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Found a sheep tick on our two year-old over the weekend. Thankfully just crawling on skin and didnt look to have a full sack so assuming hadnt bitten yet (though will obviously be keeping an eye out for rashes or seeming ill).
Just wondering if people have any strategies for protecting kids or just check them in the evening? We spend a lot of time outside and with a lot of common land nearby there will always be a risk, but I'd rather she grew up wit the same love for the outdoors we have than try and restrict what she does. Felt a bit guilty as she got it on a walk I'd wanted to go on. Dont ever remeber it being an issue when i was younger but I guess all the chemicals that used to get used probably meant there werent so many.
ferrals you're absolutely right to want to protect your family and hope that you find the following links to be helpful:
https://caudwelllyme.com/how-to-protect-your-family-and-pets/
https://caudwelllyme.com/symptoms/
https://caudwelllyme.com/lyme-disease-testing/
https://caudwelllyme.com/lyme-disease-treatment/
smidge is the answer- or at least a good part of it. Keeps ticks off as well as midges
I use Smidge (when I remember). It's very effective against ticks.
FWIW, I pulled 24 of the little bastards out of me yesterday after a couple of nights bivvying.
Fwiw, I was talking ticks in an outdoor shop the other day (Jnr off to the States to a place having a bad tick problem this year already) and was told that the credit card style removers are easier to use than the tweezers - I'd never heard of the credit card type version.
Guessing the slotted card would be much easier on little ones rather than tweezers
I use smidge for midges. I am very lucky though as ticks seem to not like my blood. I've never had a tick on me despite spending huge amount of times in ticky areas where friends I have been with have taken on board many little passengers
I use these
https://www.amazon.co.uk/OTom-02-3785-Otom-Tick-Twister/dp/B0089BOK12/
They can get into, err, crevices better than a card version
FWIW, I pulled 24 of the little bastards out of me yesterday after a couple of nights bivvying.
Holy fark!
Awareness packs available either to download or hard copy from here:
http://lymediseaseuk.com/2018/04/26/wake-up-to-lyme-campaign-2018/
Picked one up in the Lakes over the weekend, and also on one of the dogs - but their flea treatment also makes ticks drop off them. We had loads of sheep ticks in Wales in February, thankfully wandering after dropping off the dogs. I use the credit card remover mostly, keep it in my wallet. Only seem to take a fancy to me out of the family, so another week or so watching the bite for any reaction.
Smidge for us mostly. Also have those tom'o tick twisters ^ . I didn't particularly worry about them much and have had ticks from many places in the UK and just removed them. But a couple of years both my son and I ended up poorly from ticks. Luckily the local GP was clued up and put us on antibiotics immediately. So best to avoid getting to the poorly stage and use something like smidge along with nightly checks and swift removal if you find any.
Smidge, Autan and Flies Undone all work for me, and all fairly pleasant to use and Deet-free. Riding in places where I always used to get one or 2, I've never (knowingly) collected an unwanted passenger while using any of these.
My daughter got one aged 2. Wife removed it with fingernails. No lasting effects. (Except to stop her getting upset we made out having a tick was a good thing and she was really upset that we removed it.)
NHS advice was to pull in a straight line with no twist and that worked perfectly for us.
Cheers all, will get some smidge. As far as I'm aware I've never had one and I do check after every ride; but until I saw one on my daughter I wasnt aware quite how tiny they were.
Last year our corporate guidance on ticks was to smear it with Vaseline to remove it.........
They got a great many emails and this has now disappeared!
Last year our corporate guidance on ticks was to smear it with Vaseline to remove it………
This was going around on Facebook only last week.
Easiest removal tip I've been given is to put a bit of liquid soap on a cotton bud and make gentle, little circles on/around the tick. They then let go of the skin and hold onto the cotton bud.
Don't know why it works but it really does.
This isn't the same as covering it in vaseline or soap to suffocate it - which many sources say is BS. In fact it might work without the soap, I'll try that next time.
haha
After taking my wee boy to see the Roo's at the local park (he was about 24 months) we found a tick... On the side of his balls. Lots and lots of talking. Lots and lots of "Daddy's not going to hurt you, Daddy's a nurse, he does this all the time" (Daddy's a psych nurse!)
I Google'd it. Daddy got long medical tweezers. Kid chilled, I removed the tick completely, nothing left stuck on. Kid, Wife and myself, amazed.
ajantom
Subscriber
Easiest removal tip I’ve been given is to put a bit of liquid soap on a cotton bud and make gentle, little circles on/around the tick. They then let go of the skin and hold onto the cotton bud.
Don’t know why it works but it really does.
That was my go to approach, but now the wee buggers seem to have got wise to it!
DO NOT do anything other than twist or pull them out with the correct tool - a hook. Tweezers you risk crushing it squirting its stomach contents back into you and vaseline and so on make them regurgitate back into you thus giving you lyme if they have it
Prevention - use smidge on all bare skin
Removal - correct tool
Afterwards - look for fever symptoms and / or the bulls eye rash
Testing is innaccurate.
For small ticks, the tweezers with hooks on the end are better than the Tom-o-tick removers; you can adjust the gap to the right amount and hook them under the logs. As TJ says, don't squeeze the tick.
Permethrin spray on clothes stops them. You can't use it on your skin but once it's dry on the clothes it's harmless to humans.
I tend to wear long trousers and long sleeves, and brush down with my hands frequently, particularly before getting into my tent.
“FWIW, I pulled 24 of the little bastards out of me yesterday after a couple of nights bivvying.”
Scotroutes is Humphrey Bogart in African Queen and I claim my £5.
😊
Tweezers are higher risk and therefore a really bad idea for tick removal; far better use a tool designed for the job and avoid the risk of internalising the tick's stomach contents, complete with bacterial population.
Prevention is best, with the midge spray of your choice then prompt removal and as many have said above, monitor for signs of trouble.
This has been the most prolific year that I can remember for early ticks.
Once again, I'm on finish line medic duties for the Highland Fling this coming weekend. We'll have around 900 runners covering 53 miles of goat infested hillsides between Milngavie and Tyndrum. I get a LOT of practice at taking out ticks and will only use the tick picker tools, nothing else.
On my kids' smooth little kid legs they are quite easy to spot, so I check constantly. They seem noticeable because they're quite dark.
Lad got one on him last year, sprayed it with alcohol hand sanitiser and used some long thin tweezers(probably surgical again as wifey used to be theatre nurse) and pulled straight up and out with no issues.
A lot of the outdoorsey shops seem to have the green ones in the pic above.