Too many Ticks? You need more Tocks, then.
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Tick tock, tuck your pants into your sock.
Nature bats last.
Do ticks in America not carry encephalitis (like they do in central/eastern Europe)?Because that's way more dangerous than Lyme disease. I find it weird that it isn't mentioned at all, nor the vaccination against it.
Those ticks carry a load of shit. Like one infection that makes you allergic to eating meat.
Currently, ticks do not carry encephalitis in the US.
Oh that's great. Fantastic. Can someone please feel the need to bring one of these into the country for observation or whatever people bring ticks for?
That's one thing this country needs desperately right now... Some big problem or some sort. We've apparently ran out of problems and are actively looking for them as we speak.
I would go to the CDC to check but that’s been deleted. We’ve solved it by removing the webpage
https://www.cdc.gov/tick-borne-encephalitis/index.html
I’m kidding, but it certainly seems to be a thing that people should be aware of.
That being said I think the scary thing about Lyme disease is the symptoms aren’t crazy strong at the beginning, and easy to misattribute if you miss the tick. But if you don’t treat it early it can really fuck you up.
I got bit by a tick years ago when I was 16, right above my belt buckle. Had a generalized rash, and my doctor said it was because of an allergic reaction to my belt buckle and prescribed me steroid cream. Basically had to demand a Lyme test just in case and tested positive.
Dang, what a shitty doctor.
Although I think my perspective is a bit skewed, having grown up in a tick hotspot here in Germany. Everyone is aware of ticks here, pretty sure it's taught in elementary school. And the encephalitis vaccine is pretty much standard, too.
Dang, what a shitty doctor.
I mean... Medicine is super hard. You have to remember, when it comes to biology, we're still figuring it how everything works and there's way less that we actually understand than what we don't understand.
I try to think of it like this, doctors aren't like engineers, because engineers actually have all the specs for the materials or systems they're working with. They can run the numbers and tell you what will happen when the system is altered in x way. Doctors are more like hackers, they have to reverse engineer a complex system that they never got a spec sheet or user manual for. They can't read much of the internal diagnostics and the hardware itself wasn't built with any sensible order or design philosophy. Frankly, it's a terrible system to have to support and maintain and they don't really have the tools or information to do it.
All that said, doctors do an impressive job. And seriously though, this hardware suuuucks...
Dang, what a shitty doctor.
I would think that if a patient comes in with a rash beneath their belt buckle, the first thought isn’t Lyme disease, it’s nickel allergy.
If they were told about the tick bite, maybe a shitty doctor. But nickel allergies are crazy common. Something like 4-5% of men and 15-16% of women. And I suspect, personally, that the number for men is higher but most men don’t wear jewelry and might assume belt buckles can just cause rashes without realizing it’s a nickel allergy.
Then there’s me, asking the lady selling pendants at the ren fair if they’re nickel free, and then sighing when she says, “No nickel at all, they’re stainless steel!”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Plenty of stainless steel has nickel.”
“It’s surgical grade steel!”
“Right. Sure. That can, and probably does, still include nickel unless it’s one of the more expensive 400 series alloys and not the more common 316 stainless. Ask me why I know this.”
Get the vaccines if you can.
The vaccine they were testing was derailed when participants reported behaviours that resemble anti-vax talking points now. It killed the human testing in the final stages at a huge commercial loss.
But if you go to the vet and get a vax for a big dog and it accidentally gets into your arm and not Rover's paw, that's the same thing. They repurposed the 'failed' vax for use in pets.
Or so I heard. Go confirm.
There is no vaccine for Lyme that’s available to the public. Hopefully there will be one soon though. My wife and I have been volunteering for a Lyme vaccine trial for the past two years.
It's probably a good general advice to ask your doctor for "local" vaccinations whenever you move.
The encephalitis vaccine is very common here in southern Germany, but usually skipped in the north where ticks are quite uncommon (which is reasonable, since it's pretty aggressive, being sick for a day or two after the jab is not unlikely).
My 75 year old dad got a tick bite and ignored it for three days of fever over 101, no appetite, and severely weak before finally getting antibiotics.
He doesn't believe in global warming.
Doesn't believe in internal warming either
Ticks are one species that I hope go extinct. So gross.
Incorrect. There are MANY species of tick.
I'm up to 9 so far this year
Keep in mind that even after checking yourself after being in the out doors they may still be on your clothes or in your hair. Check yourself again the next day. It takes them awhile to burrow in
Also, if you have pets that go outside, such as a dog you take for walks, you need to check them even if they are on flea and tick prevention. Ticks are more than glad to hitchhike indoors on pets and then later decide to rehome themselves onto a human.
Also highly recommend spraying your dogs thoroughly with Permethrin in addition to whatever else they're on. Permethrin is an insecticide and when ticks come into contact with it they immediately want to get away from it and will hop off as quickly as they can. My dog and I go hiking a lot and I almost never see ticks on him anymore. This applies even if you only walk your dog on paved paths - the ticks sit on the tips of leaves and grass blades waiting for something to come near.
Note: dogs only! Permethrin is toxic to cats.
I would add that it's probably best to bathe your dog as soon as you get home to avoid getting permethrin all over your house and absorbing it through your skin.
You definitely do not need to bathe them and it wouldn't matter if you did. Permethrin is meant to be a long term treatment (up to 6 weeks) so you spray it on your dog and let it dry days before your hike. Once dry permethrin is safe for humans and even cats. In fact treating your own clothing with permethrin (NOT while wearing them) is a safe and effective way to keep mosquitoes and ticks off you as well. Like dogs, permethrin treated clothes are effective for about 6 weeks (or 6 washes).
Oh! I was under the impression that getting it on bare skin was toxic.
Mind you, they're sometimes happy to burrow in even when they have hair around them. It really takes a friend and a comb to be sure.
I would make a "The Tick" joke but this is serious
I would make one and blame OP for their terrible capitalization
That's New York Times style. Headline Has Every Major Word Capitalized. Subheading looks normal.
Well Then I Guess They Want People to Make Jokes About The Tick
Fuck me I just saw that.
Don't try to remove them with spoons?
They make spoons specifically for removing ticks.
These work well even on tiny ticks. I got some when I was having trouble removing ticks around my cats' eyelids. I didn't want anything sharp or metal near their eyes.
Not trying to be funny, but would a plastic spoon also suffice? I've never had a tick before.
According to this video, the important part is a V-shaped notch with bevelled edges, cut into some thin piece of plastic.
So if you had a plastic spoon and an exacto knife to modify the spoon, only then would you be all set.
The notch is the useful part; it lets you lift the tick off your body without squeezing it. Skillful use of good tweezers does the same. (The ones on a Swiss army knife dont really work for this)
So what you’re saying is my dad held a smoldering match against my leg while I screamed for fun?
Or he didn't know how to do it without that. The match-as-best-approach was conventional wisdom for a lot of people for a long time
I bet with practice you could cut a notch in a spoon with a knife that would do the same thing
Had a friend tell me about using dental floss to wrap around as close to the skin as possible, tighten, and pull the tick off. Haven't tried it, but seems like it might work
Ben Edlund reportedly in shambles.
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