Ticks and Lyme Disease
- Thread starter el manana
- Start date
oreocereus
Thru Hiker
Indeed I was wearing long pants and jumper (it was ireland) when I picked up an extended family of ticks.
I am rather attached to my shorts - but in future I’ll go long pants if weather allows.
Side note: do British folk generally prefer long trousers? Is it cultural? I’ve run across a number of comments from various Brits about not owning any shorts (or flip flops), and found it an odd thing to make particular mention of. [general curiosity, not an abrasive cultural attack]
I am rather attached to my shorts - but in future I’ll go long pants if weather allows.
Side note: do British folk generally prefer long trousers? Is it cultural? I’ve run across a number of comments from various Brits about not owning any shorts (or flip flops), and found it an odd thing to make particular mention of. [general curiosity, not an abrasive cultural attack]
EM-Chiseller
Thru Hiker
Behave....
dovidola
Thru Hiker
Well that does surprise me. In that case, the only other preventative measure I'm aware of is Permethrin, applied to clothing. Was it any part of the body in particular which got colonised, or did they spread all over?
I don't have any jeans either. Or trainers.
Balagan
Thru Hiker
Please, no need to list the underwear you happily do without.
oreocereus
Thru Hiker
Legs and arms primarily, for both of us. A Number on stomach, neck, back behind the ears too - bust mostly legs and arms. I don’t think they got *into* our socks, so I guess tucking trousers into socks would’ve reduced them.
Mark James
Backpacker
I spend nearly all my holidays up in the Scottish islands and have done for the past decade or so, and ticks are rife, as in many areas. During the summer, if walking through bracken or tall vegetation you can be constantly brushing off ticks from trousers, shirts etc. Especially early in the season tiny immature ticks are everywhere and jump onto your clothes as you pass.
All this said, I personally have never had a tick bite (shouldn't say that-probably get a heap now!), while my partner has had 3 in total and none over the past 5 years or so. I'm generally covered up (Paramo short sleeve shirt & warm weather trousers) but other than this I don't take any special precautions. I avoid wading through tall bracken or vegetation unless it's completely impossible - but of course you can't always do this if the path goes straight through. This year (mostly because I was more concerned due to the extra coverage in the press) I started to use a natural insect repellent on my bare arms. Again, no tick bites.
I think we can be too worried about the risk. Be sensible, avoid the more likely Ticky areas and keep sensibly covered. Use a repellent where necessary, and take a look each evening for wee beasties that shouldn't be there. Mostly You'll be just fine.
All this said, I personally have never had a tick bite (shouldn't say that-probably get a heap now!), while my partner has had 3 in total and none over the past 5 years or so. I'm generally covered up (Paramo short sleeve shirt & warm weather trousers) but other than this I don't take any special precautions. I avoid wading through tall bracken or vegetation unless it's completely impossible - but of course you can't always do this if the path goes straight through. This year (mostly because I was more concerned due to the extra coverage in the press) I started to use a natural insect repellent on my bare arms. Again, no tick bites.
I think we can be too worried about the risk. Be sensible, avoid the more likely Ticky areas and keep sensibly covered. Use a repellent where necessary, and take a look each evening for wee beasties that shouldn't be there. Mostly You'll be just fine.
TinTin
Thru Hiker
I'm actually thinking that rather than give up shorts I'll treat my calf compression sleeves and socks with permethrin. A bigger paranoia for me is having the little blighters crawl on me when I'm asleep.Behave....
This paranoia may go back to an event in my youth.
in 1977 a friend and I took a "Magic bus" to Greece. We caught a local bus through the Pindus Mountains that stopped overnight in Ioannina and we duly found a hotel for the night. The rooms we were offered were in an outbuilding in the garden. Andy and I didn't like the look of the bedding which I don't think had been changed for months so we both got into out sleeping bags. A young American man we met before getting on the bus was so tired he just got into his bed in his boxer shorts. The next morning he woke up covered in bed bug bites, we had none but I still remain paranoid about things that crawl into your bed at night and bite you.
EM-Chiseller
Thru Hiker
The wife would empathise... She picked up tics in Italy and bedbug bites in an Italian hostel... I had neither
I used pemerthrin on the inside of the tarp, both our silk liners and bits of kit...
With the tics... My missus has a habit of
'going off trail' for toilet trips... Tic inject you with a no itch chemical so you don't detect them instantly.. I reckon she picked them up answering a call of nature that was akin to a nuicence call lol
Patrick
Ultralighter
I'd certainly be more concerned about TBE than Lyme. Indeed, we had a rather paranoid week this summer kayaking round the Stockholm archipelago, where TBE is rife, having not really become aware of the risk until too late to get the vaccination. I had the entire family dressed in tucked in, long sleeved / trousered, permethrin treated clothing whenever we were out of the kayaks! In contrast, I have to admit we take no particular precautions when stomping around the Scottish countryside, and frequently have a few ticks to pull off one or other member of the family afterwards.
I probably do have a slight bias here, coming across both conditions professionally. Those people I see with Lyme disease are often somewhat chronically disabled but generally functioning. Of those I see with encephalitis a significant proportion are dead - encephalitis can be a particularly nasty illness.
I probably do have a slight bias here, coming across both conditions professionally. Those people I see with Lyme disease are often somewhat chronically disabled but generally functioning. Of those I see with encephalitis a significant proportion are dead - encephalitis can be a particularly nasty illness.
Nigelp
Thru Hiker
A lot of people encourage birds into their gardens as well? Certainly a ‘thing’ now and some spend a small fortune attracting the birds.
Nigelp
Thru Hiker
I do this every year and despite working in the New Forest tick hot spot have but had one this year. With the mild weather I’m treating clothing early in the season as well. March onwards usually.
OwenM
Thru Hiker
loop
Surely, when you're in the kayaks you're safe from ticks, it's when you're wandering around on land you have to worry.
But, thinking about it, the only time I've knowingly picked a tick was on a kayaking trip to The Isle of Jura. Given how many deer there are it maybe wasn't the best place to go skinny-dipping.
Patrick
Ultralighter
Err, indeed: " I had the entire family dressed in tucked in, long sleeved / trousered, permethrin treated clothing whenever we were out of the kayaks".
We were wild camping on the islands, so plenty of potential opportunities for tick attachment. No-one did get any, though, and we did find a few dead ones on the permethrin treated clothing and inner tent, so the precautions do work.
EM-Chiseller
Thru Hiker
EM-Chiseller
Thru Hiker
I'd be a tad concerned with where the ones have gone that escaped the poorly sealed bag... There's no way that anything that crawls on this planet can survive without oxygen and I'll stick my neck out and say there wouldn't be enough in that bag when it was flat, to make that picture factual.
Say I'm wrong and I might be... But I smell something and it aint good meat
TinTin
Thru Hiker
You're wrongI'd be a tad concerned with where the ones have gone that escaped the poorly sealed bag... There's no way that anything that crawls on this planet can survive without oxygen and I'll stick my neck out and say there wouldn't be enough in that bag when it was flat, to make that picture factual.
Say I'm wrong and I might be... But I smell something and it aint good meat
EM-Chiseller
Thru Hiker
Not be the first... Or the last timeYou're wrong
EM-Chiseller
Thru Hiker
So they didn't hatch in the bag and they didn't live in the bag... They were put in the bag to highlight how many can hatch from a tic.
New I'd be at least part right lol.
New I'd be at least part right lol.
