Ticks…Do You Have Them Where You Live? Check out how my daughter dressed for bed tonight and why!

Every year, for at least the past 10 years, we have been nastily blessed with ticks.  These nasty lyme disease causing bugs are just that!  Nasty!  Needless to say, the past 3 or 4 years we have been getting increasingly infested by these bugs and this year by far…has been the worst so far.

Ticks began to show up around our area (southern NH) about a month and a half ago.  My animals have to be treated with a good flea and tick treatment and us humans…we have to check our bodies all the time.  About three weeks ago, I pulled off a good size tick from my daughter’s fathers back.  Not long after that, I was removing another near his neck.  Yesterday, I was in the shower and discovered a black spot on my breast.  Not sure what it was because I couldn’t see clearly w/out my glasses…and I wasn’t touching either…I called Paul in to look at it. Sure enough…it was a nasty tick. I have pulled several off my cats in the past few weeks despite the tick treatment (they stick to the animal and will die on them). I walked 25 ft. to my car last weekend…got in it drove around the block to get the dog…came back…walked back into the house and what was crawling in my hair?  A tick!

Well tonight…my daughter comes out to me and says, “Mom…can you check me for ticks?”  I asked why.  She says, “I found one crawling on me and I panicked and flipped it off in the bedroom.” I asked where in the bedroom…which happened to be MY bedroom….she says, “I’m not sure if I sent it towards the TV or towards the big bureau.”  Fabulous I am thinking…just fabulous!  So, I check her, go in my room looking for the tick…it’s no where to be found!  I asked how big of a tick it was…she told me it was a big one…not the one like she found on a kitten two days ago which was a pin head size.  So, in my bedroom somewhere a tick is living there for free!

Well…since my daughter’s room is in the process of a good spring cleaning…she’s been sleeping with me.
Take a look at how she went to bed tonight:

Yes, you see correctly!  She’s got on a long sleeve turtle neck, sweat pants and a winter knitted hat that covers the neck.  At one point, she was duck taping the sleeves and cuffs of the pants to her body…aye yup. She tossed that thought out for around the wrists but she still may have purple duck tape around her ankles still.

Ticks can make us humans very sick.  Two years ago, I thought I had gotten bit by a flea under my bra strap.  I saw the little bugger and didn’t give it a second thought as to being anything other than a flea (our home is in a sandy area so we have to do flea control all summer).  Anyway, I kept itching the area and thought the redness in the area was from my scratching.  About two months down the road, over-night the redness tripled in circumference over night.  I was feeling very hot and was very sweaty..sweat was just pouring off my skin.  My MIL had come to visit and said you don’t look good…we’re going to the walk-in clinic. Once there, a nurse looked at the area and said to the doctor…it looks like a tick bite to me.  He said…I do believe you are correct.  I was then informed I had second stage lime disease.  I was give two anti-biotics that I had to take for quite some time and then revisit my primary care physician.

For those of you who may not know…Lyme Disease progresses in three stages.  If not caught before progressing to the third stage, it can cause devastating effects to your body.

My favorite part about finding a tick…is burning it with a lighter or match!  They blow up (you can hear it as it does) and let me tell you…that works for me!