how does one avoid ticks?

[maleck4]

I'm wondering if ticks will climb on you if you are wearing off? Can they drop on you from trees? I am a little worried about my children getting ticks on them and want to hear from some of you experienced folks out there how you avoid them while geocaching. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

 

maleck4

[+briansnat]

If you are really concerned about ticks, use a DEET based repellent (like OFF!) on your skin and permethryn (SP?) on your clothing. Also wear light colored clothes so you can spot the buggers on you and your kids before they crawl inside, and tuck your pants into your socks to help keep them out.

 

Ticks can drop from branches, but generally live in the grass and like to enter around your shoes and make their way up to a warm area (yeah, that one) before attaching themselves.

 

Personally, I don't take all the precautions listed above. I feel like dork with my pants tucked in my socks. Most of the time,I just wear a DEET based repellent. If I know I'm going into a tick infested area, I'll spray the permethryn on my clothing too.

 

With proper precautions, ticks aren't something to be overly concerned about. It takes a while before they're able to get through the clothing and find a spot to attach themselves, so check your kids frequently. Also give their bodies the once over when they get home, in case you missed one on the trail.

 

If you do find a tick attached, don't panic. It takes nearly 24 hours for one to transmit a disease to the host. They can be removed by grabbing them gently with tweezers as close to the skin as possible and slowly and gently pulling it away. Or you can purchase a tick remover in many outdoor supply stores. Do NOT try to burn it off with a match, or cigarette, or cover it with petrolium jelly. Once removed, if you are still concerned, you can put the tick in a Ziploc and have it tested. Many local boards of health offer this service for a nominal charge.

 

[This message was edited by BrianSnat on September 28, 2002 at 04:00 AM.]

[maleck4]

Good information. It's reassuring to know that it takes 24 hours for ticks to transmit anything. I always check our bodies when we get home from a cache.

 

maleck4

[Eeyore and Shadow]

It may sound stupid (it may be stupid) bit it seems logical that a dog type flea/tick collar on your belt or something should help prevent ticks.

 

Eeyore

 

It took a GPS to get me away from technology.

[+st_richardson]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eeyore/Shadow:

It may sound stupid (it may be stupid) bit it seems logical that a dog type flea/tick collar on your belt or something should help prevent ticks.

 

Eeyore

 

It took a GPS to get me away from technology.

---

 

I heard about someone who put one around each ankle. He said it worked but the headaches he got were pretty bad.

As I understand it the pesticide enters the blood system.

[+Greenjeens]

quote:

---

Originally posted by maleck4:

I'm wondering if ticks will climb on you if you are wearing off?I am a little worried about my children getting ticks on them maleck4

---

 

Sometimes when I go out I'll get 4-6+ ticks or more! Good news... is by wearing light colored long sleave and pants I pick them off before they can finally climb up pants and tucked in shirt, getting up to my head/neck. They seem to latch on from small shrubs and then quickly head upwards lookng for some tender fold of skin.

 

Of course never going off the trail or brushing foilage is the best way to avoid ticks, it makes for a pretty tame life.

 

There is a short trail, with large lupine bushs on either side, where I can count on getting several ticks from every time. Not so very often in grass, at least for the local kind of ticks here in coastal California. I have pants with an inner elastic cuff and after lots of miles, ticks haven't gone past the cuff to the bare leg.

When I pass through suspect brush, I'll do a quick inspection on pants to get the ticks off before they have a chance to "sprint" any higher up. The light color clothing makes a fast check MUCH easier.

 

Since kids are shorter and the foilage higher, your going to need to check around their head/neck hairline very well even with good protective clothing.

 

I'm not a DEET fan and won't put that stuff on my skin, but carry it just in case anyway. I've ben told to put DEET on clothing as well.

Kids are not recommended to use higher concentrations of DEET, so read the lablel!

