Tick Season Is Here
This is a press release from the City of Arcata:
Photo of a Western Black-Legged Tick from Wikimedia Commons | Taken by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention
The Environmental Services Department would like to remind the community that tick season is here. Ticks are tiny, spider-like bugs that attach themselves to the skin of people and animals. While many ticks are not harmful, some can transmit disease. Only one tick found locally can transmit the bacterium that causes Lyme disease – the Western blacklegged tick.
Avoiding tick bites is the easiest way to avoid tick-borne disease, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the following precautions to prevent tick bites:
● Avoid wooded and bushy areas with high grass and leaf litter.
● When hiking, be sure to stay on cleared paths and designated trails.
● Wear protective clothing when outdoors, preferably light-colored, long-sleeved shirts and pants.
● Always check for ticks on your body and clothing after returning from exploring the outdoors.
● Check your pets for ticks regularly, especially after they spend time outside.
● Young ticks are very small, about the size of a poppy seed. When checking for ticks, and in order to slow the spread of COVID-19, seek help from someone from inside your household to inspect those hard to reach areas whenever possible.
● Be sure to check extra-carefully for ticks on areas of the body where hair is present.
● Speak to your veterinarian about the best tick-prevention methods available for your pets.
If you find a tick on yourself or a pet, please follow these steps recommended by the CDC:
● Use fine-tipped tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the surface of the skin as possible. Pull upward with steady, even pressure. Do not jerk or twist the tick, this can cause their mouth-parts to break off and remain in the skin. If this happens, remove the mouth-parts with tweezers. Make sure the entire tick has been removed, including the head. If you are unable to remove the mouth easily with clean tweezers, leave it alone and let the skin heal.
● After removing the tick, thoroughly clean the bite area and your hands with rubbing alcohol or soap and water.
● Never crush a tick with your fingers. Dispose of a live tick by putting it in alcohol, placing it in a sealed bag or container, wrapping it tightly in tape or flushing it down the toilet.
● If you develop tick-borne illness symptoms such as fever, chills, a rash at the site of the tick bite, or unusual aches and pains up to 30 days after experiencing a tick bite, consult your medical provider immediately and let them know you were bitten by a tick.
For more information regarding ticks and other tick-borne diseases, please visit the CDC’s website at www.cdc.gov/ticks/index.html .
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Hmm I feel like this post is really late. The ticks aren’t nearly as aggressive or numerous now as they are back in March-May. I couldn’t walk through my back field without pulling 5 or 6 ticks off of me and 10 more off my dog back in April. Now we cruise through the field and maybe I will find one on myself or dog every once in a great while. Microclimates though, could be different in other parts of the triangle I suppose.
I agree with you there. Went up my creek to fix my water the other day, stumbling through the heavy brush, and didn’t get a single tick on me. Just a few months ago I would get one or two on me just walking through tall grass.
My dog, however, is another subject. I removed a big fat tick off him just a few minutes ago, and another one a few days ago.
Now that I know a cure for Lyme disease I don’t worry so much. Many, many years of getting tick bites and I am still lucky; haven’t gotten Lyme’s.
What cure?
“Now that I know a cure for Lyme disease I don’t worry so much. ”
Please share this cure with us.
Does it involve injecting disinfectant, or shoving blacklights in the brownparts?
Looking for an excuse to let your freak flag fly?
Is this the place to mention the lowly possum?
They eat ticks, including those with Lyme disease(while not suffering it themselves). Be kind to the atavistic but helpful critters.
Agree.
I spend a lot of time hiking in the dunes north and south of Mad River County Park. Never seen a Western Black-legged Tick out there but plenty of Dog Ticks, particularly in late April, May, and June. Was there for 2 long hikes this week and didn’t see a single tick.
Mostly see Western Black-legged Ticks that can carry Lyme Disease a little more inland like on Fickle Hill or around Blue Lake and all parts east into Trinity County. I avoid going off trail in this habitat in late spring or summer…
My experience is that Black-Legged Ticks are super aggressive and will burrow into your hide within minutes, while Dog Ticks like to roam around a bit and may not start o bite for quite sometime.
