How do you guard against deer ticks in the woods?

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fireincairo

Joined
Feb 21, 2011
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It's been a while since I've been outdoorsy. Since the forests I will be frequenting are overrun with deer, they're overrun with deer-ticks, which can give you lyme disease.

How do you guys guard against this while spending time in the woods? My initial idea was to simply strip and give myself the once over every time I return home. I just spent about an hour in the woods, and sure enough I had a tick on me when I checked at home.

Any suggestions?
 
I use bug spray with deet. Deet (sp?) keeps ticks away. I also wear long sleeves, a bandana around my neck, tucked into my shirt, and my pant legs tucked into my socks.
 
Permanone-it works buy in a larger quanity at the farm stores mix and a bottle will last a longgg time-stay away from the aerosol cans at Wal-Mart they will put you in the poor house buying it that way!
 
I go in shorts and sandals, ticks like warm moist dark areas like under the pant leg or under the edge of the sock.

Check yourself often and catch them early. Using something hot like the embers of one's cig to get the critter out. If the head comes off, dab the area with alcohol or similar and dig the head out with knife point. Dab some alcohol on the area, and carry on with what you were doing.

Don't leave them in their, Lymes disease could result an it is debilitating and a painful condition. A friend of mine has been fighting Lymes for close to 20 years, and he is constantly suffering.
 
TTT said:
Permanone-it works buy in a larger quanity at the farm stores mix and a bottle will last a longgg time-stay away from the aerosol cans at Wal-Mart they will put you in the poor house buying it that way!
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+1 this is about 30x cheaper to mix your own than using the crap made for treating human clothes. One bottle will last forever it's so concentrated.
 
Op where are you located, lyme is only prevalent in some areas of the country, yes all states have ticks with lyme and you can even catch it in the middle of the city in someones grassy yard.

We don't use anything except shannon bug tamer suits and we always wear lacrosse knee high rubber boots with our pants tucked in. IN addition after coming out of the woods everyone baths and everyone gets checked. If a tick turns up remove it and place the tick in plastic bag that is dated and place in freezer. If the persons starts having some random weird stuff go on within the next 2 to 6 weeks, then off to the Doctor with the tick. Lyme is very difficutl to detect through blood test and other test as it hides in your CS (central nervous system) that is why it is so debilitating as it effects your nerves which in turns effects everything. However, this is where the tick comes in handy they can test the tick at the lab and it is very easy for them to determine is the tick is carrying lyme or one of the other 200 hundred variations thereof.

Then if you or someone else has lyme RUN to find a LYME LITERATE Doctor your regular Doctor is going to be in WAY over his head, you must find a lyme literate doctor. If your in the southeast it is Doctor Geroge McCullars at Spring Hill in Mobile, Alabama. The man is a genius and I have personally been treated by him and I've talked too and met with people that were written off as having ALS, (Lou Gehrigs) bed ridden and on ventilators, now there walking, talking and breathing on their own just like normal people. There is also a lady doctor in Kansas that is also very good. There are numerous Doctors in the North East that are lyme literate as lyme is most prevalent in that part of the country. The most important thing is KEEP the tick and date it, and find a lyme literate Doc, you have to have a lyme literate doc are everything else is for all intensive purposes a moot point.

Not all ticks, and not all ticks that come off of deer carry lyme, this is very important to remember.
 
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Permethrin helps though for some reason DEET doesn't seem to do anything. I also look to aviod ticky areas like tall grass etc however sometimes that can't be helped.
 
ticks like to drop from oak trees also, deet has worked good for us but infestations of fire ants have made ticks rare in many areas.--dennis
 
MikeC said:
Op where are you located, lyme is only prevalent in some areas of the country, yes all states have ticks with lyme and you can even catch it in the middle of the city in someones grassy yard.

