primitive gets ticked off

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11426569

Oh my.

REP (17,462 posts)    Mon Jan 7, 2013, 06:58 PM

Black-legged tick on me for 3 days (seeing a doctor tomorrow)

Feel dumb as hell that I didn't notice it right away - I felt something odd; thought it might be a rash and forgot about it. I have FUBAR shoulders and the tick was in a place that requires shoulder movements that aren't easy for me to finally see and remove it.
 
Anyway, it is a black-legged tick. I'm from the Midwest, where we have different ticks that cause much smaller wounds - this one left something that looks more like a brown recluse bite than a tick bite (and I have the entire tick in a specimen baggie - it's a tick). Besides washing the bite and looking for a bull's eye rash, anything else to watch for before tomorrow when I see my doc?

OccupyManny (43 posts)    Mon Jan 7, 2013, 07:09 PM

1. Be careful

I had Lyme's disease I caught while hunting dear 10 years ago. I still have problems from the damage.

peacebird (7,351 posts)   Mon Jan 7, 2013, 07:15 PM

2. Bullseye may or may not appear, and can take 10 days to present. I had lymes twice in last two years

Early treatment is key. Please know the blood test is innacurate, can give false negatives. I would proactively request the nasty antibiotic if I were you. Dexa something...

sunwyn (379 posts)    Mon Jan 7, 2013, 07:46 PM

3. I have had Lyme since '95

Before good tests. It took two years before they found it in spinal fluid from a spinal tap. By that time I was paralyzed. Get early treatment. Watch for sudden fevers, rashes, achy joints, flu like symptoms. Good luck!

handmade34 (9,228 posts)   Mon Jan 7, 2013, 08:21 PM

4. you will be ok

I found a tick on my hip last year (working in Mass... Lyme country) ... realized it had been there a few days (allowing for the time I had been out in the woods) My husband couldn't get it out and I headed to the ER (it was Sunday)... I was rather frantic but all was well... the doc dug the bugger out and gave me a dose of medicine ...stupid ticks!!!

Rider3 (283 posts)    Mon Jan 7, 2013, 08:24 PM

5. feeling like you have the flu

I got Lyme in October 2005. It sucked! I felt like I had the flu; my hair hurt. Fever (100-101). Just felt like I didn't want to move. Got treated when the symptoms came and was put on Doxycycline (I think) 3x/day for 3 weeks. Did the trick! Now, however, when I get bitten by a tick, I take a dose of Doxy and hope I don't get the symptoms. It's been working. I hope you stay well!

Warpy (66,529 posts)    Mon Jan 7, 2013, 09:08 PM

6. If it left anything behind, it's suspicious for Lyme although it can be just an allergic reaction to the tick's enzymes. A lot of people who get sick and are positive for Lyme never saw the tick or the bite.
 
The doc is going to want to make sure part of the tick's mouth isn't still buried in there.
 
The bull's eye rash isn't 100% certain to appear. Infection can make you feel rotten (my temperature was 103 and change) or it can just feel like mild flu, just a few vague aches and pains that go away quickly, then come back with a vengeance weeks or months later.
 
Lyme is a fantastically old disease, the man found buried in the ice in the Alps suffered from it some 5300 years ago, the earliest confirmed case.

<<<starting to wonder if the defrocked warped primitive, she with the face like Hindenberg's, gets all of her medical information not from having been a now-banned-for-life registered nurse, but from the nadin machine instead.

REP (17,462 posts)   Thu Jan 10, 2013, 05:09 AM

7. Update: doxycycline for 10 days and Cormax ointment

It's a bit hard to tell with me if the increased joint pain is just increased joint pain (I have very bad arthritis in my arms/shoulders) but my neck is stiff, so ... antibiotics

Thanks all!

<<<wonders if those are any mind-altering pharmaceuticals, in which case the primitive's likely to go out and on purpose get another tick, so as to get more drugs.

2theleft (283 posts)   Thu Jan 10, 2013, 11:14 PM

8. Better safe than sorry...

My boss's wife got bit and had not immediate reaction, so did nothing. She then got sick later, misdiagnosed. Sick again, same thing. This went one for over a year until she was finally checked for lyme. It has been a really hard several years for her.
 
