http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi...w-tick-pets-diseases

Just be aware of the link and the possibility. The number of members here who fall prey to something nasty carried by ticks grows every year.

British medics are way off the pace in recognising symptoms and presribing treatments. Don't be shy about telling them of your activities, suspicions and the existence of Doxycycline

Still recovering from Lymes disease after nearly six months treat any tick bite with suspicion and if in doubt get checked out by the doctors. Doxycycline is strong antibiotics and not pleasant but does the job - also used to clear up syphalis, but they use double the dose for Lymes.

Syphillis, Lyme Borelliosis and Leptospirosis are all spirochetes, bacterial like organisms shaped like corkscrews which can move about in liquids.
The earlier they are treated the better, since once any infection crosses into the brain,treatment becomes very difficult and recovery is not a given.

So stay away from Ladies of the night, Rats and Ticks!

quote:

into the brain

For most of the AR Weekend Crowd this a serious issue as the Gray Matter not all that large and the symptoms immediate!


NEVER underestimate the first few days of beautiful weather in the spring time! The crawling little bastards are everywhere (and very active)!

85%-100% DEET isn't exactly the best thing for humans, either in large doses; as evident it's use on the pantlegs of my spring & summer hunting trousers & boots depict. My favorite Remington & Blaser hunting caps also severly shows the results of a quick spray as I head off for hunting forays.

Beats the Hell out of the alternatives though.

It will also eat the finishes off rifles, rubber-coated binos, watch crystals, glasses & ancilliary equipment so wipe off the palms of hands after application.

If you sit in an enclosed Stand the ThermaCell is a novel wonder of Modern Science w/o the above mentioned drawbacks. Open seats (with any amount of wind or breeze) and stalking do not afford the "cloud" protection around you.

Serious question, why do I never hear of farmers suffering from ticks? Do we have inherited immunity?

I have worked around farm animals, mainly cattle, my entire life - my father also. I have occasionally seen ticks on cattle but have never known a human to be bitten by one. Strange

Likewise never really saw ticks when I grew up and working on farms 20 years ago. Even 10 years ago when I moved up from Oxfordshire to Scotland there were a few ticks around and occasionally you picked up one when out in the hills. But in the last couple of years or so the population seems to have exploded and every time you go for a walk in the countryside and walk through grass / bracken / heather you seem to pick up ticks. Even when I go back down to my folks who live on the edge of the chilterns, the dogs are constantly picking up ticks.

Some people don't seem to get bitten - something to do with their smell, but others do. Lymes disease seems to be a real problem and every body I talk to seems to know somebody else who has been infected.

What works best to avoid tick biting here is so far: Spraying the lower end of your trousers with some good DEET spray before you are heading for the forrests or meadows - with this I decreased the intercourses on very low numbers so far...

and of course I always wear long pants and closed shoes!

Guys,

The treament of the tick borne diseases must be got at quick. Even through three weeks of Doxy cleared my Tick Fever, I'm still suffering with the after effects of the disease and I'm sure the after effects of the treatment. that's now nearly two years on.

As said above treat every bite with suspicion.

I'm now treating everything with permethrin before departure and I will update the cover while I'm there. Also look out when you get home what you have brought back in your socks clothes etc as I found a tick a week after my last return from Africa attached to the grouting in the bathroom.

The little feckers make my skin crawl at the thought now.

K

quote:

Originally posted by Fallow Buck:
Guys, . . . The little feckers make my skin crawl at the thought now.
K

You got that right and I'm the same Rotton baggers seem to get worse every year. Use Deet and still get them suckers, just try and watch out very closely. Amazing how small some of them are, you can check out, shower whatever and a day later find one you missed

I spray my hunting clothes with permethrin before season, and so far I have not had a single tick bite (that I have seen or felt) and here we have lots of them.

So Permethrine on the clothes and DEET on legs, neck and arms seems to do the trick.

i haven't yet recovered from TBE which is a virus infection.it is also caused by ticks mostly in scandinavia!
i have exprienced near death feeling. a week of feber 40 + centigrade and lack of concentration abillity still after six mounth!.
it is much worse than lyme disease.
please take a jabb against TBE!! f you are going to hunt in scandinavia! it is a horrible disease!
yes

I got tick bite feaver in Africa, not Lyme disease and it's a bacterial infection so reasonably easy to treat. I've never experienced the cold sweats and chills like that though and it wasn't pleasant.

