lymes disease
Whitetail Deer
My house is in NE Ohio and surrounded by woods and my dog just got diagnosed as having been bit by a tick with lymes disease. She will be okay but it raises concerns.
Is there anything I can do to prevent the ticks? Basically my questions is does this means my land is a "hotspot" for it? Should I take chemical precautions and if yes what?
I am trying to do what I can to prevent further issues for my family (2 girls 12 & 13) and my dogs.
spray for tics, check for tics, wear repellent.
Don't shoot possums, they eat tics and preventive measures, clothing, repellant etc... And always check yourself. One other thing is get a dog bed filled with cedar bedding and spread cedar all over your yard, ticks dont like it.
Treat all your outdoor clothing with Permethrin. Spray clothes and let them dry. This stuff works wonders. Several brands out there, Sawyers, Repel, etc.
Permanone is good stuff. I used to buy from Walmart, but now I buy from Amazon. The product I buy is called Permethrin.
Go get tested, especially if you feel ill. I've had a tick panel done on me twice since November 2018. In both cases done after being sick for over a week. In both cases negative, thankfully. It's a blood draw, took them about a week to get results.
I know there are things to spread in yards, I've never tried them personally.
Use Frontline on your dog, and a good tick/flea shampoo besides.
I contacted lymes in the spring while looking for morels. Low fever body aches went to doctor said I wanna be tested she said it was to early for lymes told her wanted anyway sure enough put me on z pack took care of it early detection is key for limes don’t wait. Saved the tic had me send it to Wisconsin for whatever reason.
I wouldn't trust frontline
We live in ground zero for ticks and chiggers. I wound up cutting back about 5 acres of trees from the house. I have a ton of grass to mow... lol...but it helped. That stated, I wound up contracting Lyme while trimming the dang bushes around my front porch back in '09. Dogs are a transport mechanism and, at the time, we had a dog that liked to run and lounge around the front porch. I was too slow on the uptake.
If you have dogs, don't waste your money on topical liquids. They are increasingly ineffective. I have used a Seresto collar on my dogs for the last 2 years and they are the truth. About $80 apiece but well worth it. They last an entire season and kill ticks graveyard dead.
We use brevecta on our dogs and works great,I would take if I was sure wouldn't make me have bad dog habits.I have had lyme and RMSF,if you live there spray where you spend most of your time and be watchful everywhere else
If you ever have a test done on yourself make sure it is the WESTERN BLOT TEST. This tests covers all tick born diseases and the very rare strains. My friend walked around for 7 years with lunes and he was considered a medical mystery. Changed doctors 2 hours from home, they gave him this test and bingo!!! Diagnosis- limes. After 6 months of super strong antibiotics he’s back to nearly normal. Too bad his good early retirement years (54-61) were spent feeling like crap
I got rmsf in 2000 & spent a week in bed sweating & freezing absolutely the sickest iv ever been as an adult
Timex X2, I got it in 2008. Waited over a week to go to the Dr. after onset of symptoms. Could barely walk into dr office under my own power
I am in West central Ohio. Have 6 acres . My wife,I and 3 Labs could not walk out back without pulling ticks. Read that bush honeysuckle was breeding ground for ticks. We declared war on the honey suckle. Cut off in early spring and put a few drops of Tordon on the freshly cut stumps. Started doing this a year ago and got the few remaining this April. I have had two ticks on my clothes this year and my wife one and none on the labs. Dogs get monthly preventive meds for fleas and ticks. Only used once this spring ,since we are not seeing the ticks. Have not seen or felt any on them either. Just a thought.
My vet says Frontline doesn't work as well here in western MO they have built up immunity to it. We use Brevecta as well. I also read on Sawyer web sight you can put permithan directly on your pets. Not on face or privates though.
Get a few Guinea hens as well. You will rarely see a tick if a have them. Tick central. I have had as many as 70 plus on me while sitting in a blind turkey hunting. Upstate NY along the Hudson River has one of the highest rate of Lyme disease in the US. Shawn
Burn the grass in the spring. Knocks em back pretty big time
Growing up with two entomologists in the House,I’ll reverberate PERMETHRIN.Kills ticks,dermestids,chiggers,fire ants,roaches ants many other insects.
Spray clothes,rub down dogs,spray ant hills and finish off with my taxidermy mounts.
I got a set of Elimitick clothes and wore them all spring turkey season in PA, NY, and ME. Never had a tick on my skin and only saw a handful on the outside of my clothes. I also mix up my own permethrin spray and use it when I'm not wearing the ET gear.