We don't use anything except shannon bug tamer suits and we always wear lacrosse knee high rubber boots with out pants tucked in. IN addition after coming out of the woods everyone baths and everyone gets checked. If a tick turns up remove it and place the tick in plastic bag that is dated and place in freezer. If the persons starts having some random weird stuff go on within the next 2 to 6 weeks, then off to the Doctor with the tick. Lyme is very difficutl to detect through blood test and other test as it hides in your CS (central nervous system) that is why it is so debilitating as it effects your nerves which in turns effects everything. However, this is where the tick comes in handy they can test the tick at the lab and it is very easy for them to determine is the tick is carrying lyme or one of the other 200 hundred variations thereof.

Then if you or someone else has lyme RUN to find a LYME LITERATE Doctor your regular Doctor is going to be in WAY over his head, you must find a lyme literate doctor. If your in the southeast it is Doctor Geroge McCullars at Spring Hill in Mobile, Alabama. The man is a genius and I have personally been treated by him and I've talked too and met with people that were written off as having ALS, (Lou Gehrigs) bed ridden and on ventilators, now there walking, talking and breathing on their own just like normal people. There is also a lady doctor in Kansas that is also very good. There are numerous Doctors in the North East that are lyme literate as lyme is most prevalent in that part of the country. The most important thing is KEEP the tick and date it, and find a lyme literate Doc, you have to have a lyme literate doc are everything else is for all intensive purposes a moot point.

Not all ticks, and not all ticks that come off of deer carry lyme, this is very important to remember.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the tips. I'm in Massachusetts.
 
fireincairo gives perteinent advice. one doctor here near dripping springs missed the illness in a young girl & by the time it was caught she had progressed to the stage where it was in her nervous system. i worked foe a psychotherispt that contacted it way back before it was detectable & she was trying to learn to write left handed, i saw her digress to where she needed a full time nurse. [tragic]-- dennis
 
Most deer ticks will not embed for 12 hours, or at least thats what my doctor told me when I got tested for Lyme. So take a shower within 12hrs and you should be better off.

Also check for a small dot with a red circle around it. Thats the tell tale sign for Lyme's. You don't always get the red spot, but usually.

My father, dog, and a friend of my mom's daughter has it really bad. She literally can't even walk on some days. If you suspect you have it get checked asap. If its negative, get it again. My father had it checked three times before a positive test.
 
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I placed these ticks on my Buzzoff bandana and in 15 minutes they where dead.


The clothing has permethrin in the fabric. I've worn Buzzoff clothing for about 10 years and never have to worry about ticks or chiggars while in the woods.
 
Remember that a deer tick is about one-sixth the size of a wood tick, or about the size of the ball on a ball-point pen. Deer ticks are a ground and grass or low brush beastie and a very seldom found more than a couple of feet up.
Dan
 
Where i live there's Lyme's, my neighbor just died from it after years of pain, and I've been bitten many times, my dog hundreds of times. If you have a dog, give it a lyme's vaccine and frontline. If you're bitten, and you're like me, it gets really damn red around the bite. But if its a lyme's bite, it develops a distinctive bullseye pattern around the bite. I've also been told by local medics that it takes 24 hours after attaching to start transmitting the virus so just check yourself thoroughly every night, and have a tick remover handy, those things really rock.
 
Check with your local Health Dept. They should have all kinds of useful local info and in Ct will send your tick in to be tested. Latest studies show that a tick has to be attached for 24+ hrs to become engorged and pass the spirochetes that cause Lymes. Only 70% of infected people get the bull's eye rash and sometimes the rash only lasts a few hours. My daughter's rash came up and went away in less than 6hrs. Litchfield County Ct is pretty much the Lyme disease capital of the world, statistically speaking.--Your suggestion to strip and check/shower yourself is really the most effective way to combat this problem. Regular soap will kill/remove them. Some Dr's in this area will prescribe a 24 hr prophylactic dose of a broad spectrum antibiotic any time you get a tick but this is controversial. I've had it twice and don't get the rash but feel so incredibly crappy that there is no doubt what I have. Tick populations can be very localized. I can go for weeks without getting one and then get 20 in a 15 minute walk. High brush in particular seems to be bad.--Good luck.--KV
 
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