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| From the comedy The Tick |
Remember this: Hold your breathe. Don't let that tick get you. Pick for ticks (this could be fun for some people.) You might feel a little romance coming on?
One of the greater horrors you will ever know is that if a tick bites you there is the possiblity it will compromise your ability to eat meat by way of anaphylaxis. Welcome to the party!
It is a little disconcerting to know that while the average hunter is spot and stalking his quarry in the field over multi-terrain and varying environments, there is a creature the size of the head of a pencil eraser or smaller stalking us. This unassuming assassin is the tick.
The tick's ninja like abilities to lurk on grass or lowlying vegetation to hop a ride on what the tick would consider Disneyland is one part humorous one part not that funny.
Ticks at times form what are called 'tick hot spots'. This is an area in humid moist tree stands where ticks can breed and hatch their young. If you walk though such a place you could have over 50 ticks on you. These baby ticks are really small. I read that ticks can sense the carbon dioxide coming out your mouth when you breathe. Its true what they say: your waste product is another creatures treasure. The tick has its own strategy for hunting you down in the bush.
The tick is on a quest for your blood, who is carrying a microscopic pathogen as a house warming gift from it to you.
That is the scary thing about pathogens. It can take a host, manipulate the host (tick) to get the pathogen to the desired location for best results to do damage.
Why am I on the tick wagon you ask?
After the beagle episode, I thought I had put enough Deep Woods Off on to chase away all living things but while checking later found I had a female tick on my shoulder. I hate ticks. They gross me out. The thought of them poking my skin and inserting a "hypostome" into me while simultaneously sucking my blood and infecting me made me feel a little violated as always.
Hunters worry about bear maulings, charging elk, the buddy shooting them or God forbid a turkey should poke out your eyes on some weird hunting attack. No, its the tick that will bring you to your knees. It probably weighs less than a drop of acid rain.
I felt a slight itch then took a mirror to bat to see what was back there. On my back was a red area the size of a Pringle potato chip lid that had formed a mound. This area looked like it was turning into an abscess. I should have known something was amiss because the night before I had a sudden malaise. I just crawled in the bed with chills and tremors. I slept over twelve hours. Seeing how it was the weekend and spending six hours in the ER with a final tab of more than my life savings, I decided to 'skip that'. I waited until today to go. Did I mention I hate doctors and their offices?
In over a couple of days I have gotten the following symptoms:
- a cough
- malaise (translated ~inability to appear alive)
- transient arthritis
- my neck area and joints are swollen
- red area on my shoulder that gets bigger and bigger
- slight neurological problems
- Pus-like discharge (yum? not!)
Some of the things a tick can transmit are:
- Rickettsia
- Erylichia
- Tick Paralysis (aka Coon Paralysis)~caused by neurotoxin from Tick spit.
- Bacteria, Viruses, Protozoas
- Lyme Disease
- Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
- Relapsing fever
- Tularemia
- Tick-borne meningoencephalitis
- Colorado tick fever
- Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic fever
- Babesiosis
- Cytauxzoonosis
- Candidatus neoehrlichia mikurensis
This is not a problem that affects humans as we well know.Your four-legged hunting buddy is a target to nor is the wild game you hunt.
One such story was of a hunting dog the owner brought to the animal hospital I worked in.
This hunting dog who had come in seemingly paralyzed could only move his eyes. We searched him for ticks but only found one fat female tick feasting away. We removed this tick, sprayed the dog with flea and tick spray, and gave it medication. By the next day you couldn't tell the dog had symptoms. Usually with pets they show neurological signs because they've been running unsupervised for unknown periods of time.
It would be a good practice to apply some sort of long residual flea and tick control on your hunting dog. Of course this is hard when you have a horde of them. Dogs go anywhere the wildlife go. This being the case, the hunting dog can bring back 'friends' that are not so friendly. By the time you find the passengers, they've already bit you.
You will also have to take into account when you get so excited you pick up your deer or quarry to do the photo-op and the tick gets on you as you are wallowing on this dead animal. Most people don't seem to care about this. Common-sense, get some.
If you decide to remove ticks off yourself, your partner, or your pet don't use your fingers. Use a tweezer. If you have wounds on your hands you could get infected tick blood in your wounds thus infecting yourself. The problem with tick infections is you might get over the symptoms but it will come back to haunt you later. It has been found in research that some dogs previously infected can come down with the symptom of arthritic ambulation (can't walk all that good in layman's terms.)
For more on this dangerous maurauder click below:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/zoology/insects-arachnids/tick3.htm
Mugshots of Ticks, Get to know the Perp:
http://webpages.lincoln.ac.uk/fruedisueli/FR-webpages/parasitology/Ticks/TIK/tick-key/index.htm
Enjoy Your De-Ticking!
Written by: W Harley Bloodworth
~Courtesy of the AOFH~
