have you checked for ticks today?

photo credit here

i interrupt my regularly scheduled posting to bring you a friendly reminder about regular tick checks. i know, there is nothing regular about my posting, but i did have some other things i was going to share with you. frankly, they just aren't as important as making sure that if you live in an area with a tick population that you routinely check yourself and your kiddos for any unwanted visitors.

this morning, as we sat on a picnic blanket watching daddy's soccer game, i found a tick on sienna's head. we left the field immediately and headed home for proper removal as it had likely been on there for 24 hours. tick season is in full swing and i have not been doing my tick checks with the kids....tsk, tsk!

we live in an area where deer ticks are prevalent, however the ticks carrying lyme disease are fewer than the deer tick population in the northeast and other areas. lyme disease carriers are here though, i know first hand as my sister contracted lyme disease from a deer tick in these very mountains.

last week, i asked my friend joy if she checks her kids for ticks after they have been outside in the summer. being from the northeast where lyme disease is more prevalent, she shrugged her shoulders and said she didn't think it necessary here. we were standing in the same forested park where my sister contracted lyme disease!

that got me thinking that this is not something we talk about too much around here. if lyme disease is caught early, it can be controlled and usually healed. however, if diagnosis is late, symptoms can last for years and possibly a lifetime. that was the case with my sister.

she lives in alabama and was up here visiting my dad (i think she was 11) and attending a local camp. she was bitten by a tick, but it wasn't until many months later that she finally got a diagnosis. lyme disease is rare in alabama and the doctors that were treating her did not know to look for it. she has and still struggles with severe joint pain, arthritis, severe sleeplessness, chronic fatigue, short term memory loss and other issues that made her school work very challenging for her from that point on, amongst other things.

so, what can you do to avoid such a fate? check yourself and your children for ticks! perhaps you do not live in an area that has ticks at all, in which case you could have stopped reading this a while ago. ;) in the case that there are ticks where you live, you should routinely check for ticks when you have been outdoors in warm weather. we do this at the end of the day. ticks like warm, dark crevices. this is the second one that i have found on sienna and both were attached to her scalp in amongst her hair. i remember getting them in my belly button several times as a child. they also like the backs of knees, lower abdomen, and armpits, but will attach anywhere really.

if you get the tick off within 24-48 hours, risk of infection of ld is low. there are, of course, several other diseases that ticks carry and i am not versed on these.

there are many old wives tales about things to do to a tick to remove it.....do NOT do any of these!! they include burning the tick with a match and rubbing petroleum jelly on it to make it release (both of which i remember having done to me as a child). the truth of the matter is that these actions may cause the tick to salivate and regurgitate into the wound, potentially sending it's diseases into the victim's body. disgusting, eh?

what you should do, is carefully and slowly, using sharp tweezers, remove the tick at the injection spot. you do not want to pull on the body, you want to get the head and the little parts that are stuck inside your body all in one piece. you will have to pull hard as they are meant to hang on tight! when i pulled sienna's off her head, a little piece of her skin was still attached to the ticks mouth.

by the way, she could not feel the tick on her head and she said it did not hurt at all when i removed it. the first time she had one, she is actually the one that found it. she came to me and wanted me to feel this strange flap of skin she found. it was the tick's body as the tick holds on with his mouth and his body is free floating!

you can learn more about deer ticks and lyme disease here. there are more deer tick photos than most people would ever wish to see here.

thanks for reading! tomorrow we will talk about something more lighthearted, like blackberry picking (where she got the tick) or jasper's first sewing project. promise!

and just because i can't let that creepy tick picture be the only image you see here, i leave you with a pic of my dear little sister, heather, with sienna and i on our memorial day trip to visit her in birmingham.