Posted on 04/17/2014 5:05:14 PM PDT by Up Yours Marxists
Vestal, NY (WBNG Binghamton) Standing just feet from a cement trail leading to Binghamton University's East Gym, biologist Ralph Garruto demonstrated how he has found ticks hiding in plain sight.
"If you have a picnic table out over there, under a tree like that or just off to the edge, ticks are in this kind of leaf litter," Garruto said.
Garruto has been studying tick behavior since the pests arrived in Broome County en masse six years ago.
Through his research, he's found more ticks living around building and in man-made environments than in the deep woods.
Recently, after testing thousands of ticks, he's found Lyme disease in about a third of his specimens.
(Excerpt) Read more at wbng.com ...
Seriously, keep a sharp eye out for the critters. We've seen a lot more out on our daily hikes here.
Pulled one off my dog the other day. It was dug in just below his eye. I despise ticks.
They’re nasty blod-sucking critters. They usually feed on deer but have decided Fido makes a more appetizing and easily accessible blood meal.
Ticks, RATs...same thing.
Our home is surrounded by woods, and they are TERRIBLE here. Hoping the bad Winter might have froze them permanently. Already noticing a reduction in ‘bugs’ from this time during other years.
K9 Advantix has worked well for my dogs for quite a few years. No ticks or fleas and it repels flies and mosquitoes too.
I’m kinda’ anonymous here. So I’ll say what I wouldn’t say aloud:
If you’re dealing with someone with “Lyme Disease”, you’re probably dealing with a hypochondriac.
There. I said it!
I thought it was [miniscule] deer ticks that carried the disease, not the larger wood ticks [which carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever]?
Stay Anonymous.
Your ignorance is showing in klieg lights!
There, I said it!
More buggery ....oh....wait...
I’ve had many a tick on me and never got any illness attributed to those nasty critters.
The usually unseen chiggers are the bigger problem here where one can wear heavy mean chemical protection over oils and still get over 30 bites in some woods or high grasses.
People I know have suddenly found they can’t breathe ... finally sourced it to red meat after a tick bite.
They wish to heaven it was all in their heads.
We used to have to label foods for nuts at the church buffet — now it’s for beef and pork. :-/
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324634304578537203916053308
Yeah. Funny how deer ticks were nothing more than a minor nuisance for hundreds of years. Then, decided to infect housewives while farmers and landscapers pick them off by the dozen, but don't get the mysterious ailments.
Correct; both are blood sucking parasites that spread disease, both physical and mental.
Look for the “Bull’s Eye” signature of Lyme. If you get it and quickly respond, then some antibiotics will take care of it. If you don’t quickly respond, you will have Lyme for LIFE.
I got about a dozen chigger bites one time. I spent a whole month trying to relieve myself from the infernal itching.
Buy clothes treated with Permethrin or treat your woods clothes with it yourself. You can buy it in the sporting goods dept at Walmart and other stores under the brand name of Sawyer.
Very effective at repelling insects (primarily ticks for my own purposes). And considerably more benign than repellents applied to the skin. Military has been using it for over 20 years.
I shoot on a friend’s private range out in the country and ticks are very bad. I treat my socks, pants, underwear and shirts with it (good for about 6 washes) and the protection from ticks is impressive. I spray my shoes with deet to round out the protection.
I still strip and make my wife check me for ticks when I come home. So it’s not all bad /grin.
Somewhere along the line something changed. I was in the Marine Corps and we used to get covered with ticks, with no effect. Then in the early 1990s, Lymne's disease (and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Human granulocytic anaplasmosis) hit Camp Lejeune with a vengeance.
In 1992, I was the executive officer of Marine Combat Training Battalion. We usually had about 1000 new Marines in the woods every day. That summer we had about five percent of our Marines come down with some type of ticks disease. It got so common that we did tick disease checks on a daily basis. It got so common seeing the Lyme disease "bullseye" that they didn't even send them to sick call, the corpsman would give them the pills and move on. Like someone else said, if caught early, no problem. However, if wait about six months, then big problems. My brother-in-law is a farmer in VA, and he started having some perplexing symptoms. It was determined that he had Lymes disease and had had it for a while (some people do not develop the bulls eye). His health is sorely compromised and he will never be fully healthy again.
One of the biggest problems we had was that there was no effective test (a lot of false positives and negatives- even if the bulls eye was present). Luckily, the treatment was tetracycline (4 pills a day for 14 days- cost $14).
“If you’re dealing with someone with “Lyme Disease”, you’re probably dealing with a hypochondriac.”
I’ve been fighting Lyme disease for 6 years and will say, without question, that you are....
....FULL OF CRAP!
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