6 replies to this topic

[gsp23]

I have been offline for a while as I had gotten extremely sick. I have never been that sick in my life and told my boyfriend that I was glad I wasnt that sick when I was hospitalized last it was that bad. I wont go into to may details and give TMI but I wasnt able to situp at all. Even laying down without attempting to situp would result in possibly making it 30 min without a bucket (ok maybe a bit TMI there but wanted to give the point at how sick I was) Anyways after about 3 1/2 days of this and not getting any better I rememberd reading somewhere about how ticks can make you sick so I asked my boyfriend to check me over for ticks and sure enough he found a HUGE one on the base of my skull in the back. The tick had been there for probably a week (meaning it was huge and already turned white). He took the tick off one night and I felt fine the next morning. When he took the tick off, my skin had already started to grow over the top of the tick so he had to scrape some of my skin away and get everything out. Had I had sensation in my head there or my hands I probably would have felt it but just wanted to give the reminder warning out to everyone... if you live in areas that have ticks make sure to check yourself visually in the areas you dont have sensation, or have someone else do it for you.

My lymph nodes started getting big and discolored and my glads started getting big as well once the tick was removed so I went to my doctor today. He told me that he doesnt usually give meds to people for tick bits but because the tick was on me for so long and I didnt know it and my glands and lymph nodes were getting so big (and lymph nodes changing colors) and with my neuro condition on top of it he wanted to treat me agressively with some meds now. The meds that I have should kill off anything I may have picked up from the tick including lymes disease.

So everyone, please be sure to check visually the areas you dont have sensation... or have someone else do it for you!

[lune14]

Goodness, what an awful experience!! I'm so glad you thought to check for them and glad you are recovering. I don't think I'd recognize a tick if I saw one to be honest. I think I'll be googling a bit this morning though! I am forever doing skin inspection even when I'm just sitting around (but I'm very tactile anyway so maybe I just like to touch myself LOL). Thanks for sharing that with us... it may really help someone one day!

[gsp23]

Here is a link to different pics of ticks if anyone is interested in seeing them.

http://lancaster.unl...t/TickPhoto.htm
http://www.ent.iasta...imagegal/ticks/

The American Dog Tick is the most common in my area, but we do have a few other kinds of ticks here as well such as a couple different kinds of deer ticks. http://www.ipm.iasta.../tamerican.html

[ihaveaheartofgold67]

hello, i have heard of ticks and i have taken a few out of dog i had ,but i never thought they would stay on a human skin,freaky ,thats when i lived in indiana, now i live in canada so i havent seen any here yet. touch wood.i will keep my eyes open tho, thank u for the awareness,hope ur feeling better.

[Captain Pike]

Arrgh! I'm itchy now just thinking that. Yes, we have deer ticks in southern Maine which can carry Lyme disease: bad news. The point is well taken though, since we can't feel the creepy crawlies up our legs -- they migrate to warmer areas. Yuck.

[ParaforGod]

We have two dogs and you wouldn't believe the ticks my daughter has gotton off of them. We have not had any rain in a while so we were told the ticks are worse because it is so dry. I don't know how true this is but I do know the ticks are worse than I have ever seen them. Im glad the doctor feels the medication will protect you from any problems latter on and I hope you get better soon.

[Texaswheelz]

Well the good news is, dog ticks won't bite you, only animals. When i was a kid i grew up in as far as the back woods as you can get. I had way to many dealings with ticks back then. Used to come back from hunting or even just out playing and first thing we would do was strip down and jump in the shower. Came back once and had walked through some area that was bad with what we called seed ticks, but after looking at those links I guess they are actually larval deer ticks. They are tiny and hard to find, normally you would think they are just a small freckle. But anyway, i stripped down and climbed in the shower and probably had 50-75 of these little ass things between my ankles and my knees. Lucky for me i was only about 12 and didn't have the hairy ass legs that I have now and they were pretty easy to see and get off.

I did watch something on the discovery channel the other day that took me by surpise because it was different then what my aunt and grandma always told us. When pulling off a tick, just grab em and pull em off, if the head stays behind then that is fine, just get tweezers and remove it. We were always told to get a match or a hot needle and burn them off so that they let go. They said this was bad because it would irritate them and would give them a chance to regurgetate the blood that had already sucked back into your blood stream, which is how lyme disease is transferred. Grabbing and pulling them off, takes the body away immediately and doesn't give em time to spit the blood back in ya.