My dog is a tick magnet and will bring ticks into the house and car much to my wife’s displeasure.
Be safe out there.
Who else purposely used to take their dates through long tall grass to get to and from the swimming hole back when they were teenagers?? Good times and simpler days back then.
Beware the “questing” tick, which is what it’s called when a tick climbs to the top of grass in hopes of attaching to a future meal, although there is nothing noble about the little buggers.
Tick season? Starts in February. It’s minimal now.
I’ve found so many ticks on my Yorkie/Chi mix that I’m putting her on Nexguard even though she’s flea-free. Too bad they don’t make Nexguard for people.
Well, I could make a bad joke about this coronavirus being just that for pet planet parents, lol. Here Earth, I’ve got a planet treat for you!
Kills people dead and prevents reinfestation. Get Nexguard for People(tm) for your pet planet today!
Sorry to quibble, but since it kills mainly older people, it doesn’t do much about the reinfestation problem– that is, reproduction. Births still way out ahead of the deaths, no matter where you look.
My dog had been tick-free for a month or two… i figure Feb-June is tick season around here. But i did find a single one on her a couple of days ago, an outlier.
Yea, that makes this disease all the more frightening, IMNSHO, or at least motivates me to stay at home as much as possible and mask up when I do have to go out.
A society without elders isn’t something I’d personally want to see. All of this “OK Boomer” bull caca is bad enough. I’m probably more of an elderly Gen-Xer than an immature baby boomer, but do these people have any idea at all what happened in the ’60s and ’70s? Do they have a clue what Nam and CAMP cost our precious survivors?
Stay safe this tick season, folks. Corona with Lyme doesn’t sound like a very good way to die and your grandchildren (and my own tag-along baby sister wannabe self, of course) need you here at Hotel Life even if the millenials appear to have gone batshit crazy.
There is a new tick moving north and west from the south. Called a Lone Star tick as the females have a white spot on it’s back and the males have a faint white horseshoe shape rim around the sides of the it’s body. The reaction is an allergy to red meat.
The cure for Lyme disease is heavy doses of antibiotics if caught early which is why they say go to the doctor when bitten.
There’s a fairly new treatment that a couple of local people have been doing in Reno for people that missed the antibiotic window. It’s pretty brutal and fairly expensive but it seems to be having positive results. I’m not sure what exactly it is but it involves periods of extreme heat and then extreme cold, with medicine to try to “flush” the disease out and kill it. Wish I could remember the name of the treatment.
O’Tom Tick Twisters are the best for removing ticks
Ticks on our area also carry the illness known as Alpha-Gal, a reaction causing a sudden onset of an allergic reaction in the intestine when ever mammal products are ingested. I contracted it from a tick I picked up hiking just south of Centerville Beach by Ferndale.
Mayo Clinic Link
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alpha-gal-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20428608#:~:text=Alpha-gal%20syndrome%20is%20a,gal%20into%20the%20person's%20body.
News flash!! The ticks have been here since March, even a little in February. Keep up people.
I was just saying how the tick pressure is really low right now and bad a few months ago.
Webmaster removing all posts she disagrees with politically so I won’t comment on bloodsucking parasites in Sacramento.
Free speech is dead on the Internet.
How did you find me out? Is the fact that all the opinions on here are so progressive? Damn, I should have allowed one tiny conservative thought to squeeze through to throw someone as smart and observant as you are off the track. Also, congratulations on not being one of those dang people who always whine about how much of a victim they are. I really hate those snowflakes, don’t you?
Hahahah! Thank you, Kym. The charm oozing from commenters today is impressive, not in a good way. Doesn’t their brain start to hurt at some point? Shaking my head in wonder and amazement.
I love picking scabs and finding legs attached…..
Ticks will come out at different times dependent on the area. I ran a show on KMUD on Lyme “cures” months ago.
