https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alpha-gal-syndrome/in-depth/tick-species/art-20546861
https://news.mayocliniclabs.com/infectious-disease/vector-borne-diseases/tick-borne-disease/
Tick-borne diseases (TBDs) occur worldwide, but historically, only certain pockets of the United States posed a risk for infection. However, the geographic range of ticks continues to expand in North America, leading to higher risks of TBD exposure for the public. As a result of increasing exposure and the rising number of potential tick-borne pathogens, it is increasingly important to recognize who to test, when to test, and what test to use for patients who present with TBD symptoms.
Ticks detect and find warm blooded creatures by detecting the CO2 they exhale, similar to mosquitoes.
They will wait for long periods on tall grass and brush for a warm blooded creature to pass by and most of the time, die before that happens.
They can crawl to the nests of wild life to feed on them too.
We live in a rural area, just outside the city of Evansville, IN.
Tons of wildlife. Deer, possum, raccoons, rabbits, possum, wild turkey, fox, squirrels, birds, mice.
There has been an explosion in the tick population here the past 3 decades.
At our previous 2 houses in Evansville, we had 0 ticks. In 1997 at the previous house, my daughters doctor thought she might have Lyme Disease from her symptoms. So I called the Vanderburgh County Health Department to ask them how many cases of Lyme they had seen recently. They told me just 2 cases in their years of testing and both of them had just returned from the Northeast US. They tested thousands of local ticks and not one of them came back with Lyme bacteria. So we assumed that Shani couldn't have Lyme Disease and the doctor was full of doo doo.
We moved ti this house at the start of 1999. I really don't recall ticks the first few years.
Then it turned insane fast.
Around 2005, I was working by a shed next to our pool and felt this odd sensation of things crawling on me. There were probably 50-100 tiny seed ticks crawling up my legs!!!! The shed was shelter for tons of mice. Those mice served as blood meals for ticks that laid many thousands of eggs which hatched and got on me.
I'll guess the ticks feeding on them with impunity and each one laying hundreds of eggs every time happening in this area has caused this to be a hot bed for ticks.
I went inside and showered vigorously then loaded my 3 gallon sprayer up with triple strength pesticide and soaked the entire area. Then waited until after the rain washed the poison away and didn't find 1 tick.
There is no solution other than to spray in the areas around our house where our 3 year old grandson, Cyrus plays and when I go in the woods, wear clothes that cover me and spray with deet. That only lasts for a while, then more spraying after wildlife covered with ticks drops more tick eggs that hatch and start it over.
This does not bode well for any places in the country because the creatures that eat ticks, frogs, toads etc consume a tiny fraction of them while they multiply by several orders of magnitude quickly and spread.
Some places just got a head start on others. Big cities probably won't ever have infestations like rural areas.
I can tell you with certainty that there have been times that ticks that were not on my body after I checked and showered but "found me" in the middle of the night laying in bed because they crawled to me. Whether they came in on Macy, our dogy or fell off my clothes or were on my shoes or fell on the floor after I took off my clothes they detected the CO2 and crawled to me.
Deb, my wife who spends very little time outside has had this happen dozens of times. She sleeps with Macy so some of the ticks could have come off our dog close by.
I could almost fill a book with tick stories.
I've had many hundreds of ticks on me in the past 30 years. No exaggeration. The last 1 was 2 days ago. Laying in bed, dosing off I felt something on my shoulder. I picked it off, turned on the light and it was a pretty big one. A Lone Star Tick
If I had fallen to sleep 1 minute earlier, it would have found a place to feast on me.
The worst ones are the seed ticks which is what they are called just after hatching. They are so tiny that you never feel them until they feast for a couple of days and cause a red irritated, itchy spot and see a black dot on top of it.........the tick.
I have to almost double dose our dog with tick and flea meds.
She will go outside and bring in ticks that will get on my wife, Deb.
We have 3 bird feeders outside the front door/kitchen window to watch and feed birds during the harsh Winter months when they have no food. Last Summer, I trimmed the bushes in that area and got covered in a dozen ticks. The birds and especially the squirrels that used the feeders had ticks that would lay eggs around the feeders.
So I have to spray the heck out of that entire area and other areas around the house where Cyrus, our 3 year old grandson plays, to kills the ticks.
Same thing happened this past Spring, even in areas not close to the bird feeders but not as bad there. So I sprayed the heck out of all those areas and it stopped the ticks from showing up on everybody in the house from just going outside around the house.
It's crazy but thank God for chemicals that kill the ticks and get washed away from the next rain.
In the Spring of 2009, a tick climbed into my butt hole. I thought it was a hemorrhoid until it fell off. I went to MEC with the tick and the uniformed doctor said "no need to worry, it's not a deer tick"
It was a Lone Star Tick and they carry Rocky Mountain Spotted fever bacteria and other diseases. I refused to leave until he wrote a script for Doxycycline.
Before I got home after filling the script, the severe diarrhea started and lasted for 3 days straight, along with a temp of 102+ at times.
Luckily, I had started the meds.
Doxycycline is the antibiotic of choice to kill tick bacteria from numerous diseases.
