rowyn

I'm in the bathroom, and I notice this small dark spot on my thigh, perhaps a scab, perhaps just a bit of dirt stuck to the skin. I pry at it with a fingernail; it comes off pretty easily. The last little bit clings to the skin the way a scab or a dried blood clot might, which stirkes me as odd because the skin underneath looks perfectly normal and intact. But in a moment, it's off. I study the freed object between my fingers, still trying to figure out what it is.

Little legs wriggle up at me.

"Gah!"

Instinctively, I fling it off, then immediately regret doing so because now I don't know where it is. I scan the area around me, and finally spot it on my sleeve. "Agh!" I blow hard on it, and it falls to the floor at one corner of the bathroom. I grab a clump of tissue and squish down upon it. After a moment, I draw back to make sure it's dead.

It's not.

It's crawling along looking as though it didn't even notice that I just tried to kill it.

I try again.

It remains oblivious to my efforts to kill it. I take a closer look. It's got an oval body and eight legs. Tick? I kinda thought ticks only had six, but it's far too indestructible for a spider. Not to mention that spiders are not known for quiescently clinging to body parts. But it came off awfully easily for a tick. And it doesn't look like the engorged black caps I remember prying from my dog as a kid. It's small, maybe 3/16".

It's going to die.

I step on it.

It looks a little put out by this, but only a little.

I step again. scrub squish scrub scrub scrub. I lift my shoe.

It wriggles along the floor.

I remove my shoe and place the flat rubber surface of the front of the sole against the bug's body, and push down. Vigorously.

After a few times of this, it stops squirming.

I flick it onto a paper towel and take the remains back to my desk, thinking I'll try googling to identify it.

At my desk, I google up some tick images. Most ticks don't look the way I remember them looking. Instead, they look rather like the small eight-legged thing I just pulled off my leg and, with great effort, killed.

Or mostly killed. When I unfold the paper towel at my desk to compare it to the images on Google, I find it's started wriggling again. It's like the terminator of the arthopod world. Why won't you just die? I seal it between layers of scotch tape, and it hasn't moved since. It's too small and squished at this point for me to be sure what type it is; after several stabs at identification, I'm left thinking it's either a lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) or a deer tick (some stripe or other of Ixodes -- scapularis? damonni? Not sure.)

I am not normally given to paranoia, but as long as I'm looking at tick pictures, I poke around for information on tick-borne diseases. I know that Lyme disease, for all the media attention, is very rare. A little more likely than being struck by lightning, but I'm pretty sure more people win lotteries each year than get Lyme disease.

But various websites suggest that deer and lone star ticks are potentially carriers, with numbers being thrown about of between 20% and 90% carrying. Even 20% isn't the kind of reassurance I was looking for. The characteristic rash associated with Lyme disease doesn't show up in something like 70%-50% of cases. One website cite flu-like symptoms, and mentions swollen lymph nodes as one symptom. Some sites say migrating rash is one of the symptoms -- "sometimes being mistaken for insect bites or poison ivy". Well, last weekend I moved the lawn, and my calves have been covered in insect bites, or possibly poison ivy exposure, ever since. It'd be easy enough for any other rash to blend right in.

Plus, it's probably too early for me to have any symptoms. And I certainly don't feel sick.

Except the left side of my throat itches. Right over the lymph node. Hmm. Is that area swollen?

Come to think of it, where did that tick come from? I did have a sore throat earlier this week. And there was all that exposure while mowing the lawn Saturday -- what if this wasn't the first tick bite? Another websites helpfully informs me that many people miss the initial tick bite.

Sigh.

Maybe I am given to paranoia after all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

verminiusrex.livejournal.com

I've found a few on myself before. Usually I entomb them in tape before throwing them away. They can't escape, and death is inevitable. Squishing them is difficult, impaling them with a pin might be possible and serve as a warning to other ticks when they see the body of their impaled bretheren displayed.

From:

skyflame.livejournal.com

Don't use a shoe next time. An aerosol can and a lighter is much more effective. ;)

From:

prester-scott.livejournal.com

I know all about hypochondria.

But in this case, if there is a blood test that can be done to detect Lyme disease, I'd probably get that done. If you have halfway decent insurance it's not going to cost you much.

From:

octantis.livejournal.com

Ticks are arachnids, they have eight legs. I think they're built to be squishproof so they don't get itched off so easily. On the rare occasions that we find them, we drop them into a bit of water, and they swiftly drown.

I found one a little while ago after I'd been tromping through some local pine forest. I believe they're known to lurk on plants so they can drop onto heat sources they detect, or animals that brush the plant. I believe they try to climb up to the head before they attach, and when they do attach they latch on very securely and dig their head under the skin. Since the tick you found was loose and not gorged on blood, you probably weren't bitten.

From:

circuit-four.livejournal.com

This is probably not much comfort, but think of it this way: ticks are probably carriers for all sorts of microbes besides Lyme Disease. If your lymph nodes really are swelling as a consequence of the bite, it could very easily just be the perfectly ordinary healing of a slightly septic wound. You were bitten by something kinda gross and dirty, and it's 99.99% likely (as the rational part of you's already figured out) your body's having a perfectly natural response.

Trust me, I go through this process almost every week. I don't know from ticks, but I know hypochondria. :) I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you start getting fever, aches, and fatigue. If so, Scott's right, march off to a doctor for tests immediately -- you are NOT allowed to join me in the wonderful world of neuroimmune dysfunction. -.-

From:

dajagr.livejournal.com

This may be a little uncomfortable to think about, but when my cat had fleas, and I needed to kill them, I would manage to situate them between my thumbnail and a hard surface (often my other thumbnail), and apply pressure. Then again, ticks may be tougher than fleas...

