Tick... Ick!

American Dog Tick - female (dead)

You'd think after so long here (3 years in September) that I would run out of firsts but I had another first the other day (July 7) ... my first tick. Gross! You can go your whole life without a tick so I'm told (without KNOWING you had one maybe) but I have to tell you, finding one creeped me the bleep out for the rest of that day. If a single hair moved I was checking to make sure I didn't have another one... well I should have kept checking I suppose because the following day while putting my hair up I found another one, in my hair attached to my head like the first one! My husband came and got it out for me (he got the first out as well) and it wasn't swollen from feeding so I must have got it recently. My husband did note that this one was in deeper than the first but nothing too drastic... except in the pics (to the left) you can see she (female American dog tick) is holding a piece of my scalp in her teeth :S I tell you what though, I now have a "tic" in the sense that I can't help but check my hair, especially before bed or if I feel a tingle, or a hair move... **shudder**

So I decided that rather than make you all Google and wiki everything that I would write a short (ha!) little guide on ticks to cover info on the questions that I get asked most about it (by family I told about being bitten) and the things I wonder about most.

WHAT?

Some types of ticks to show size

Ticks are a part of the arachnid family (yep spider family) although you'd be forgiven for thinking they're an insect until you close enough to count their legs. They kinda of look like cockroaches in their body shape. They are external parasites and live on the blood of mammals, birds and occasionally reptiles and amphibians.

There are 3 different families (family in the scientific sense) of ticks, one family being found solely in Africa (so nothing for me to worry about at this point), and the other 2 families being hard body (Ixodidae) and soft body (Argasidae) ticks. The hard and soft body ticks are the ones to worry about because of the diseases and illnesses they cause.

• Hard ticks (Ioxdidae - which in my area consists of american dog tick, brown dog tick, black legged tick and lone star tick to name a few)  have a tough back plate or scutum that defines their appearance. The hard ticks tend to attach and feed for hours to days. Disease transmission usually occurs near the end of a meal, as the tick becomes full of blood. 
• Soft ticks (Argasidae - castor bean tick, relapsing fever tick and fowl tick) have more rounded bodies and do not have the hard scutum found in hard ticks. These ticks usually feed for less than one hour. Disease transmission from these ticks can occur in less than a minute. The bite of some of these ticks produces intensely painful reactions. 

WHERE ARE THEY FOUND? 

LifeCycle (humans are alternate hosts)

Tick species are widely distributed around the world. However, they tend to flourish more in countries with warm, humid climates, because they require a certain amount of moisture in the air in order to undergo metamorphosis, and because low temperatures inhibit their development from egg to larvae. Ticks can be found in wooded areas, brushy fields, and around your home most often from April to July. This of course means if you're someone with a pet you need to regularly check your pets for ticks, especially so if you have outside pets.

Due to their role in transmitting Lyme disease, ixodid ticks (hard ticks) have been studied using geographic information systems (GIS), in order to develop predictive models for ideal tick habitats. According to these studies, it was determined that certain features of a given micro-climate – such as sandy soil, hardwood trees, rivers, and the presence of deer – are good predictors of dense tick populations.

WHERE DO THEY BITE/ATTACH?
Ticks most often attach in the neck and scalp region however they can also be found just about anywhere else, especially crevices. For that reason you need to check your "private parts" to make sure you haven't had anything attach. Ticks can only crawl they cannot jump.

In pets they tend to be in the ears, around the eyes, or anywhere "squishy".

PREVENTION
Unfortunately there's no sure-fire way to make "sure" you won't get a tick but there are a few things you can do to lower the chances:

•  Avoid tick season completely by staying away from outdoor areas where ticks thrive, usually during the months of April through September in the U.S. (not as easy as it sounds!)
• Apply insect repellant, specifically the brands designed to repel ticks.
• Mow your lawn and weed your gardens to make it less "tick friendly"
• Buy specific tick and flea chemicals to put on your lawn/garden area to repel them

REMOVAL
There are a lot of tales out there about how to remove a tick and a lot of what I've heard is SO wrong so I'll disspell two of the main ones first:

DO NOT:
- Light a match and blow it out and put the end on it's bum. This does NOT make it "pull it's head out" like people say, in fact it's liable to try and go FORWARD which means into you!
- Grab it by it's back/butt and pull it out. This makes them excrete more toxins into you.
- Cover it in vaseline or clear nailpolish to "smother" it because as it's struggling to breath it regurgitates all the bad stuff

Proper removal

In general, the best way to remove adult tick is by using fine-tipped tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible and applying a steady upward force without crushing, jerking or twisting, to avoid leaving behind mouthparts or provoking regurgitation of infective fluids into the wound. You can by special tick removal tools which to be honest I'm considering because if my husband wasn't here removing them myself would have been hard... especially for a first timer.

