Ticks

[Webguy]

I only have a small red dot where it was removed so no after effects.

Now, getting bitten by a leech, that had me sitting in a hospital waiting room at 2am with a ankle I could no longer use as it was swollen so bad it no longer had much in the way of an ankle-like shape.

Had me off work for a week, could not walk/drive nuffin. Yet another evil creature of the great aussie bush. But, does it stop me from going out, nope.

Though, a bit more paranoid about ticks now, especially with the girls and their long hair, harder to detect one of the little blood suckers attached up in there.

[alex]

Just a bit from NSW Health Department here

http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/public-health/pdf/tick.pdf

[djcache]

Only the Australian paralysis tic or scrub tick cause envenomation in humans but ticks are capable of spreading disease or causing severe allergic reactions. Don't squeeze or cut the tick. Slide open the blades of sharp pointed tweezers on each side of the tick and lever it upwards.

If the patient has a history of, or signs of allergy use the same pressure immobilisation technique you would use for snake bite. Wash area first with soap and water and apply ice to area after bandaging. Keep the tick for viewing at hospital.

Consult medical advice and if patient is experiencing shortness of breath, wide spread rash (looks a bit like hives) or facial swelling call 000 for an Ambulance.

djcache
(Paramedic)

[Dingbats]

Now, getting bitten by a leech, . . . Had me off work for a week

<p>
Wow, I'm counting my lucky stars. I've tussled with leaches and ticks on countless occassions without suffering too adversely. I had a bad reaction to a blue bottle sting and had to seek medical assistance, but this was only once again out of countless stings.

[¢ha®lie ÃÂ]

Some friends and I went camping in a remote cave in Northern NSW one long weekend. It was really wet at the time and there were numerous leeches. Access to the cave meant crawling under lantana through puddles of mud filled with leeches. We just left most drop off themselves as you would be stopping every 5 minutes to pull them off.<br>
Anyway, day 3, we had just came back from a hike and we are up in the cave and one of our friends has been rubbing his face when he starts saying he has something in his eye.<br>
We have a look and he has this tiny leech stuck to his eyeball under his bottom eyelid. We couldnt get it out so we had to hike back (over 2 hours) to the carpark to drive to a friends house to get it out.<br>
I still recall the horror of 2 hours of.. 'GET IT OUT MAN!! ITS IN MY EYE!! URGGH GET IT OUT MAN!!'.. over and over.. poor bugger. Seems there are a few types of leeches. Some are more resilient to salty water than others.. It was fully stuck to his eyeball having a feed. By the time we got to our friends house it was pretty big hey.. full of eye fluid... <br>
They dosed it with some full salt i think and got it out.. i dont know.. most of us stayed outside and didnt want to know about it cause it was pretty bad.. <br>
He rocked up to school the next day with his eyelids all swollen and pus like... <p>
Moral to the story.. I dont ever ever touch my face in the bush without looking at my hands first.. <br>
But overall.. i prefer a leech any day to a tick.. A leech gets its fill and drops off.. I've never got badly infected by one.. just a bit itchy and annoying for a few days.. But a tick will just keep burrowing..<p>
My brother got a paralysis tick in his head once.. tiny one.. nobody including himself noticed.. until he woke up one morning looking like a demon from hell!! LOL.. his forehead was crazy swollen.. <br>
That was funny.. I gave him hell for weeks.. had a crucifix that i'd wave infront of him when he came near me.. Hehe... <p>
A good tip.. if you have to crawl under lantana and you just know you are going to get ticks.. after you do it.. take off your shirt and turn it inside out.. check the back out.. usually the ticks will crawl up the back of your shirt (so you dont feel them going up your back) then they will from your shirt dive into your skin... So you can usually nab them on your shirt before they do the damage. No jokes, i once got 8 shell back ticks off my shirt doing this.. i shudder if i hadnt done it would have had em all burrowed into me...<P>
Grass ticks are even worse.. tiny little suckers that like to go for your groin.. can have literaly hundreds of them.. you think you've got a rash until you look close.. we once went through a patch of them.. it was funny cause for the next 2 weeks we were scratching our nuts.. heh.. fellas affectionately called it thier 'pox'.. eg.. 'man my pox is itchy as hell'.. lol.. <br>

[Damo.]

I HATE ticks! Leeches, no problem, just pluck them off and toss them. I react badly to ticks though. Had a shellback on my shin overnight once and I couldn't walk on that foot for two days. Only ticks I have got since living in Sydney was some grass ticks at Lane Cove Lake. I dread walking anywhere through grass on the North Coast though.

[Lucanos]

I'm pretty sure ticks (along with leeches and other vectors/parasites) are mentioned in the St John's First Aid Manuals.

With specific regards to ticks, I have run into a few of them (not on myself, but on others) when I was a unit medic with the Australian Army Cadet Corp. I always found it funny that the places people would dive into for cover were nearly always the places where ticks, leechec, spiders, wombats, etc. had already set up residence...

Picked up a set of Tick Removers from Australian Geographic, and they've worked a charm. They actually let you get a grip of the head under the skin and pull the whole sucker out.
If you have had more than one incident with ticks, they're probably worth the investment.

http://www.australiangeographic.com/ind ... ion=Detail

[Two Goth Geeks]

And today I managed to pick up one of the stowaway blighters.
Got a bump about 4x the size of a mosquito bite (and looking similar) plus all my shoulder where it was went blotchy red.
Got the wife to rip it out with tweezers. Most came out, but I think a bit is still in there.

[Webguy]

If there is still a bit in there, then if I remember rightly, dig it out like a splinter and make sure nothing is left at all.

[Webguy]

Beats me where he got it, but we pulled another good sized blighter off my sons scalp today.

Building a growing collection of em now.

Does anyone know, are they more active in summer?

I've been bushwalking a lng time now, and I've never come across them until recently.

[Webguy]

Does Aeroguard or RID stop them?

[SNIFTER]

It seems to but do you remember to put it on on a cloudy mild day.

[juzmac]

Does Aeroguard or RID stop them?

In the PDF that was posted by Alex it said that any sort of insect repellant that contains either DEET or Picaridin...

I know I'll be checking the bottles when I get home!!!

Justin

[Webguy]

Picked up 2 ticks on me yesterday, one was burrowed in, the other was out for a walk on my neck. Have not checked out my son yet, but the rest of the family are tick free.