From:

koogrr.livejournal.com

You too eh? That's how I'd get rid of fleas.

From:

nkcmike.livejournal.com

Lucky you. And you didn't even have to come to the farm to get one. They're thick out there.

Lyme disease symptoms are very similar to symptoms for strep -- sore throat, fever, malaise,... But there's usually the addition of a rash, and it's usually in the form of what's called a bulls-eye lesion; a tiny red spot (probably the bite site), surrounded by a ring of white, which in turn is surrounded by a ring of red.

Don't worry. You're probably fine.

From:

zaimoni.livejournal.com

If you have OTC triple-antibiotic antibiotic ointment in the house...use it. This is the perfect application for it.

Yes, it takes about eight hours for the tick to gorge enough to actually start backflowing bacteria.

But the really noxious resistances (methicillin and vancomycin) haven't propagated to these bacteria yet. And nothing in the ointment is a normal prescription antibiotic, so the resistance risk coming back to haunt the public later is minimal.

From:

tuftears.livejournal.com

*purrrs comfortingly* Good luck, and I'd get a checkup just in case.

From: (Anonymous)

Rare? Lyme disease? Over 20,000 cases are reported each year in the U.S., and the CDC says that's about a 10-fold undercount – bringing the actual number to around 200,000 per year. Your chances of being struck by lightning? About 300-400 reports per year. Not trying to make you more paranoid, just adding a dose of reality. It's hopefully nothing but if any more symptoms develop (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease for a good list), get yourself to a competent doctor pronto. Early treatment keeps the disease from invading your nervous system & becoming a nasty chronic illness - which is the reason there are so many media warnings. There'd be no reason for paranoia if everyone recognized it early on.

One more tip – forget about getting a blood test immediately; according to the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/ld_humandisease_diagnosis.htm) there are too many false negatives in the first few weeks because the immune system hasn’t had time to produce antibodies. If you get a Lyme rash, you have Lyme and need treatment, period. Unfortunately lots of doctors don’t know this. Best of luck, hopefully you won’t need to use this info.

From:

koogrr.livejournal.com

Well I was going to say get tested! Except the anonymous poster says that doesn't work. I'd still want you to go for tests.

I think one of the concerns is whether the head came with it or not, from what you describe, it didn't have the chance to dig in, if it had, there would have been something embedded in your skin I believe.

My dad, and now you, have had bad things happen while cutting the grass. It's enough to make me give up on doing so.

From:

level-head.livejournal.com

The Lyme article on Wikipedia is not bad.

As the anonymous poster suggested, testing is likely to be uninformative. However, waiting for a rash is also not a confident approach; perhaps 50% of the time no rash is presented, or it doesn't look at all like the standard "bull's eye" form.

A course of antibiotics, two weeks or so, seems to be the best course. Of course, millions of people are bitten by ticks and do not contract the disease.

The small size and circumstances of the creature described suggest that it had not gotten to the "transmission of infection" stage of feeding. Zaimoni mentioned eight hours, other sources indicate as much as twelve hours of feeding before this happens -- by which time they look like the standard layperson's notion of a tick, bloated abdomen many times the original size.

Many only feed a couple of times in their lives; they make it count, expanding from "poppy seed" to "watermelon seed" and larger.

This one could not have been attached long; its store of blood was not mentioned in the tales of attempted destruction, and that would be very evident in a well-fed tick. It may not even have attached at all; by now, the tick's own injected anesthetics would have worn off, and a bite would likely be visibly swollen and itchy.

There's no reason to be alarmed, it seems, but antibiotics would be good as a cautious measure -- since the symptoms predate this tick.

And, Lady Rowyn, make sure that the person you go see is familiar with the disease -- and arm yourself well with information. There appears to be a fair degree of controversy over treatment regimes.

The prognosis is excellent, happily. Best wishes!

===|==============/ Level Head

From:

koogrr.livejournal.com

I recall looking at pictures of ticks before, and the thing that annoyed me most was no sense of scale. If you have one, I suppose you know how big they are, but if you're trying to figure out where they might be and how close you need to look, the pictures are no help at all. The edge of a ruler, a dime; there was one on a blade of grass but even that doesn't help as some of the grass up here gets to be 1/4" wide.

Good luck and lots of bug spray! I feel icky from here.

From:

zaimoni.livejournal.com

They enlarge fairly impressively as they feed.

Ticks start at something like 1/32" or so. Give them 24 hours to feed and they're up to at least ¼".

From:

ladyperegrine.livejournal.com

*hugs* I'd say go to the doctor just to be sure,

Meh. I'm sure you're fine, but I'd be paranoid too! I feel all shivery and eepy thinking about it.

From:

jordangreywolf.livejournal.com

I hate ticks.

Makes me recall The Tick and his "nigh-invulnerability" (and high nuisance factor).

Fortunately, I haven't run into any for a long time, but I've got more than enough fire ants to make up for it. (I'm looking at a couple of bite welts on my hand as I type.)

Bugs, bugs, bugs. =P My sympathies.

From:

zorkfox.livejournal.com

It would not go amiss in my world-view if most of the million-plus species of arthropods vanished from the face of the Earth. I don't care if they're the largest phylum on the planet, and I don't care if they "do good" for the environment or ecosystem or whatever. I only care when they invade my personal space.

DIE!