Unwelcome Harbinger of Spring

[so lucky]

I attended a memorial service for a class mate yesterday, at a country church and cemetery. After the main service in the church, at his grave we sang "I'll Fly Away" and released balloons. Nice tribute to a man who had devoted his life to God and Music.
After I got home, I changed clothes and discovered I had been ambushed by deer ticks. Maybe I was standing in a nest of them in the cemetery.
I counted about 35, most of which were firmly attached already.
I started to itch today. Ugh.
This is part of what I don't like about warm weather. My mom always said that chiggers come out after the first rain in May. I think it rained the first 3 days of May, so we have those little buggers to look forward to, too.

 

[aftermidnight]

I hope you are getting yourself to a doctor toot sweet. Lyme disease is a possibility
and is nothing to sneeze at, doesn't hurt to be on the safe side, go get a shot.

Annette

 

[digitS']

I'm not gonna like those things! 35!!!

Fortunately, my home is quite a distance from standing water/wetlands. Mosquitoes are not much of a problem. I'm too lame to be out in the hills and thrashing thru brush, where I would expect to find ticks. No pets to share fleas. Bees, I have pretty good experience avoiding. And chiggers ... The only time that I had any experience with them was thousands of miles from here ..!

35 ticks at once!!! I hope you know a proper treatment for yourself!

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

my skin is crawling just reading that... i've only seen a few deer ticks here and none attached ever that i know of. saw a wood tick the other day for the first time ever, but it was crawling on the guy i was talking to...

if they've bit you and they are deer ticks and you are in a lyme's disease area it's gonna be worth a doc visit i think.

 

[so lucky]

You know, I hadn't even thought about going to a doctor. Is there a medication one can take? I guess I can google it.

 

[catjac1975]

I attended a memorial service for a class mate yesterday, at a country church and cemetery. After the main service in the church, at his grave we sang "I'll Fly Away" and released balloons. Nice tribute to a man who had devoted his life to God and Music.
After I got home, I changed clothes and discovered I had been ambushed by deer ticks. Maybe I was standing in a nest of them in the cemetery.
I counted about 35, most of which were firmly attached already.
I started to itch today. Ugh.
This is part of what I don't like about warm weather. My mom always said that chiggers come out after the first rain in May. I think it rained the first 3 days of May, so we have those little buggers to look forward to, too.

I have never heard of such an attack. Stay well.

 

[catjac1975]

You know, I hadn't even thought about going to a doctor. Is there a medication one can take? I guess I can google it.

Normally they give you 1 big dose of doxycycline. Under your circumstances I would go for the 2-3 week treatment.

 

[so lucky]

Well, the good news is that, if I can trust google, the tick has to be attached for at least 36 hours for the disease to travel from the tick's gut to the salivary glands (or something like that)
I doubt if these ticks were even 36 hours old, they were tiny, and the longest-attached one was only for about 18 hours.
We have lots of deer ticks around here. I need to get chickens again.

 

[baymule]

I hate ticks.

 

[so lucky]

I'm going nuts from the itching.

Since my mind is on itching, I have mentally...officially...graded the itching of the various biting insects we have here.
* Least and shortest aggravation and itching is probably a flea bite.
* A little worse is a mosquito bite. They don't last more than a couple days.
* I think sand fleas go here. They seem to me to itch longer and more intensely than a regular flea, and sort of sneak up on you.
* Ticks come next. I think they can itch the longest. I had a tick bite on my leg still occasionally itch about 6 months after the actual bite.
* At the top of the itch and aggravation list are chiggers. They itch so bad, you have to scratch them till the skin is raw, bloody and swollen. Only then do they stop itching, and only because the pain masks the itch. After the pain goes away, they itch again. Last year I deduced that chiggers will move around on your body. Bite in one place for a couple days, then move an inch over and dig in again. To top it off, chiggers are so small, you can't see them on you. It's like being tortured by an invisible alien.

Like I said, I'm going nuts from the itching.

I've been told I'm too sensitive, lol!