It's important not to squeeze the ticks body when removing it, so the fluids/potential diseases won't get injected into the host. The slim "pry bar" type have worked well to get between the tick body and the skin, to pull the tick out. I don't know if that method is going to work very well if the tick gets deeply embedded over time. Tick bites start to burn quickly (on some people) soon after a bite, so I try to pay attention for the "burning sensation".

 

The bad news are there is a time in the tick's life cycle when they are very small and almost impossible to see. I've never noticed these myself, but these can apparently spread diseases as well.

 

SEE...

Tick Research Laboratory http://www.riaes.org/resources/ticklab/ticks.html

[TT120]

I've been running around in the woods and along the river where I live for about 20+ years and have never gotten a tick. I never take any special precautions at all. Maybe the just dont like me but I don't even worry about it.

 

TechnoGEEK

[+briansnat]

quote:

---

I'm not a DEET fan and won't put that stuff on my skin, but carry it just in case anyway. I've ben told to put DEET on clothing as well.

Kids are not recommended to use higher concentrations of DEET

---

 

The supposed dangers of DEET have not been proven conclusivley. The dangers of tick borne diseases have been and are far more real and potentially fatal. So I'll take my chances with DEET for myself and my for daughter. But he's right, children should use a lower concentration, about 5-10 percent max. As long as you don't bathe in the stuff, you'll be fine.

 

quote:

---

The bad news are there is a time in the tick's life cycle when they are very small and almost impossible to see. I've never noticed these myself, but these can apparently spread diseases as well.

---

 

This is true. In the nymph stage they are about the size of a poppy seed.

 

quote:

---

I've been running around in the woods and along the river where I live for about 20+ years and have never gotten a tick. I never take any special precautions at all. Maybe the just dont like me but I don't even worry about it.

---

 

I'm the same. I'll be hiking with others and they'll have 3 or 4 ticks on them. I never get any. I think I've maybe had one or two on my clothing in 30 some years of hiking and backpacking. My daughter on the other hand is a magnet. I eat a lot of garlic and take garlic suppliments, so I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Seems to work for mosquitos as well.

Everyone else is getting eaten alive and I'm not bothered at all.

 

"Life is a daring adventure, or it is nothing" - Helen Keller

[christophe]

I've only had one tick bite as long as I can remember. I woke up one morning and happened to look on my arm and see this little tick biting me. I got him off then remembered I must have picked him up last night when I was out hiking. I freaked out and thought I was gonna get Lyme Disease and whatnot so I did a lot of research on the net and realized the chances were pretty low. But that's the first time in all my years of hiking/exploring woods that I have noticed a tick on me. Just remember to always check yourself when you get home and take a shower. That should do the job. I wouldn't put that DEET stuff on me.

[azog]

quote:

---

Originally posted by BrianSnat:

Do NOT try to burn it off with a match, or cigarette, or cover it with petrolium jelly. Once removed, if you are still concerned, you can put the tick in a Ziploc and have it tested. Many local boards of health offer this service for a nominal charge.

---

 

I had a tick only once. I put it in a bag and took it to my doctor, and he said there's nothing he can do with it? I just tossed it. He also told me to use petro jelly to suffocate a tick, if/when I have another one.

 

I'm not refuting you, but now I have two different opinions, and that confuses me.

 

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Chickenfoot! Come back! You're not a freak! You're just stupid!

[BassoonPilot]

Either that doctor remains rigidly "old school," or you acquired that tick in the distant past.

 

The information Brian offered is consistent with the information found on every medical and outdoors-type website I've visited.

 

Call me "old school" myself, because I too don't/won't use deet or other insecticides on my body. Over the years, I've removed hundreds of ticks from my clothing, but have had a tick attach itself only once ... apparently, I caught it in the process, put gentle backwards pressure on it with tweezers, and it let go in a matter of seconds.

[MACpa]

I've had lots of ticks on and around me. it's an occupational hazzard when working with hunting dogs.

