A tick bite devastated a N.J. man’s life. Why are cases soaring?
- Thread starter Teegate
- Start date
are you sure it was snake? Coulda been tarantula out west.The instant pain from a venomous snake bite I would think would have woke you up immediately? I have had many nasty spider bites in my sleep,they are very bad here where I live,wolf spiders and widders, and I never feel them when they bite but wake up with a hot knot that grows for six months and then bursts and drains for a couple months. A rattlesnake bit would have needed attention,might even have lost the leg if you didn't get anti venom. and without checking I believe rattlers would be the only venomous sname in that area.The Pacific Black Tail and the Mojave both live in California and are particularly virulent since they have not only Hematoxic but also Neurotoxic venom.
Out in the woods, I just pluck ticks off as soon as I notice them. At home, I have a little pair of tweezers with very sharp points, if needed.
"...With a Pair of heavy-duty Zircon-encrusted tweezers in my hand, every other wrangler would say I was mighty grand."
"...With a Pair of heavy-duty Zircon-encrusted tweezers in my hand, every other wrangler would say I was mighty grand."
oh my heavens. Don't put gasoline on ticks to get them out! Just pull them.
Could be.You're probably right. I don't know what it was, but there were two fang marks on my lower leg and then the leg swelling went down and it quickly got better, and as soon as I went down to 4,000 foot altitude my breathing was OK. I've been at altitudes like that before with no breathing problem, but it may have been the rapid change from two weeks below sea level in Death Valley. I didn't go to a doctor with it, not that there were any around anyway, plus it got better quickly, but when I first came out west I fell asleep on a nice sunny flat rock on a trail - fell asleep like you just mentioned above - and when I woke up my hand was red and swollen and there was some kind of bite mark on it. I had been hearing a lot about flesh eating bacteria out here so I got scared and went to a hospital emergency room. The doctor who finally looked at it was both obnoxious and didn't have a clue what it was, so that was a waste of time, plus that one quickly got better too. This is a dangerous planet. If one thing doesn't get you another thing will. All these little nothing things are just there to soften you up, throw you off guard, so when something really serious happens you don't pay any attention to it. That happened to me too.
Speaking of snakes, there are a lot out here in AZ, but the closest I ever came to stepping on a rattlesnake - and it was the biggest one I've ever seen - was not here but in Bear Mountain-Harriman State Park, NY north of NYC, a place I frequented even much more than the PB, hiking, winter backpacking, and swimming in the secluded ponds. I don't think I ever got a tick on me up there tho. They were just in low lying places with sandy soil, tho come to think of it the Ozarks in Ark. was teeming with them.
Only once did I encounter an actual snake pit, in the Nevada desert.
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I don't get ticks anymore but whenever i used to try to pull them out with a tweezers their head usually broke off in my body, and I used the gasoline trick hundreds if not thousands of times successfully. It would be hard to do it now anyway because of the way car gas tanks are built. I used to be able to just dip a rag into the filler cap and get a bit of gasoline on it. I guess I was just trying to twist them out wrong, I should have studied the way you experts did it.
Even tho I never get ticks out here in AZ the way I did on Long Island, NY and Arkansas and especially the NJPB I'm still nervous when high grass rubs against me.
Out in the woods, I just pluck ticks off as soon as I notice them. At home, I have a little pair of tweezers with very sharp points, if needed.
"...With a Pair of heavy-duty Zircon-encrusted tweezers in my hand, every other wrangler would say I was mighty grand."
I'd like to see a video of someone doing that the proper way, close up. Not that I need it anymore (uh oh maybe I shouldn't have said that), but just to know what I used to be doing wrong.
Tell your ex mother in law that removing ticks with tweezers without breaking off their heads isn't an instinctive skill. (Removing them with gasoline, however, is.)Reminds me of something my Chinese ex-mother-in-law used to say, "Americans are the only people in the world who need to watch a video to learn how to **** "
;-)
Out in the woods, I just pluck ticks off as soon as I notice them. At home, I have a little pair of tweezers with very sharp points, if needed.
"...With a Pair of heavy-duty Zircon-encrusted tweezers in my hand, every other wrangler would say I was mighty grand."
