Danger in the woods

Anyone who enjoys the outdoors knows what ticks are. They are those tiny little bugs that resemble spiders. Sometimes they are so small that you don't even see them until they are attached to you and engorged on your blood. If your anything like me the sound of that makes your skin crawl. I absolutely hate bugs that bite....mosquitos, ticks, fleas, the whole gamut of them.

As a kid growing up I hardly ever heard the word tick, let alone seeing one. And it wasn't for a lack of effort. My brother and I lived in the woods! If we weren't at one of our many sporting events, we were hanging out in our fort in the woods.

 As a young adult I took up turkey hunting. I loved the sport and I loved the new reason to be in the woods. Unfortunately that's where I had my first introduction to ticks. I would hunt all morning, go home, shower, and grab lunch only to find one crawling on my arm, or some other part of my body. I guess I was lucky or maybe just too sour for them because I never.....knock on wood.....had one bite me. After a few years of dealing with these things I found myself not enjoying the sport as much. I was always looking to see if there was a tick crawling on me. It wasn't long and I stopped going all together.

Fast forward a few years and couple of kids later I find myself looking at an attached tick on my youngest sons head. We were panicked to say the least. What do we do? Is he going to have Lyme's disease now? Should we take him to the emergency room? These were all the questions my wife and I were asking ourselves. So I did what any other person of this day and age would do, I Googled it! After what seemed like an eternity I found some useful information about how to remove ticks.

From everything I have read it is very important NOT to put Vaseline, nail polish remover, a lit match or any burnable utensil you can think of on an attached tick!!  The bacteria, and virus that live inside a tick reside in its digestive system. The process of a tick backing out of it's host involves regurgitation of some of the blood in its digestive system back into the host. Putting Vaseline on an attached tick will get it to back out but you also will getting some of your possibly contaminated blood back. Best option is to use tweezers and grab tick as close to the persons skin as possible and gently pull it out. Depending on how long the tick has been attached it might come off easy or it might take a little more effort. Be careful not to crush the ticks body. After removal clean the area with rubbing alcohol, peroxide or triple anti biotic. Its not uncommon for part of the tick to break off in the skin. In this case a visit to the Dr. is in order. We had my sons tick sent to a lab and checked for Lyme's, which it did not.

After my sons encounter I was on a mission to not let these things ruin my love of being in the woods anymore! I read everything I could get my hands on about them. I came across an article in a hunting magazine about tick repellant. They did a test on DEET vs. Permethrin . They sprayed a strip of cloth with both chemicals and then put a tick on each. The tick on the DEET walked directly off the cloth strip. The tick on the Permethrin treated cloth attempted to walk and died within seconds. Boom....I had my answer.

I found a product that had Permethrin in it and I gave it a try. I followed the directions and applied to my clothes. I headed to the woods and busted through the brush. I looked down at my jeans and almost had a heart attack. I had at least 100 ticks on me. I had to fight the urge to swat them all off of me. I composed myself and I watched them by the dozens fall of dead within 30-45 seconds. The product worked and I have been using it since. I had a tick on my jeans the other day and it died with 15 seconds. If used properly it is 100% guaranteed. Below is the product and its made by REPEL. www.drugstore.com is the cheapest place I found it. Its $5.99 a can and the places around here sell it for $9-$10 a can. Happy Squatchin....