Ticks

[CP Dan]

No more lunch time hunting trips.....I went out yesterday at lunch and didn't find anything. I did find a deer tick crawling across my finger when I was sitting at my desk. Then when I woke up this morning found one attached to my hip. Now the doc has put me on antibiotics for the next 3 weeks.....which means 3 weeks no beer .

Still haven't found anything on me when I wear my treated clothing, just when I'm greedy and go out at lunch.....

[mikeologist]

Why no beer?

[CP Dan]

Alcohol will reduce the effectiveness of the antibiotic. The antibiotic is processed by the liver, so if I drink at the same time I would be potentially harming my liver by making it work harder than normal. Then there is the good gut flora. By taking a broad spectrum antibiotic, the good gut flora will be struggling. If I throw beer on top of that, the smell (toots) would be horrible.

[mikeologist]

Yea, that definitely "blows goats"

[CP Dan]

All I am doing is sitting at my desk at work.....I have not been in the woods for 2 days! and I feel the familiar throb of pain come from right where my leg attaches to my torso. Checked it out and sure enough I have another one attached to me! At least I am already on the antibiotics.....

[blitzfish]

Found a deer tick on me today from the small walk I had through a park with a class two days ago. At least I have had some leftover doxycycline from two years ago!

[kristi]

Be sure to check the expiration date on the meds. If it's not strong enough it can actually make it harder to treat because they can develop a tolerance to medications.

[mikeologist]

I just focus on eating a lot of moldy bread and oranges

[omth]

18 this week alone... 6 were deer ticks... but I am working on an organic farm for May... soooo....

Also, the guy working with me that said "I never get ticks!" has pulled off 5, the other guy who freaks out when you say "Tick" has had 12!

[Earthmom]

Okay tick experts, help me out here...the ticks I had this spring were small black with a red part to them. Is that the female deer tick or something else? PAYNE showed me a tiny black one, obviously a male deer tick but are the slightly bigger ones with red on body also deer ticks and if so, do only the males carry lymes? It seems to me there are only a couple varieties of ticks in WI with the more "harmless" of them being the big dog tick right???

[deerslayer]

Earthmom- those are deer ticks, the ones you need to worry about. They start appearing in early spring and are around until late in November. The chocolate-brown ones are regular dog ticks and are around only when it is warm.

[blitzfish]

Yes deer ticks are the ones you need to worry about and WI is a hot spot for lymes disease with them. One trick I learned about them though is avoid berry bushes, i.e. raspberry in particular. They are all over in those things all the time. If I avoid them I normally don't get any crawling on me!

[cisco]

Earthmom - do a google search on the MN Dept of Health blacklegged tick (another common name for deer tick/bear tick). They have a great page describing the life cycle of the deer tick. Apparently the males do not take blood meals and cannot get infected with lymes disease. The females can and do and can infect a person both in the adult and nymph phases.