We don't really have ticks in my part of the world, now that I'm in England can someone tell me where they're most likely to be encountered. Is it tall grass?

thanks

Deet is a repellent designed primarily to work on insects.
Permethrin is an insecticide, a laboratory tweak of pyrethrin, again designed to work on insects.

Ticks are more closely related to spiders than flies and so neither approach is completely ideal.

FWIW, I sprayed my Africa boots with Permethrin and also the zip-off seams of my craghopper trousers.
The tick bite I got there was on the wrist, under the watch strap so .....even the best laid plans of mice and men oft gang aglae!
Be vigilant!

Ticks are widespread in long grass heather, bracken etc and is now getting widespread across UK - in the new forest, forest of Dean etc as well as Scottish Highlands. Having had malaria in Zambia, lymes disease is worse - ok not quite so extreme but takes a long time to get rid of. Lots of info at:

http://www.lymediseaseaction.org.uk/

quote:

Originally posted by Heym SR20:
http://www.lymediseaseaction.org.uk/

Thanks for the link.


Damn deer are crawling with the buggers at present.

I had a tick bite last year with the characteristic bulls eye rash. It took a lot of persuading of my local GP to let me have the antibiotics. Thankfully I'm married to a surgeon who sent me armed with all of the current best practice documents and the GP relented and prescribed.
Medic friends in the West Country give the antibiotics to any and all suspicious looking bites.

I think its because hunters are in a high exposure group that they (we) are a lot more aware of the symptoms, implications and treatment than the general public.
We still represent a tiny proportion of that public so its not surprising that ordinary GP's know a lot less than us about the treatment,

Your parner a Surgeon? I'll bet watching you gralloch causes a few winces!

quote:

Originally posted by Trapper Dave:
I think its because hunters are in a high exposure group that they (we) are a lot more aware of the symptoms, implications and treatment than the general public.
We still represent a tiny proportion of that public so its not surprising that ordinary GP's know a lot less than us about the treatment,

Fortunately my GP is a hunting man.

quote:

Originally posted by Heym SR20:


Some people don't seem to get bitten - something to do with their smell, but others do. Lymes disease seems to be a real problem and every body I talk to seems to know somebody else who has been infected.

I am a tick magnet myself.

Maybe one of the reasons is that I tend to crawl in the thickest bush while hunting

While other people I hunt with find 0-2 ticks on their body after a full day of hunting in a tick area, I can find 10-15 or even more of them on mine...

Ballistol (Klever) makes a product "Stichfrei" that works well for us against ticks and other bugs. Bayer use to have a spray against ticks worked also very well but I have not seen this for a long time locally.
Cheers

Nomad Uk were making a light weight anti tick stalking suit. That was designed to impead a ticks attempts to hitch a ride. They also suggested that you periodically spray the suit with Permethrin.

I have a light weight jacket and trousers that have elasticated cuffs, sold by Cabelas. That performs a similar job with the occassional misting with

Thankfully Amazon no longer supply the Lifesytems spray with the pump attached. It used to become undone and then spilt out in the post. You now get it with a regular secure cap and the pump is tied to the bottle for "installing" at home.

I also use Bayticol which I buy in the pharmacists in SouthAfrica. It contains permethrin and deet which helps all round.

K

Assuming that you are talking about Bayticol Aersol spray and not the sheep dip. You'll find that the active ingredient is Flumethrin otherwise known as pyrethroid.

Its a product designed to be sprayed on fabrics to kill amoungst other things bed bugs.

No mention of permethrin or DEET.

http://www.bayerhome.co.za/doc...col%20Aeroso_ELl.pdf

Flumethrin isn't otherwise known as Pyrethroid.
It is one of the Pyrethroid family.
Alongside Permethrin, Deltamethrin Alphacypermethrin etc etc.
They are all chemical tweaks of the active ingredient originally isolated from Pyrethrin found in the Chysanthemum family.
It was this flower family's defence mechanism against insect attack.

Dave

Correct.