My ex-boyfriend does mountain bike races. He did a race, we did the tick check, neither of us found something. About a week or so later we are driving to the beach. Stop at the rest area. He come to the car, "there is a weird rash on my hip". I said, what does it look like? He says a bulls eye. I make him drop his pants in the parking line. We drove to the next urgent care/emergency room we could find. The best part of that story was that we get to the hospital at the Outer Banks. Walk up, the receptionist says, "why are you here". I said, "he has lyme's disease." She looks at me like I'm crazy. Nurse comes to get us, same thing. Doctor finally comes into the room, "so, why do you think you have lyme's disease? Most people are scared of it, but I've never actually seen anyone who had it." I looked at my boyfriend, he dropped his pants. The doctor said, "holy shit". I said, "are we right?" He said, yes, you're rigth. Was so funny.
 
Anyway, again, glad you got the meds. He had no trouble with them and the peace of mind was wonderful. I'm not a person to take antbiotics for any old thing, but this is something you need to do.

Jenoch (876 posts)    Fri Jan 11, 2013, 12:17 AM

9. Last summer my 80 year old father left a wood tick (not a deer tick) on his leg for several days. He got an infection at the site of the tick and was also put on a regime of Doxycycline. He has petechiae (spots) on his legs from chronic low platelets but it is still not an excuse for him not to check himself for ticks after we have been in the woods. (Had I known he was bei g lax about it I would have checked him out. I do now).
 
Edit: He is fine. The antibiotics cleared up the infection). Good luck.

Stupid question, possibly, but it's asked by a person who's never in his life caught a tick.

Is it possible to have a tick sucking out one's blood, and one's not aware of it for some days?

[Carl]

Given DUmmy hygiene it probably took the thing 3 days to get to actual skin.

[JohnnyReb]

I think the DUmmies are talking lyme's disease and looking for a rocky mountain spotted fever rash.

Lyme's disease = deer tick.

Rocky mountain spotted fever = dog tick.

[ChuckJ]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11426569

Oh my.

<<<starting to wonder if the defrocked warped primitive, she with the face like Hindenberg's, gets all of her medical information not from having been a now-banned-for-life registered nurse, but from the nadin machine instead.
 

<<<wonders if those are any mind-altering pharmaceuticals, in which case the primitive's likely to go out and on purpose get another tick, so as to get more drugs.

Stupid question, possibly, but it's asked by a person who's never in his life caught a tick.

Is it possible to have a tick sucking out one's blood, and one's not aware of it for some days?

Possibly. I've found them on a few occasions where it looked like they had been doing their thing for a day or two, but that is rare. Most of the time they are going to start itching not long after they start biting. I guess it depends on where they are located.

I've NEVER went to the ER to get a tick removed, and I've gotten into a lot of ticks through the years. There were a couple of days last year that I was pulling 20+ per day off of me.

[ExGeeEye]

Is it possible to have a tick sucking out one's blood, and one's not aware of it for some days?

First tick I got, I was maybe 12, I figure I got it at summer camp.  No idea what day.  With the usual degree of personal hygiene practiced by 12 year olds without Mom scowling at 'em, I didn't get nekkid all week, even to go swimming (36 years later I still love jeans shorts)-- certainly not to bathe, and the location wasn't visually obvious even when dropping a deuce.

Found the bug Saturday at bathtime.  Pulled him out and sent him down the drain.  No further ill effects.

Now when camping I find a way to wash every day (usually campground showers) and have found a couple that way.  Youngsters in my care on such excursions are required to wash as well, and urged to check themselves.

[DumbAss Tanker]

There are actually several other diseases besides Lyme's and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever you can catch from the little bastards, some just as bad as those two.  We lost a soldier here a few years ago who came out of an extended field problem with a dozen ticks on him that he neglected to look for and remove for a week, he dies within a couple of weeks after returning to garrison.  Every so often one of the &@#$ larval ("Seed" ticks) will elude my search and I won't realize it's there until I feel the irritation in a day or two.  Particularly for Lyme disease and its cycle of transmission, the larger ones are a lot more likely to infect you, fortunately, and I almost always catch them before they dig in.

[delilahmused]

Possibly. I've found them on a few occasions where it looked like they had been doing their thing for a day or two, but that is rare. Most of the time they are going to start itching not long after they start biting. I guess it depends on where they are located.

I've NEVER went to the ER to get a tick removed, and I've gotten into a lot of ticks through the years. There were a couple of days last year that I was pulling 20+ per day off of me.

I get spider bites almost every year when I'm picking berries. I never feel it when it happens, probably because I'm standing in the middle of brambles, but my leg swells like crazy in that spot. Takes forever to go away and hurts like hell for about a week. The itching drives me nuts. I have to swallow Benedryl like candy during the summer because I'm SO allergic to poison oak (it's everywhere) and hay...mowing & baling season is a nightmare...but even that doesn't stop the itch.

