. If you can, grasp it under the head. Pull straight up - do not twist the tick. That’s going to be your best bet to pull it all off without leaving the head or mouth embedded.

- If you do break the tick, leave the mouth alone - don’t dig in to get it, since that can break your skin more and cause infection. Without the tick attached, the mouth should eventually fall off. If it doesn’t within a day or so, call a doctor.

- Disinfect, disinfect, disinfect. I’d recommend hitting the area with rubbing alcohol several times.

- Keep the tick in a plastic bag in your freezer or fridge. It’s gross, but if you start having any illness symptoms, it can be helpful for your doctor to have the tick itself.

- Watch for a rash on the site, a fever, chills, or body aches. If you experience anything like that, go to an urgent care or hospital.

Additionally, tick species ranges and the tickborne illness ranges have also been shifting because of climate change. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever used to be moderately common in the Rockies and has expanded east.

1) re: climate change. @mybigfatgaylife mentioned that tick seasons are shifting. This is absolutely true. Consider also that if it is 45 degrees or higher, ticks are out. If you have an unseasonably warm day in January the ticks will be questing. There is a clear relationship between winter Lyme diagnoses and warm weather roughly one month prior to positive tests.

2) Diagnostic tests for Lyme disease are often complained about but in fact they are really accurate though often improperly used. A blood test for Lyme will not be positive unless it is administered 4-6 weeks after the tick bite. Often physicians do not know this and give patients false negative results. You know now so you can inform your doctor. You can ask your doctor to look up the guild lines for testing and treatment on the CDC website.

2.1) The Lyme blood test is two part and they both have to be positive for diagnosis. There is a really good reason for this. The first test is not specific to the bacteria that causes Lyme. It’s an assay for immunoglobulins that the body creates during an immune response. This can be caused by many infections and even autoimmune disorders. The second test is a western blot that looks at antibodies specific to flagellum on the bacteria. There are a few other important pathogenic bacteria that will show up positive on this assay including the bacteria that causes brucellosis. It’s important that these tests are administered correctly because while we want to catch Lyme disease and treat it we also want to avoid missing an alternative diagnosis such as autoimmune disease or other pathogen.

3) If you have been bitten by a deer tick, are in the general range where Lyme disease is endemic and the tick has visibly swollen from consuming blood… go to the doctor and request a post exposure prophylaxis antibiotic. Stop the infection when it is still migrating away from the tick bite and is not yet systemic. Fewer doses of broad spectrum antibiotics, no risk of long term symptoms from Lyme. Win win.

4) PERMETHRIN! @headspace-hotel mentioned a bunch of ways to prevent tick bites or to catch them early. Do all of those. Also, consider adding an a pesticide to your arsenal. Permethrin treated shoes and pants are excellent because you don’t put the pesticide on your body and the clothes continue to kill ticks for a few washes. When I do field work I wear a specific set of treated clothing and I change when I am no longer in tick habitat. I have never gotten a tick bite even though I actively go into tick habitat during their peak. Sawyer permethrin is my favorite. Treat clothing away from cats… permethrin is dangerous to cats while wet.

5) Be aware of all tick species because they all come with their own horrors. While the black legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) is the big baddie in public health the others cause issues as well. The American dog tick transmits the causative bacteria for Rocky Mountain spotted fever and tularemia. While rare these two pathogens are way more dangerous than Lyme disease. The lone star tick transmits the causative agent for Ehrlichiosis and Tularemia.

6) An immune response to the lone star tick can cause people to develop a severe allergy to mammalian meat. This disease is called Alpha-gal. It’s a sugar found in mammals that can be transmitted to humans from a previous blood meal taken by that tick. 25% of cases result in anaphylaxis and many others present with GI symptoms only. This is a big enough problem that a company is creating alpha gal free transgenic pigs. Science can do amazing things when motivated by bacon.

Lyme disease vaccine is on its way!

AND even if you only live in the city - ticks are everywhere there is grass. Dont trust that your dog doesnt need tick meds cause you live in an apartment. You still go for walks.

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