I've been lucky to have only ever found one that attached itself to me. After pulling it off there was a red ring around the area where the tick bit so I got to the doctor that day. The ring could have been one of the signs of lyme disease or just an irritation from the bite. Since it was too soon to get a good result from a blood test the Doctor put me on Doxycyclene(sp) for a week just in case.

[+Alan2]

Search on Lyme and tick in these forums and the web. There's lots of current good advice on this. Lyme isn't something to play with and depending on your area, it's worse some places than in others. Henderton County NJ has a LYme infection rate in deer ticks there over 50%; Westchester County NY it's over 33%.

 

Alan

[azog]

quote:

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Originally posted by BassoonPilot:

Either that doctor remains rigidly "old school," or you acquired that tick in the distant past.

---

 

I guess he must be old school, because this happened no more than two months ago, sometime in July. The doctor put me on some sort of drug, Just In Case (which is completely fine by me).

 

----------

Chickenfoot! Come back! You're not a freak! You're just stupid!

[+Newenglandah]

Hello,

 

Natureboy here, I spend a crazy amount of time in the woods, and rearly do i get ticks on me, I get more out doing yard work. Ticks are usually found in grassy areas but can be anywhere, if you go out and walk threw a feild, check your kids after walking threw it. Also where long pants. Another thing that works oddly enough is eat a lot of garlick in your diet, when you sweat it will give of a garlicky smell but it keeps the bugs away!

[+mornin'glory]

here's a good one with no chemicals:

 

2 c water

1 c white vinegar

1 c skin so soft(avon)

1 T eucalyptus oil

 

shake in a spray bottle & let settle before spraying.

 

You flip, but they flop.

[Amaruq]

test

[Amaruq]

test

[+geospotter]

quote:

---

Originally posted by tmac:

here's a good one with no chemicals:

 

2 c water

1 c white vinegar

1 c skin so soft(avon)

1 T eucalyptus oil

 

shake in a spray bottle & let settle before spraying.

 

---

 

Avon's "Skin So Soft" contains citronella which works great for misquitoes, but it doesn't bother ticks in the least. Perhaps the vinegar or eucalyptus oil helps (I don't know).

[+carleenp]

Quote:

 

-------------------------------------------------

The bad news are there is a time in the tick's life cycle when they are very small and almost impossible to see. I've never noticed these myself, but these can apparently spread diseases as well.

-------------------------------------------------

 

The immature ticks are known as "seed ticks" If you get into a bunch that just hatched, you can get hundreds of them at once. This recently happened to a friend of mine. So, if you are concerned, be particularly careful in spring and early summer (though my friend got them mid-summer).

 

Suffocating a tick with petroleum jelly doesn't do much, you still have to remove it. They tend to hang on instead of falling off when suffocated, burned, or sprayed with things.

 

I have used a tick puller that I bought at a pet store with much success (both on me and my dog).

 

Usually, tucking the pants into the socks, avoiding tall grass, and keeping a lookout on your legs does the trick.

[+carleenp]

I will add that seed ticks generally don't spread Lyme because they have to have a meal from an infected host first. Usually a person gets into seed ticks when they have just hatched. But, I suppose it is possible for someone to get one that has already eaten once.

[stlthy1]

Take along a big stinky cigar and they wont bother you.

 

Matter of fact neither will anything else!

[+Cachier]

My wife was bitten by a tick on the back of her knee in the early Spring of this year. I tried to pull it out with a tick remover that I carry in my backpack but its head broke off under her skin. She had to go to the hospital to have the mandables surgically removed. Not a pleasant experience.

 

"When you find it, its always in the last place you look."

[+Cachier]

My wife was bitten by a tick on the back of her knee in the early Spring of this year. I tried to pull it out with a tick remover that I carry in my backpack but its head broke off under her skin. She had to go to the hospital to have the mandables surgically removed. Not a pleasant experience.

 

"When you find it, its always in the last place you look."

[+Alan2]

Life cycle deer tick shows you can get Lyme Spring Summer fall and warm winters as well.

 

What a pleasant thought.

 

Alan