Side note, please don't believe the internet meme about possums eating ticks.
Passing along information on how to get ticks tested for common bacterial and viral ailments they carry such as Lyme disease, Anaplasma, Powassan.
East Stroudsburg University in NE Pennsylvania is providing FREE tick identification and test through https://www.ticklab.org/ The service is available nationwide, not just Pennsylvania.
Last week I found a tick attached to my leg, not embedded. I pulled the tick off with tweezers, put it in a Ziploc bag then registered my information at https://www.ticklab.org/ . A receipt is provided to mail in along with the tick. Once https://www.ticklab.org/ receives the tick, you will have test results within three business days. For my case, they texted me two days after mailing, letting me know it was an American Dog Tick. (they don’t carry Lyme’s). The next day I was texted that the test results were all negative. This was great information to receive. If the tick had tested positive, I would have been seeing my medical doctor for precautionary meds.
Anyhow, great resource for peace of mind if you ask me.
Thanks for the link TPlank
I've used Elimitick by GameHide for two years now and have been tick free.....in a high tick population.It's impregnated for 70 washings. When it's cooler I add rhinoskin clothing. Seresto collars are worth it for the dogs. I'll second cutting back around the house. ticks like high weeds with leaf litter on the ground. If you can keep a few Guinea Fowl ,they actually will eat ticks. I shower after every time that I take off my GameHide clothing . I don't have a repellant hat...and that's my one weak area of protection.
Lots of good info above ….use all of it ! They are nasty little creatures that require us to be vigil.
My wife has Lyme (chronic) after spending several years going to Dr's trying to figure out what was wrong. She is not an outdoor person and has never seen a tick on her or noticed any bites. She tested negative twice, which isn't uncommon I guess, before our current Dr tried another test and she tested positive. It has been several months of treatments and after a 6 week stint of intravenous antibiotics she is starting to feel close to normal again. We have gone to an anti inflammatory diet as well which I think is also helping. It is important to catch it early and treat it, it really screws people up if it goes undiagnosed and there aren't many Dr's who specialize in it. I know several people who have it in our area and some of them are permanently disabled. Soresto collars are the ticket for dogs.
I would take any advice that certain species of ticks (ie dog ticks) don't carry Lymes with a major grain of salt. My wife contracted Lymes disease from a wood tick bite in Montana. She displayed all the symptoms but was told she had the flu by a local doctor who wrongly informed her that only deer ticks carry Lymes. After a year and a half of sickness and symptoms we worked with a Lymes specialist in Virginia who said that ANY blood sucking insect that bites a vector (usually a mouse with Lymes ) and then bites you can transfer Lymes. It can be a flea, a mosquito, any tick, etc... By far the vast majority of cases are from the result of deer tick bites but if you have any of the symptoms, treat it early and aggressively. It's been ten years and it still affects my wife.
The sad truth is that there are a number of tick borne illnesses. I treat, on average 2-300 cases ,(maybe more) of tick borne illness yearly here in upstate NY. Lyme gets the most notoriety, but I think anaplasmosis is worse. Babesia is similar to malaria. Powasan virus can be fatal. A bite from the lone star tick can cause Alphagal syndrome (an allergy to red meat). As hunters, this might be the worst for us... The list goes on. With a changing environment, it will only get worse. The key is to remain vigilant and take as many precautions as possible. The smallest tick I've removed from a patient was the size of the POINT of a pin. Testing unfortunately has limitations and is not always accurate. In short, if not sure, get checked!
In my experience the habitat with the heaviest concentration of ticks are stands of tall grasses. That's not to say that there aren't any ticks in the woods, but I find they like the areas with more undergrowth. Be even more vigilant when you know yourself or your family/dog have been in these areas. The ideal situation related to ticks and a lot of other bugs too, is to keep everything trimmed short. We use Bravecto (it is BravectO) on our dog, and I've never seen a tick on him. It is also Lyme without the "s". Where is Charlie when you need him.
We have done this in the yard for years and it works. Gets them gone.
Sevin® Insect Killer Granules, applied with a regular lawn spreader, simplifies treating your entire yard for ticks. Used as directed, this product kills ticks above and below the surface. Then it keeps protecting your lawn and garden up to three months.
Sevin will kill any insect etc. known to man.We use it on ants and they just look at it and die!
As several stated above: permanone/permethrin/duranon (all the same pesticide) will absolutely kill any tick that tries to climb up on your clothing. Follow the directions.
