pulled this guy out of my leg on Monday, i’m pretty sure it got on me on Sunday sometimes during the day, Sunday night i saw something that looked like a small pinch or a cut, used rubbing alcohol, and triple antibiotic ointment, next day it got a bit bigger, i looked closer and found this guy, when i pulled it out it was already dead, i know some ticks are worse than others. i have no knowledge of them, neither does my doc. can anyone id this guy, ? i got it in upstate NY.
Thats why I carry a tick tweezer and some kind of plastic nano-crowbar in my BOB.
EDIT: I adapted the width of the picture to match the actual size.
The right instrument in my BOB is 1 7/8 inch from grip to toe.
It can remove the smallest ticks.
If that thing can’t get hold of the tick, you will need a scalpel
Deer tick.
Definitely can transmit Lyme disease. Since you are located in a high risk zone, I would go check.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html
thanks guys that is what i though, will see a doc n few hours, she’ll prbly give me antibiotics. i know blood test wont show anything now, it could take weeks or even a month, sending a tick to a lab in Syracuse will take about a month for tox results to come back, will ask her if she can send it somewhere for faster test, if not i’ll just take a course of antibiotics,
i have something similar, it worked great on my dog with dog ticks, but it did not work on this small deer tick, i used tweezers.
One of the first symptoms of Lyme are sort of circles around the bite.
Take care men, I know what you are going through. I’ve dealt with that since my daughter had a tick in her leg. Turned out negative but I now know quite a bit about tick and Lyme disease. Hope you will turn out negative too.
Antibiotics work best if you take them within 72 hours within removing the tick(often a single dose).
For the future you should never put alcohol on a tick, because it will cause him to spit out the blood back into your body which is what could give you lime.
Hard to tell the relative size from the picture. The deer tick is very small, like a pin head. It is the one to worry about. A blood test is expensive if you haven’t met your deductible for the year yet. Most doctors will just prescribe an antibiotic without the test.
Yeah, just edited my post. The color looks like a deer tick.
quote:
Both deer and wood ticks have U-shaped backs, but the big difference can be seen in the coloring of their lower back region. A deer tick’s lower back is red while a wood tick has a black lower back.
I might add, nasty little beasts.
saw a doctor like half an hour ago, she prescribed antibiotics, took blood for testing, as well as the tick, even thou lime wont show up that fast, she said it is not the thing they carry, the wound looks like a tick bite, the redness is fading, the area is smaller than a dime, and isn’t getting any bigger. no swelling, hurts less when pressed.
Wife is a birder, we get off into the weeds now and then trying to score a “lifer,” so have some knowledge of the tick situation. Send survey crews out for work alot and they definitely run into them.
If any reassurance, vast majority of bites are nothing more than a red, itchy bump for a few days.
More concern about tick bites nowadays and likely more disease-carrying ticks, but really it is very likely that you are just going to itch for a while. Keep tabs on bite and how you feel.
Future reference - check after being out and about in tick territory. Try to get them off in first few hours as I understand it takes a good bit of time for them to transmit the bacteria or whatever.
I have found that treating clothes with permethrin works extremely well to keep them off when you know you are wading into danger (such as knee-high grass and such).
Good luck.
Lyme disease is no joke - it can be very serious and difficult to treat if you don’t get good treatment early on. A full treatment of antibiotics with follow up blood testing to make sure that the antibiotics worked is a good idea. Spraying your pants, socks and shoes with Permethrin will help and should be sprayed on your dog’s coat too. Also avoid edges of fields and trails where vegetation is starting to grow as this is where ticks tend to wait until something walks by and brushes up against them.
And always do a tick check on all parts of your body as soon as you can.
The only type of tick that I have encountered is the American dog tick a.k.a. the wood tick.
We used to get them on our dogs when we lived in Central California.
Luckily I have never been around a deer tick (that I know of), and our dog hasn't had any fleas or ticks since we moved to Palm Desert in 2014.
just picked up antibiotics, doxycycline hyclate 100mg , 2 pills a day 14 days course. For 20 something years i spend weekends upstate in wooded area, this is the first time i got the tick bite me, i did removed few before but they were only crawling on me, i guess it was bound to happen someday.
as far as permethrin, thanks for the advice, sounds like what i should to to all my clothes i wear there. now the question is , do i need to retreat clothes after each wash? how toxic is it if i wear freshly sprayed dry t-shirt and sweat, will the permethrin dissolve and get absorbed thru skin?
thanks i did not know that, but then when i used alcohol, i did not know it was a tick, i thought something cut\poked me.
Don’t wear freshly-sprayed clothes. Plan ahead - spray it on clothes thoroughly and let it dry overnight.
It should be good for several washings before needing to retreat.
I think it depends on the strength (%) and additives. Some of the stuff I had was supposed to last though the wash, but I usually sprayed it on before heading out. One time I didn’t when dog training in a area that a forest fire had gone through and everything was burnt and it was well below freezing - I figured there would be no ticks - WRONG - me and my dog were covered in deer ticks. It is always a good idea to do a tick check as soon as possible, I can’t stress this enough you need to check everywhere and you need to check your clothes and throw them in the wash right away. The stuff that doesn’t get washed like your boots/jacket should be checked carefully to ticks and resprayed if you find any.
Permetrin should not be used directly on your skin, if you spray it on clothes, let it dry before wearing them.
That sucks.Hope all the test will come back negative.
You will need to drink a bunch of kombucha or some probiotics after you are done with the pills.
The doxycycline will destroy your gut. Sounds like you didn’t have a choice but to take them.
So after the treatment is over, find out how to recover from the side effects, I think fermented drinks and probiotics used to be recommended.
I have Lyme, it sucks. Take the Doxy and ask for another 30 days worth. It’s one of the best antibiotics for early treatment, but you want to take it long enough to break ANY possible second cycle OR co-infection.
My “doctor” I went to in 2011 was a dumb-ass. The SEVEN docs after him could NOT reverse his lack of knowledge (or interest in helping anyone… including me). But thankfully Stephen Buhner’s books DID! - but years later and after a lot of trial & error.
Your doc got the right pill, but get more and you’ll have a full, early treatment. Don’t waste money or time on the Western Blot test (the “lead standard” in Lyme testing). Most docs can’t read it correctly and it often gives false negative results (as in my case).
Sadly… there are several VERY accurate tests for Lyme detection and NO doctors know about them since they aren’t covered by Medicare. If I had it to do over again, I would have paid the $300 or so out of pocket and MADE the doc get the test, THEN got on an IV with Doxy soon after and maybe avoided Lyme.
If you didn’t have the “bullseye” rash where the bite was, that’s a GOOD sign you are probably in the clear. Yes, Doxy will mess up the flora temporarily, but worth it to NOT have chronic Lyme my friend. And might as well take enough to get the job done.
Good luck!!!