Poison Oak is a rather fascinating plant, though, the way it mimics whatever plant it's growing with be it a crab apple tree or raspberry vines. My husband and sons don't get it so they remove as much as they can and the goats love the stuff. I'm anal about looking for the stuff but I can't keep the dogs and cats from running through it. Wonder if dogs are ever allergic to it?

Cindie

[Gina]

Stupid question, possibly, but it's asked by a person who's never in his life caught a tick.

Is it possible to have a tick sucking out one's blood, and one's not aware of it for some days?

I like to look myself over after the shower so I don't miss anything.  I also check hubby with a fine tooth comb everywhere when he has been out.  My son has started getting bashful about me checking him but oh well.  I told him he would feel really stupid if one of his balls fell off because of a tick bite 

[DefiantSix]

I like to look myself over after the shower so I don't miss anything.  I also check hubby with a fine tooth comb everywhere when he has been out.  My son has started getting bashful about me checking him but oh well.  I told him he would feel really stupid if one of his balls fell off because of a tick bite 

 

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tiPndMqxLQ[/youtube]

[ChuckJ]

I get spider bites almost every year when I'm picking berries. I never feel it when it happens, probably because I'm standing in the middle of brambles, but my leg swells like crazy in that spot. Takes forever to go away and hurts like hell for about a week. The itching drives me nuts. I have to swallow Benedryl like candy during the summer because I'm SO allergic to poison oak (it's everywhere) and hay...mowing & baling season is a nightmare...but even that doesn't stop the itch.

Poison Oak is a rather fascinating plant, though, the way it mimics whatever plant it's growing with be it a crab apple tree or raspberry vines. My husband and sons don't get it so they remove as much as they can and the goats love the stuff. I'm anal about looking for the stuff but I can't keep the dogs and cats from running through it. Wonder if dogs are ever allergic to it?

Cindie

I'm lucky in that Poison Ivy and Poison Oak doesn't affect me. I can crumble the green leaves and rub them into my skin.

There is some sort of plant life in the woods that I am allergic to though. The problem is that I've yet to figure out what it is.

[LC EFA]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11426569
...

Stupid question, possibly, but it's asked by a person who's never in his life caught a tick.

Is it possible to have a tick sucking out one's blood, and one's not aware of it for some days?

Yes.

I've had paralysis ticks that didn't make their presence known for a few days.

Some other ticks I've felt as they start to burrow in and remove immediately.

[BEG]

My sister-in-law lives out in the country outside of Tulsa.  Lots of ticks out there, we have to check everyone when we go out there.

10 years ago so got really sick. Her joints started crippling up, she couldn't walk or move for that matter. She was put in the hospital for weeks and they tested for lymes several times. Nothing came back positive. It took her months but eventually she got better. Her doctor said that even though she never tested positive for it he is fairly sure that was what was wrong with her. It was a really scary time when she was so sick, it came on so sudden.

[Ogre]

Given DUmmy hygiene it probably took the thing 3 days to get to actual skin.

Gotta wonder what disease the DUmmy gave the tick!

[ChuckJ]

My sister-in-law lives out in the country outside of Tulsa.  Lots of ticks out there, we have to check everyone when we go out there.

10 years ago so got really sick. Her joints started crippling up, she couldn't walk or move for that matter. She was put in the hospital for weeks and they tested for lymes several times. Nothing came back positive. It took her months but eventually she got better. Her doctor said that even though she never tested positive for it he is fairly sure that was what was wrong with her. It was a really scary time when she was so sick, it came on so sudden.

Before my wife and I got married she came down with something that put her in the hospital. After tons of test the doctors finally claimed that it was Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Naturally, since this is something that you can get from ticks I got  blamed for it.

[GOBUCKS]

Over decades of turkey hunting, squirrel hunting, early deer archery hunting, bank fishing, beagle training, and just roaming around, I've had hundreds of ticks attached, and just pulled them off.

Some itch for a few days, but I've never been sick. Of course, I've played golf in thunderstorms, too.

Either I'm immune, or the odds are extremely long against anything bad happening.

[BlueStateSaint]

I like to look myself over after the shower so I don't miss anything.  I also check hubby with a fine tooth comb everywhere when he has been out.  My son has started getting bashful about me checking him but oh well.  I told him he would feel really stupid if one of his balls fell off because of a tick bite 

When I was at ROTC Advanced Camp at FT Bragg in the summer of 1985, I could feel the moment I got bit by a tick--on one of my balls.  I couldn't get to the thing at that moment--I was in a fighting position at the time.  A few hours later, though (after the firefight), I killed the SOB.