IDENTITY
Flumethrin is pyrethroid acaracide composed of a mixture of two diasterioisomers (trans-Z-1 and
trans-Z-2, with an approximate ratio 55:45) formed by the reaction of 4-fluoro-3-phenoxybenzaldehyde
and trans-(E)-3-[2-chloro-2-(4-chlorophenyl)vinyl-2,2-dimethylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid chloride in
the presence of cyanide.
ISO common name: flumethrin

Molecular formula: C28H22Cl2FNO3
Molecular weight: 510.4


http://www.fao.org/ag/AGP/AGPP.../96_eva/flumethr.pdf

Jools, the adjunct group is what determines the variance within a family of compounds, not the family name itself.

You betcha!

Hate to see banal commentary from relatively ignorant observers, google can only take a man so far.

quote:

Hate to see banal commentary from relatively ignorant observers

You should know all about that.

Have you been watching War Hero In My Family? Its all about people who's families fought Hitler.

quote:

Originally posted by Jools:

quote:

Hate to see banal commentary from relatively ignorant observers

You should know all about that.

Have you been watching War Hero In My Family? Its all about people who's families fought Hitler.

I would, you know as much about chemistry as you know about the other subject you hold forth on.

Like benefits and a tertiary education.

quote:

Originally posted by Ghubert:

quote:

Originally posted by Jools:

quote:

Hate to see banal commentary from relatively ignorant observers

You should know all about that.

Have you been watching War Hero In My Family? Its all about people who's families fought Hitler.

I would

Now we're starting to get some where. Admitting your failings is the first step towards healing .

quote:

Originally posted by Jools:

quote:

Originally posted by Ghubert:

quote:

Originally posted by Jools:

quote:

Hate to see banal commentary from relatively ignorant observers

You should know all about that.

Have you been watching War Hero In My Family? Its all about people who's families fought Hitler.

I would

Now we're starting to get some where. Admitting your failings is the first step towards healing .

Preach this to the dole mole side of the family.

Farmers & country dwellers DO get tick bites, often. These folks are VERY often misdiagnosed. An international symposium on Lyme Disease was held last month in Dublin, and other conferences are being held in the UK & Austria.
Lyme has been around for eons; the "ancient hunter" found on the Alpine glacier in Italy had the Lyme spirochete.

The easing of Sheep dipping regulations and the removal of organo-phosphate (not pleasant chemicals themselves) type dips have gone a long way towards the increase of Ticks in large areas of the country.

Yes, I always found the old organophosphate chemicals very effective. It's a shame about their persistence.
The various pyrethroids available need a bit of caution too
Its worth considering how tick friendly your clothing is.
When I go tick hunting, I just drag a wollen blanket across the grass and they latch on.
So tweed plus fours and knee socks are for the brave on the hills.
My musto camo trousers seem pretty good but the ankle fastening could be better.
the trouble is, once you are dressed up tick tight, you are too hot.
As ever, vigilance is the key, that and the ability and will to go looking for pin head sized critters on your body after a long day

There is a recent report here in the USA that bites from the Lone Star tick can make you allergic to meat !!
I hope further testing disputes that.

I'm not sure how a tick bite could kick that off!
I do know that Lyme disease appears to have become a bucket diagnosis for a whole host of attributed symptoms and effects.
Certainly borrelia can affect various parts of the body differently and with varying severity.
Not saying it couldn't but surprised that a physician could confidently link it back when most don't even agree on a clear diagnosis.
I suspect that with time, the medics will find that several different types or clusters of symptoms will lead to different types of treatments.

quote:

Originally posted by Trapper Dave:
Yes, I always found the old organophosphate chemicals very effective. It's a shame about their persistence.
The various pyrethroids available need a bit of caution too
Its worth considering how tick friendly your clothing is.
When I go tick hunting, I just drag a wollen blanket across the grass and they latch on.
So tweed plus fours and knee socks are for the brave on the hills.
My musto camo trousers seem pretty good but the ankle fastening could be better.
the trouble is, once you are dressed up tick tight, you are too hot.
As ever, vigilance is the key, that and the ability and will to go looking for pin head sized critters on your body after a long day

The best thing I've found for stopping the blighters getting to familar with the family jewels and the slant eyed snake is a pair of womens tights worn as a first layer. Just make sure they don't have holes in them.