Ticks are one species that I hope go extinct. So gross.
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I'm up to 9 so far this year
Keep in mind that even after checking yourself after being in the out doors they may still be on your clothes or in your hair. Check yourself again the next day. It takes them awhile to burrow in
Also, if you have pets that go outside, such as a dog you take for walks, you need to check them even if they are on flea and tick prevention. Ticks are more than glad to hitchhike indoors on pets and then later decide to rehome themselves onto a human.
Mind you, they're sometimes happy to burrow in even when they have hair around them. It really takes a friend and a comb to be sure.
Do ticks in America not carry encephalitis (like they do in central/eastern Europe)?Because that's way more dangerous than Lyme disease. I find it weird that it isn't mentioned at all, nor the vaccination against it.
I would go to the CDC to check but that’s been deleted. We’ve solved it by removing the webpage
https://www.cdc.gov/tick-borne-encephalitis/index.html
I’m kidding, but it certainly seems to be a thing that people should be aware of.
That being said I think the scary thing about Lyme disease is the symptoms aren’t crazy strong at the beginning, and easy to misattribute if you miss the tick. But if you don’t treat it early it can really fuck you up.
I got bit by a tick years ago when I was 16, right above my belt buckle. Had a generalized rash, and my doctor said it was because of an allergic reaction to my belt buckle and prescribed me steroid cream. Basically had to demand a Lyme test just in case and tested positive.
Dang, what a shitty doctor.
Although I think my perspective is a bit skewed, having grown up in a tick hotspot here in Germany. Everyone is aware of ticks here, pretty sure it's taught in elementary school. And the encephalitis vaccine is pretty much standard, too.
Those ticks carry a load of shit. Like one infection that makes you allergic to eating meat.
Oh that's great. Fantastic. Can someone please feel the need to bring one of these into the country for observation or whatever people bring ticks for?
That's one thing this country needs desperately right now... Some big problem or some sort. We've apparently ran out of problems and are actively looking for them as we speak.
Get the vaccines if you can.
There is no vaccine for Lyme that’s available to the public. Hopefully there will be one soon though. My wife and I have been volunteering for a Lyme vaccine trial for the past two years.
It's probably a good general advice to ask your doctor for "local" vaccinations whenever you move.
The encephalitis vaccine is very common here in southern Germany, but usually skipped in the north where ticks are quite uncommon (which is reasonable, since it's pretty aggressive, being sick for a day or two after the jab is not unlikely).
My 75 year old dad got a tick bite and ignored it for three days of fever over 101, no appetite, and severely weak before finally getting antibiotics.
He doesn't believe in global warming.
I would make a "The Tick" joke but this is serious
Don't try to remove them with spoons?
They make spoons specifically for removing ticks.

These work well even on tiny ticks. I got some when I was having trouble removing ticks around my cats' eyelids. I didn't want anything sharp or metal near their eyes.
Not trying to be funny, but would a plastic spoon also suffice? I've never had a tick before.
The notch is the useful part; it lets you lift the tick off your body without squeezing it. Skillful use of good tweezers does the same. (The ones on a Swiss army knife dont really work for this)
So what you’re saying is my dad held a smoldering match against my leg while I screamed for fun?
Had a friend tell me about using dental floss to wrap around as close to the skin as possible, tighten, and pull the tick off. Haven't tried it, but seems like it might work
Won’t that just cut off its head and leave the parts behind? I thought that was the general problem with using tweezers.
Luckily we don’t generally get ticks but the last time I tried to remove one I completely screwed it up, so I always take my kids to urgent care to have it done. It wouldn’t take much for that to become ruinously expensive
I think the idea is to get the floss just tight enough to not slip over the body.
I have this mental image of you as a govt agent choking someone out with a wire and then years later as a civilian trying to remove ticks off kids. "Dang it, cut it in half again. Why does this keep happening to me?"
Pick up some of those plastic tick spoons. I ordered a three-pack real cheap and keep one in the truck and one in the kitchen.
I bet with practice you could cut a notch in a spoon with a knife that would do the same thing
According to this video, the important part is a V-shaped notch with bevelled edges, cut into some thin piece of plastic.
I would make one and blame OP for their terrible capitalization
That's New York Times style. Headline Has Every Major Word Capitalized. Subheading looks normal.
Too many Ticks? You need more Tocks, then.
I'm sitting in my house folding laundry. CLEAN clothes. When out of the pile comes a tick that starts crawling up my leg. I grab it and try and smash it in a tissue. This thing is like a tank, it won't crush no matter what I do. Had to take it outside, and then burn my house down.

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