is there a tick issue where you live?

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  • hevhoyda
    hevhoyda Posts: 146 Member
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    I live in Ohio and ticks are big here every spring... Even with tick And flea medicine we pull a couple off our dogs each year... Plus we live in the country and are in the woods a lot so that never helps
  • katejenkins1
    katejenkins1 Posts: 210 Member
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    I'm in Central Maryland, they are freaking all over the place. Pulled 2 off my one son and one off my dog so far this year. I haven't even taken them into the woods yet. Been lucky so far all ticks have been large dog ticks, no threat of lime disease.
    I'm having my yard treated for ticks and fleas this year.
  • SueGremlin
    SueGremlin Posts: 1,066 Member
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    I am a parasitologist, ticks are my field of study. It's already stacking up to be quite a summer because of the extremely mild winter we had. Lack of long, hard frosts have resulted in unprecedented populations. Make sure you keep your beasts treated and use your DEET repellent!!!!

    Remember that Picaridin repellent doesn't work for ticks so read labels.
  • SueGremlin
    SueGremlin Posts: 1,066 Member
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    By the way, Lyme disease is a serious worry, but it is not the only tick-borne disease to worry about. If the tick you pull off of yourself or your pet is not a "deer tick", that doesn't mean you should not be concerned about disease transmission. Ehrlichia and babesia are just two of the diseases that are popping up, especially on the east coast. Both of them far worse than Lyme disease.

    Always keep your eyes open and be careful out there!
  • bcollins500
    bcollins500 Posts: 9 Member
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    We live in the Central Maine area and we have a tick problem for years. I have a large fenced in yard and in spite of that our cat and dogs have had ticks on them. My daughter after a small hike at the end of May also found a tick on herself. You really have to pay attention if you live in or near the woods as we do.
  • r1ghtpath
    r1ghtpath Posts: 701 Member
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    By the way, Lyme disease is a serious worry, but it is not the only tick-borne disease to worry about. If the tick you pull off of yourself or your pet is not a "deer tick", that doesn't mean you should not be concerned about disease transmission. Ehrlichia and babesia are just two of the diseases that are popping up, especially on the east coast. Both of them far worse than Lyme disease.

    Always keep your eyes open and be careful out there!


    thank you!!
    i'm in NOVA and we have a massive tick/ lyme issue. it's insane. it's hard to find someone that hasn't been affected by lyme or had a family member affected by lyme :-(

    i am getting tired of picking ticks off me and the kids. every single time we go out, we have ticks i pull off :-( we are outside A TON! i have started using DEET again because it's gotten so bad, and we still have ticks come home with us :-(

    i'd like to end up somewhere that is NOT as bad as NOVA!
  • islandnutshel
    islandnutshel Posts: 1,143 Member
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    I live in British Columbia, Canada, just north of Washington. We have ticks and lyme disease, but the Canadian health system likes to say we don't get that here. I guese the Ticks in Washington can't get across the border? No passports? Till we catch up, if we suspect Lymes disease, we have to go to the US for testing......
    Pretty irritating. I have friends that have been diagnosed with it, so I know it's here too.
    We will catch up eventually, most things to do with healthcare here are fantastic, so this is just a glitch.
  • becoming_a_new_me
    becoming_a_new_me Posts: 1,860 Member
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    By the way, Lyme disease is a serious worry, but it is not the only tick-borne disease to worry about. If the tick you pull off of yourself or your pet is not a "deer tick", that doesn't mean you should not be concerned about disease transmission. Ehrlichia and babesia are just two of the diseases that are popping up, especially on the east coast. Both of them far worse than Lyme disease.

    Always keep your eyes open and be careful out there!

    I can definitely relate to this!! Not the Ehrlichia and babesia, but the Lyme disease. It's not 100% easy to diagnose either if you aren't looking for it specifically
  • halhix
    halhix Posts: 48 Member
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    My wife is on the way to get a PICC line inserted so that she can take Rocephin for three months. She has Lyme and Bartonella that she has to get rid of. This stuff is really scary for someone who has a problem detoxing. I can go on and on about this and the mess it causes...
  • Alexstrasza
    Alexstrasza Posts: 619 Member
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    I live in Iowa and haven't come across a tick in years. I'm sure if I spent more time out in the woods I'd see them more often but I never come across them.

    Funny tick story:

    I used to visit family in Tennessee every summer. One year my best friend came with me. We were about 14 years old. Well whenever I would go down there I would sit and pick ticks off the dogs and throw them in the fire till they popped. The dogs loved it, they were strays usually and would have ticks that were as big as a grape!

    Well my friend thought it'd be funny to take one of these huge ticks and pop it with a rock. What she didn't think of was in which direction to push. Instead of pushing outward, away from her, she pressed inward, toward her face. The tick popped and blood splattered all over her shirt and face.

    Nothing came of it (she didn't get any diseases or anything) and it has proven to be a pretty amusing story.
  • nakedsun
    nakedsun Posts: 115
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    I live up in Ontario and surprisingly and have encountered one tick ever despite having grown up on a farm on 100 acres of wooded land. My dogs, horses, buffalo, cats, bunnies, humans have never had a tick. My ex's dog got one in the city once but that's all I've seen.

    How odd. The idea of them freaks me out though.
  • Doing_The_Unstruck
    Doing_The_Unstruck Posts: 241 Member
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    I live in SE Wisconsin. One place I used to run trails at is really bad with ticks this year.I found a new place to run and luckly haven't found a tick on me yet.
  • rebewck
    rebewck Posts: 14
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    Ticks, gnats, mosquitoes are amazingly bad this year. I live in Kentucky. News people say it's because we didn't have a cold winter (I think it was only 30 degrees 2 days) and thus the bugs weren't killed off like usual.
  • verptwerp
    verptwerp Posts: 3,659 Member
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    I work at an animal hospital in lower NY ...... people are always asking us how to remove ticks off their pets ..... (a bit of liquid soap on a cottonball should make the little buggers back out, then I'd crush it ..... sorry, PETA-people)
    :flowerforyou:
  • SPNLuver83
    SPNLuver83 Posts: 2,050 Member
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    nope, no tick issues here. though i suppose if we lived in a more wooded area there may be.
  • SueGremlin
    SueGremlin Posts: 1,066 Member
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    I work at an animal hospital in lower NY ...... people are always asking us how to remove ticks off their pets ..... (a bit of liquid soap on a cottonball should make the little buggers back out, then I'd crush it ..... sorry, PETA-people)
    :flowerforyou:
    Okay, I have to speak up about this.

    NEVER EVER put anything on a tick that is attached. Once ticks are firmly attached, they actually secrete cement (that is what it is called--cement) to anchor themselves. They cannot back out even if they want to.
    When you apply an irritating substance or a match head or grease or whatever to a tick, it greatly increases the chance of that tick regurgitating and transmitting the disease they may be carrying.

    Please do not ever do this. The ONLY safe way to remove a tick is to grasp it with tweezers, your fingers, or a tick removal tool as close to the skin as possible and pull straight out.

    And don't forget to save the tick for testing.
  • uallonsy
    uallonsy Posts: 6
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    Don't forget about Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
  • 1Kristine1
    1Kristine1 Posts: 697 Member
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    Never encountered a tick that I know of. Not really mentioned much where I live in Canada, maybe it should be. But we have a crap load of mosquitoes...stupid things.

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