Another reason (also probably related to global warming): invasion by Japanese barberry! A good reason to rip out this invasive. A recent study by researchers at the CT Agricultural Experiment Station found that the number of ticks present in woodlands infested by Japanese barberry was hugely greater than the number in woodlands where barberry is not present. "In 2008, a sampling of areas with more barberry showed an average of 496 ticks infected with the bacterium that causes Lyme Disease, whereas areas without barberry showed an average of 89 ticks." This refers to results reported in a paper that will be published in an upcoming issue of Environmental Entomology. The theory is that the areas where barberry patches exist have higher humidity level than areas where they don't (no idea why that is but it's apparently a scientific fact). Higher humidity apparently improves tick survival rates. Here's the reference: Williams, S. C., J. S. Ward, T. E. Worthley, and K. C. Stafford, III. 2009. Managing Japanese Barberry (Ranunculales: Berberidaceae) Infestations Reduces Blacklegged Tick (Acari: Ixodidae) Abundance and Infection Prevalence with Borrelia burgdorferi (Spirochaetales: Spirochaetaceae). Environmental Entomology (In Press). Another study by Yale researchers determined that climate impacts the prevalence of Lyme Disease. Deer ticks live for two years and obtain one blood meal during each of their three stages of life. In the moderate climate of the northeastern United States, larval deer ticks feed in the late summer, long after the spring feeding of infected nymphs. This long gap between feeding times correlates to more cases of Lyme Disease reported in the Northeast. The Yale paper appears in the April issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Interesting stuff. A good argument (as if bigger, more potent poison ivy wasn't enough of one!) for doing something about global warming ASAP. Here is a link that might be useful: CT Ag Station Tick Testing Results for 2008

To quote the sage advice of the Springfield, MO band, "Big Smith": "If we didn't have those bugs attachin', we'd never know the joy of scratchin'" :) My job requires me to be miles in the wildnerness all day, nearly every day, all summer long. So, I just CAN'T use the poisons because I'd constantly be bathing in them. We just duct tape the bottom of our pant legs to our hiking boots, tuck in our shirts, and keep a roll of duct tape handy for seed ticks. Otherwise, we just enjoy the glorious feeling that comes from scratching those bites! Makes us know that it's truly summertime! Generally, we have between 1 and 1000 ticks on us by the time we get home, but we're happy and tired and know we're ALIVE! I know, I know, this isn't really helpful advice to most. But really, aside from the slim chance of a disease, there's really a lot of psychology involved in the desire to be rid of the "pests". Also, FWIW, I've heard that a tick must be attached 6-12 hours before a disease can be transmitted, presumably because the tick must be filled with some blood to have it sqeezed/regurgitated back into your body during removal. So, if you just keep up with picking them off....

