I read an article about Ticks and it stated that theres a lot of them blood suckers in the country around NC, TN, VA. Any tips and advice would be wonderful. Thanks for your time and consideration.
I read an article about Ticks and it stated that theres a lot of them blood suckers in the country around NC, TN, VA. Any tips and advice would be wonderful. Thanks for your time and consideration.
OiTrekker
Treat your clothing with permethrin.
Do tick checks on breaks and at the beginning and end of the day.
Don't suffocate, burn or chemically treat a tick that bites you. Grasp the head and pull it out. Even if the head breaks off that is better than committing the sort of trauma that makes a tick vomit into your body. If a tick is carrying a disease, making the tick vomit will increase its opportunity to transmit the disease to you.
I will loom into this Permethrin. What about tea tree oil??? I have heard this is good for fleas wonder if it carries over to ticks. Thank You...
OiTrekker
Plenty of ticks on the trail. Several people here have reported positive Lyme disease tests (including me). I now treat all my clothing with spray permethrin (do NOT spray it on your skin!!!!) and do regular checks while hiking.
A lot of 'alternative' methods work... for a small percentage of people. After going through a bout of Lyme last year (caught it early and it still kicked my butt), I would just go for the permethrin and DEET.
Contrary to popular belief Permetherin is not particularly toxic when applied to skin. Its just inactivated by oils in your skin so its a waste of spray and time. It does work quite well when clothes are soaked in it and lasts through several washings. There are many folks who buy concentrated pemetherin which is sold as insecticide and dilute it to soak their clothes in it. It also can be sprayed on clothes but its doesn't last as long and the carrier used in the spray can is very nasty stuff so dont even try to spray indoors. It is toxic to cats when in liquid form but once dried it is not. Some folks advocate putting deet on your skin and using permtherin on your clothes. When you do wash your clothes run them through the dryer on hot.
Ticks will not land on or try to travel across treated surfaces. The ticks to be most concerned about are deer ticks and they are extremely small and easily confused as a piece of dirt. I was in PA and noticed something on my leg which I through was a piece of dirt but it would not brush off. My mini swiss army knife has a magnifying lens and that's how I identified the piece of dirt as a deer tick, The knife has a set of tweezers so I was all. If you are in tick prone area many doctors will prescribe a dose of Doxycyclene in advance to carry in case you find a tick that has been latched on for a few days. For the majority of folks who are exposed a very short dose soon after the bite is all they need to prevent Lyme's disease but if they wait it can become a major issue to cure.
Its highly likely that you will not get ticks directly while hiking on the trail except when you cross farmers fields. The most common place to pick them up are when you are setting up camp or out in the woods around a campsite (looking for wood, filling up with water, etc). Once a tick is on you, it crawls upwards until it finds a place to hide, usually along or in a patch of hair but I have found them in other spots.
Also note aa deer tick needs to gorge themselves for more than a day to transmit Lyme, so you have a window. If it's still tiny (size of a period on a page), you're likely okay.
And yes, tree/field boundaries are the worst. They come from deer mice, not deer.
I started carrying a mirror for self check in those hard to see places. they usually end up in waist line collar line legs and hair. just got myself permetherin to put back on a seasonal coat. my dwr starting to where off the rain gear so time to add a coat to that as well.
You may find a tick key to be useful for removal -- http://www.tickkey.com
Ticks will be found around grasses/tall vegetation and in the leaf litter. Ticks usually find a host by hanging onto leaves and grasses with their rear legs with their from legs out stretched waiting for a potential host to brush by, so that the tick can climb oh and feed. This is what is known as "questing."
In my personal experience, I have usually picked up ticks along hiking trails (and animal trails) more than in camp. Think along the lines of passing out of the woods into a grassy meadow, cow pasture, or on into a power line cut, where the trail bed narrows and the grasses and vegetation are much closer to the trail. Or stepping off the trail through the line of vegetation on the edge of the trail to take caremof business or find a good camp spot.
igne et ferrum est potentas
"In the beginning, all America was Virginia." -William Byrd
This is interesting - can you shed some light as to why running dryer on hot works better than say just air drying or hanging your clothes on a clothesline? I was avoiding a dryer altogether as I read somewhere that the wind was somewhat responsible for dislodging permethrine particles from treated clothes.
