Tick Season is Bad this Year

[BakerAunt]

What I thought was a small popped blood bubble on my lower leg started showing signs of some kind of infection on Sunday and was worse on Monday and certainly no better today. It looked horrible. I saw nothing in a Google search that helped me identify it, so I sent a picture to my doctor's office. They called and said they would fit me in at 4:30, so Scott drove me there. I had a couple of insect bites near the sore and thought another had bitten me there as well. Scott thought it was a bacterial infection. My doctor asked me for details, looked at it, pulled out a magnifying glass and proclaimed, "Marliss, you have a tick! He's alive and moving his little legs."

OK, that was gross. My doctor used a numbing agent, which caused the tick to begin releasing, then she used tweezers to remove it, and promptly destroyed it. I am now on a ten-day, twice a day regimen of Doxycycline to prevent Lyme disease. I have to avoid dairy for two hours before I take it and two hours after I take it. I also have to avoid direct sunlight.

Scott and I have been walking more in our woodlands with the dog, but I think that it is time for bushwacking to end, at least for me, and to stay on the trails. The ticks started early this year. Scott brought three of them home back in April in a single day, and he has found others as well. We do tick checks after being in the woods, but clearly, we are missing some. Scott was very surprised it was a tick, as they do not usually attach on the front of the lower leg over a bone.

I am going to have to figure out how to protect myself when berry season starts so that I can harvest black raspberries and blackberries safely.

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[RiversideLen]

What I saw on the news yesterday was to dust yourself (tick prone areas) and your dog with diatomaceous earth after coming back from tick prone areas. Some of the ticks are so small they can't be seen with the naked eye, and those are often the ones that spread disease.

[Mike Nolan]

We had a horde of earwigs in our mailbox, some diatomaceous earth got them scrambling to leave in a hurry. But be careful not to inhale it.

[Joan Simpson]

I hate ticks and sometimes they are very small they even can be blown by the wind.A very good way to get it off is to put a drop of Dawn or any soap on it and rub it around with a Q-tip and you can easily pull the tick off.

Glad you went on to the doctor BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks for the tick removal tip, Joan. These are really small ticks. My doctor said that they are particularly adept at getting into hair and moving out onto the body from there. Scott and I are now nervous about any itch at all.

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