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Backpacker Magazine – August 2008
Health News: Get Naked!
And other ways to prevent tick-borne infections
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Tags:
- Health & First Aid |
Reason number 27 ticks are annoying: They prefer to bite you where you can't see them. A study published last winter in the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine found that 20 percent of tick bites occur in places–like the back, thigh, and groin–that are difficult to self-examine. The solution: Ask your spouse or, yes, hiking partner to check for you. "The window of opportunity to remove a tick is 36 hours," says Gary Wormser, an expert on preventing tick-borne diseases. Wormser says that most tick-transmitted parasites take that long to infect a host. If you do find a tick, he says, make sure to pull it out gently with tweezers, rather than burning, squeezing, or suffocating it with petroleum jelly.
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READERS COMMENTS
They are attracted to where your body heat is the highest. The heat is a result of increased blood flow and is usually closer to the surface of your skin making it easier for ticks to drink your blood.
that means that 80 percent of tick bites are in places you can see. with this in mind, I don't think they have a preferance, it just happens where it happens, still a good tip though to have your partner check for you.
Oops! As usual, I hit the wrong key.
My comment:
It seems like no matter how gently I squeze and pull I end up pulling the tick apart. Then I have to get out the camp scaple (A real one, sealed in foil) and dig. I hate that part.
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