I bought a qt. of permithrin to soak stuff, $22. I soaked a lot of stuff. Soaking lasts about 10 times longer than spray. Save the excess in a spray bottle to spray your tent or anything else. I still have a pint left. Store in cool light proof place. Shelf life is 4 years. When should I re-soak?
For ticks use a pair of pointy tweezers, gently pull straight out until tick releases. Wouldn't hurt to mark the spot so you can check for the bulls eye later. Note that a fair number of folks do not get the bulls eye. I plan on getting checked for Lyme & Giardia when I get home.
I wear long nylon pants and a long sleeve synthetic shirt, even in summer. I tuck my pants into my socks and my shirt into my pants. I've never used chemical treatment. I have only found one tick on my skin over my years of hiking (often in deer tick country in the east or midwest) and that one made it all the way up to the hairline on the back of my head. Luckily it was a wood tick and not a deer tick.
Life Member: ATC, ALDHA, Superior Hiking Trail Association
I have just done 150 miles in GA and NC and have not seen a tick yet. Maybe it's just too cold and it is certainly too wet.
That would be true for Lyme Disease, however a new virus has been found (a type of Powassan) that is deadly in about 10% of those who contract it. It can take only a few minutes for the virus to be transferred from the insect to the host and is being seen now in NY, CT, and MA. The virus infects the nervous system and can cause encephalitis and meningitis. There is no treatment for this and because its a virus, no antibiotics.
For its size, the Deer Tick carries some significant health risks, which also include Babesiosis, human granulocytic anaplasmosis, and Borrelia miyamotoi.
I bought the 10% insecticide and was wondering how to do a soak instead of spray? one instruction I came across said to dilute 3 to 1 the normal .5% found in sprays, and soak for at least 2 hours and then let air dry.
Regarding Tick Removal, as I have posted before, the tool I rely on is this. http://www.otom.com/how-to-remove-a-tick I pick up a couple each time I take my dog to the vet and give them to family and friends. The OTOM never fails to remove the head and the tick is still alive while it is trapped in the tool. So quick and easy to use, no muss no fuss. Just slip the tick in the vee groove and twist and the tick is out.
I only found one tick on my pants during my Conn. AT section hike last week which was a real surprise, I expected many more with the recent warm weather. I am also very anal about letting anything brush against me when I hike like grass, weeds, twigs etc as that is where the little buggers wait for a host to pass by.
A hot dryer will kill ticks, washing in hot water will not. (Some people recommend using a hot dryer on your clothing before washing to kill ticks.) I'm not sure how it would affect permethrin, though. I use Insect Shield treated clothing (LS shirt, long pants - Railriders or ExOfficio - year round) but spray my shoes, socks and pack. I line dry everything after washing - I'm not sure how the hot dryer would affect the synthetic fabrics and the permethrin. I also figure that if the treatment is working, there shouldn't be any living ticks. I doubt wind would affect permethrin - you're clothing would blow off the line before the permethrin would blow off of the clothing. Sunlight will degrade permethrin, though. I spray clothing outside and let it dry in the shade. When I launder my clothing I line dry it in the basement.
Here's what Sawyer says:
- Sweating and exposure to water does not significantly deteriorate the application. It is primarily the agitation of a washing machine which deteriorates the permethrin application as it knocks the molecules loose from the fabric. For best results Sawyer recommends hand washing and air drying. When using a conventional washer and dryer, use the gentle wash and dry cycles. Loss due to the dryer is limited compared to the detergent and washer agitation. Dry cleaning removes the permethrin from the fabric.
- Storing garments in dark plastic bags between uses helps to preserve the application.
Last edited by Offshore; 04-21-2015 at 07:47.
If there was a tick disease out there that killed 10%, I would not be hiking. The 10% number is for those who develop encephalitis from the disease, not for those who get the disease. http://www.cdc.gov/powassan/symptoms.html
Still yet another thing to be (a little bit) worried about on the trail though.
AT 2000 miler: 2011-2014 (via section hikes)
Camino de Santiago -- April/May 2016 (Camino Frances from Saint Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela)
CDT New Mexico sections next???
In 2011 I got Lyme in Pennsylvania, so do be fooled into thinking it's only in the south. Of the five persons (including myself) that I knew had lyme in 2011 none of us ever saw a tick.