It is important to disinfect the bite area thoroughly after removal of the tick. You should store the tick in case you get symptoms of illness, to show to a doctor for identification purposes together with details of where and when the bite occurred. If the tick's head and mouthparts are not attached to the body after removal, it may be necessary for the doctor to remove any parts remaining under the skin.

SIDE EFFECTS
Most tick bites are probably harmless and may cause no problems (never felt myself get bitten, the area of the bite didn't hurt after they were removed either). Ticks that have never fed, if handled properly, will not cause any harm. The earlier a tick is removed, the less the likelihood that the tick transmitted any disease. If there is any immediate reaction to a tick bite and if the tick is removed quickly, most individuals recover almost immediately.

Ticks are carriers of a number of diseases, including:

• Lyme disease --  Black-legged ticks and deer ticks (hard ticks)
• Babesiosis -- Ixodes species (hard ticks)
• Ehrlichiosis -- Lone Star Tick (hard ticks)
• Rocky Mountain spotted fever -- American Dog Tick and Rocky Mountain wood tick (hard ticka) are the primary vectors and occasionally the Brown Dog Tick; Cayenne Tick (hard tick) is the vector in countries south of the United States
• Southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI) -- Lone Star Tick (hard tick)
• Tick-borne relapsing fever -- African tick (soft tick)
• Tularemia -- American dog tick and lone star tick (hard tick)
• Anaplasmosis (human granulocytic anaplasmosis or HGA) -- Ixodes species (hard tick)
• Colorado tick fever -- Rocky Mountain wood tick (hard tick)
• Powassan encephalitis -- Ixodes species and Rocky Mountain wood tick (both hard ticks)
• Q fever -- Brown Dog Tick, Rocky Mountain wood tick, and lone star ticks (all three are hard ticks) 

Because ticks can harbor more than one disease-causing agent, patients can be infected with more than one pathogen at the same time, compounding the difficulty in diagnosis and treatment.

After a tick bite, individuals may develop any of these symptoms that may be due to the organism that the tick transmits during its bite:

• Flu-like symptoms
• Fever
• Numbness
• Rash (these vary according to the pathogen transmitted by the tick)
• Confusion
• Weakness
• Pain and swelling in the joints
• Palpitations
• Paralysis
• Shortness of breath
• Nausea and vomiting
• Bulls eye rash - indicative of lyme disease

Tick bites are generally painless. Many people may not even notice the bite and may never find the tick if it falls off. Small ticks, like the deer tick that transmits Lyme disease, are so tiny they may be nearly undetectable. Some ticks are about as small as the period at the end of this sentence. However, there are some symptoms that may occur that can be directly related to the tick itself due to the tick bite. Occasionally, a neurotoxin (a substance that is toxic to nerves) secreted at the time of attachment to make the bite unnoticeable to humans and other hosts can cause muscle weakness or paralysis. It rarely causes paralysis that inhibits breathing. The simple task of removing the tick stops any further neurotoxin production, and the person usually recovers quickly and completely. The actual bite may cause symptoms only after the tick drops off. However, some people may notice local redness, itching, burning, and rarely, localised intense pain (soft ticks) before or after the tick drops off. The majority of tick bites result in few, if any, mmediate symptoms.

The results of the illnesses transmitted by ticks often begin days to weeks after the tick is gone. That's why doctors or affected individuals may not suspect a tick-related illness because many people ignore or forget about barely noticeable "bites." The most important clue about any tick-related illness is to tell the physician about a tick bite. You also need to tell their physician about outdoor activity (camping, hiking, etc.) in tick-infested areas even if the person does not remember a tick bite.

Tick bites may also induce a delayed allergy to red meat characteristically present several hours after eating in subjects who have experienced a large local reaction to tick bites up to six months earlier.

The outlook (prognosis) of the diseases transmitted by tick bites can range from good to poor; once a diagnosis is made, the prognosis is best determined by the diagnosing physician and is related to the disease that was transmitted by the tick and the stage of development of the disease process in the individual at the time of diagnosis and treatment.

LINKS
More info: http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/pccommonticks.htm
CDC: http://www.emedicinehealth.com/ticks/article_em.htm
Symptoms of tick-borne illnesses: http://www.cdc.gov/ticks/symptoms.html
Illinois tick ID: http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/tickkey.htm
Common types of ticks: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/types-of-ticks.html