To all who have wished me a speedy recovery: Thank You! I am feeling steadily better (1 month out), and expect to be back to full strength shortly. @Alisande, If you think you may have babeseosis at the moment, then insist on being tested. Same with anaplasmosis, both are less-difficult than Lyme to diagnose from blood smears, I believe. (The issue with the blood supply, aside from the traditional head-in-the-sand attitude of the blood industry, and of course the cost, is that there is no rapid-enough test for babeseosis -or possibly the other tick-borne diseases -to work with the need for fresh blood.) But as I mentioned, anaplasmosis has distinct, characteristic, changes in routine blood work that are almost diagnostic. I can check next time I am in the medical library if there are specific changes in the case of babeseosis. I may have that info for erlichiosis, if you'd like to know it. Anaplasmosis has distinctive mullberry shaped artifacts (morullae) in the disease-specific blood smears (as does erlichiosis, I believe). Babeseosis is different but unless you, like I, have had malaria it's pretty distinctive in the blood test for it. The tests aren't inexpensive (the unadjusted street price for them is $500-$1,000 -each- but my insurance company whacked both of them down considerably. Since you're on Medicare, you'd only pay a percentage of the CMS-negotiated cost which is likely to be as aggressively moderated as that of my own insurance company's contractual rate. Since all three are bacterial, not spirochete, -caused it doesn't require the complex analysis of PCR bands that Lyme does. But frankly if I was on my second continuous month of Lyme I would have pretty awful constitutional symptoms from that lengthy treatment alone. I can barely make it out the 30 days of a single course before I have disturbed sleep, night sweats, muscle aches and pains, etc. Part of my fierceness about discovering ticks early is to avoid the need for the lengthy course of anti-Lyme doxy. Since doxy won't really do anything for babeseosis - and other drugs will - why keep taking what may be the wrong cure? I don't think you would experience symptoms from babeseosis or anaplasmosis (or even Lyme) infection before locating the tick. The incubation time needed to get sick from a still-attached tick would have resulted in a deer tick as big as a green pea, a nasty pearly-grey tight blob. It's hard to imagine you wouldn't have noticed it well before getting sick if it was still attached. Don't you itch like mad when you have a tick attached for more than a few hours, not to mention days? I'd be wild! BTW, the tick-hours-of-bite measurement has a built in problem: the aging relies on analysis of stomach digestive contents. But that assumes, and it is not always true, that the bite the tick was discovered making is the only bite, not a second one. Also you mentioned you squashed the critter in removing it. You might want to consider beginning more intensive searches for ticks on your body twice a day in order to not miss one. I have hair so long I can sit on it so I do realize it can be hard to check your scalp and hair. I have also found attached ticks under my breasts, in my belly button, on various unmentionable parts of my bottom, and even larval ones between my toes and fingers. I usually keep my long hair tied up in pigtail outdoors. I tuck the pigtail down the back of my shirt to minimize the likelihood of ticks getting caught in my hair. Of course I always have a hat on outside for sun protection, so my head and scalp are less-common tick areas. I do tick-checks at least twice every day of the year, unless I am away from home overnight in the city. It's just like brushing your teeth. I'm not convinced that Lyme "lurks in your body" but given that it is caused by spirochete I suppose it's possible. (Another spirochete-caused illness, syphillis, has a proven habit of lingering on and re-occurring, often despite treatment.) I know, for certain, that I have had Lyme (from clearly positive blood tests), been treated successfuly and subsequently had lengthy periods of profound physiological, and mental stress, without Lyme popping back up and adding to the problems. And I still have one band for Lyme on the latest PCR, which indicates an old, resolved infection, so there's no question it's still visible in my blood, but not thankfully making a pest of itself. I also still have serological evidence of malaria in my blood and I haven't had any illness from it in more than fifty years! But the bacterial diseases (anaplasmosis, babeseosis and erlichiosis) seem extremely unlikely lurkers and later-pouncers, especially if treated. What I definitely think they can do, however, is damage other organs and systems resulting in consequential, long-term problems (like the poor fellow described above who lost his spleen as a result of a babeseosis infection.) Your description of high fevers, muscle aches and pains, etc., sound much more like anaplasmosis than Lyme. Did you have any "regular" blood tests done at the time? The average time from bite to onset of symptoms with anaplasmosis is 8 days. I could look that time up for erlichiosis and babseosis, if needed. I don't know enough about Fibro, but aren't night sweats and aches and pains part of that, too? You may not need to go to any doctor more specialized than your primary care doc to check for the bacterial tick-borne illnesses. And then you'll be able to know, and treat, any that are there. I didn't get any hint that the tests for them lead to confusing, or contradictory results, as I know the Lyme test can, because it is a different, and more complicated test.. If you test negative for them, including having normal routine blood results, you can cross them off your list of worries and look elsewhere. (And get off the wretched doxy!) HTH, L.

Finding them is almost always accidental. These things hide! I didn't feel it when I washed my hair this morning in the shower, but a little later I realized my hair had probably air-dried more than I wanted to. I ran my fingers through it to see if it was still damp enough to blow-dry, and that's when I felt the tick. It was unmistakable, since it was so engorged. :-( Right now I have a pain from my neck up to that spot. It's probably psychosomatic. It's funny....ever since my several experiences with ticks, I've felt the occasional creepy-crawly feeling on the back of my neck. I've learned to ignore it--which is probably how this one managed to arrive at his destination.