There are many things that will help “late case ” Lyme. There is a trio of antibiotics that is the latest treatment. It
holds some promise but there is heat treatment, long term antibiotics, and many herbal treatments. I am not a doctor
but I will talk to anyone interested in these options.
There are many ticks that can give you lymes and the 8 co-infections that come along with a tick bite. It is not true that only one species that is found here locally can get you sick . It is a misconception to believe there is a cure. It lives and hides in your body feeds off hosts and has its own army to protect the disease of which may never appear or reappear. Antibiotics may treat the lymes, but it does nothing to address other infections you get from the tick bite. Babesia and Bartonella are common co-infections that come with the tick bite. These are treated with a combination of malaria meds and antibiotics. Treatment doesn’t mean cure. Lymes is called the great mimicker, it mocks lots of other known diseases, and misdiagnosis is common.
If you ever aren’t feeling very good and you are having trouble figuring out why you are achey, tingly, run down, joint swelling, headaches, neck stiffness, heart palpitations, shooting pain or numbness, chills, short of breath / dizzy, stomach discomfort, reduced cognitive functions (thinking), depression, anxiety, paranoia, etc.
The only conclusive test is available at https://igenex.com/.
If you are curious about the coinfections they can be found here.
https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/co-infections/other-co-infections/
It was a mild winter so the ticks are out in force this year.
Believe what you wish to believe but a tiny tick bite can have serious medical repercussions.
seek a professional (infectious disease specialist) if you are having trouble managing your lymes.
I hope this helps, Be well and look out for one another.
Remember – it you want to have your tick tested for Lyme you can put the tick in a secure container and take it to Public Health Branch Lab in Eureka for testing. It does cost $$ (used to be $37, not sure now).
Best to call first and arrange for drop off at any of the Public Health Branch offices, in Garberville or Willow Creek also.
EKA – 707-286-2108 (toll free = 866-597-1574)
Garberville – 707-923-2779
Willow Cree – 530-6292410
When did someone refuse to test you?
We were told that my symptoms didn’t fit Lyme so they didn’t want to test. My husband asked how much the test was. They said about $50. We said we’d pay that if the insurance company didn’t. Long story short. They tested. And I had Lyme Disease. Get the test if you can afford $50.
I suggest going for the igenex test over something your insurance company will pay for as it will test for lymes and the co-infections where as if they run a test through your insurance they will most likely only test for lymes. . i believe it is maybe around 150-200 for the kit and processing the blood-work and then whatever it costs to get your blood drawn.
i would like to note i had to go out of the area (east coast) to an infectious disease specialist with a team of doctors that only specializes and researches/treating lymes & the co-infections after local treatment was not working. It wasn’t cost prohibitive ($500 for a 3 hour first appointment) except for the travel aspect. Some of my medicine was not covered with insurance but i utilized the goodrx website to figure out where i could get my medicine out of pocket on the cheaper.
If you are unfamiliar with goodrx, there is no info to put in about yourself or nothing to subscribe to or sign up. You type in the name of your medicine and then enter in the zip code and it will give you a list of places and the prices they charge. Then let the pharmacy know you want to use the goodrx discount and they do the rest.
the set your location is kinda hard to find it is directly under the free coupons
below is an example of the good rx saving for eureka, change the medicine name to see how much you can save yourself no coupon no strings attached
https://www.goodrx.com/mepron
if anyone would like the name of the infectious disease specialist I go to I would be happy to share.
healthy vibes and be well
I need one cause my doctor not taking g it serious
Through my journey I have learned that you have to be proactive about your health.
North Coast Natropath in Mckinleyville may be able to help.
They would also be able to help with the igenex test kit.
I have heard through the grape vine that there is a doctor in Fort Bragg that may be helpful but maybe someone else would know more.
Dr. Jemsek in DC is an infectious disease specialist that specializes in lymes and the co-infections. They gave me my life back and I have recommended them to others with similar success.
https://www.jemsekspecialty.com/
healing vibes
It’s always tick season. Ticks suck.