Noticing them is the problem, Boyd. Some with more sensitive skin notice them better than I do. Then the little rascals immediately head for the most obscure parts of the body to hide themselves. The ants that attacked me did that too. Right away they crawled under the straps of my sandal. Plus the ants only attack my bad right foot!
Here is what my foot looked like a day and a half after the latest ant attack:
Attachments
I don't know. It was the same ants in the same spot that got me recently two months apart. Medium sized, didn't appear to look unusual. Maybe I'll go back there and take their picture, but I'm afraid to do that. Maybe if I wear heavy boots (I usually wear sandals now because of my nerve damage - neuropathy - problem).
My troubles with insects started over twenty years ago. I was trail building north of Tucson when I felt sharp stings in my legs. I thought it was cactus thorns, but I couldn't pull my trousers down to see because there were women around. When I got to a private place I saw huge ants with gigantic pinchers hanging on to my leg, numbers of them. That was followed that evening by unbearable itching that ordinary anti-itch potions wouldn't even touch. Then, not long after, I had crawled under my truck out in the desert to fix something and this time it was tiny ants that got me. The ensuing itching was so bad I went to the emergency room at the hospital. I had read about bicyclists in Thailand who were bitten and got the fearsome itching and they went to the hospital and were given a shot which cured it instantly. But the Tucson hospital, after making me wait a long time (even tho I knew the nurse at the front desk) only gave me the same useless anti itch stuff that you can buy in drugstores. And then shortly thereafter I was bitten by a bee which also caused a bad reaction.
I'd spent much of my life outdoors and been bitten by bees, wasps, etc. before and never had a bad reaction to insect bites, with the exception of whatever bit me by Death Valley.
Then over twenty years passed with no problem, but about three months ago the ants bit my bad foot and caused the pain and swelling and fearsome itching. I tried everything on the itching but the one thing I found that helped was something called Cymillium which I luckily bought years ago and is apparently no longer available (tho it's still online). That helped. I also took methylprednisolone 6-pack or whatever it's called. That seems to knock it out in a few days. Also, ever since the old incidents I've carried benadryl anti-allergy pills and meat tenderizer and I took 2 of the former and rubbed in the latter as the ant bit me, but it seemed to do nothing.
Two months later in the same exact spot the same exact ants bit me again (I had sort of forgotten about 2 months before duh). This time the pain was even much worse than the last time but this time it was not followed by the unbarable itching (see photo). I had been given various anti-pain medicines to use for my neuropathy and I didn't know what to do so i thought of which of them caused me the least problems and i selected the fentanyl pain patch - and it helped and I was able to sleep.
Now I carry benadryl - i was told to take two initially and then continue taking them - 2 more a few hours later, something like that), AND a methylprednisolone 6 pack, so I'll do those immediately in the unfortunate event that ants get me again.
All this would probably be useless in the event giant ants, like in the 1954 movie "Them", bite you.
Thanks to your ant story I have just removed Arizona from my list of possible retirement options
This is a dangerous planet. If one thing doesn't get you another thing will! It's the giant ants in "Them" that really worry me. I saw that movie when it first came out in 1954 and the sound they make is still stuck in my head...
Me too, that sound. Last night when you and Al were talking I was going to mention that sound, but I could not think of a way to describe it to someone without them hearing it. Like unlubricated wheels on 50 shopping carts?
And Santa Claus (Edmund Gwynne)has to save the day! I think the hunt and flame thrower battle in the storm sewers were James Cameron's inspiration for the scene with the Colonial Marines under the power station in Aliens.
There's a great documentary from 2005 called "Watch the Skies!" (a reference to "The Thing") where Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ridley Scott and James Cameron all discuss Science Fiction films from the 50's and how they were influenced. Worth watching, if you can find it (my copy was a bonus feature on some old Sci Fi DVD). But Spielberg specifically mentions (imitates) that ant sound!
www.imdb.com
There's a great documentary from 2005 called "Watch the Skies!" (a reference to "The Thing") where Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ridley Scott and James Cameron all discuss Science Fiction films from the 50's and how they were influenced. Worth watching, if you can find it (my copy was a bonus feature on some old Sci Fi DVD). But Spielberg specifically mentions (imitates) that ant sound!
Watch the Skies!: Science Fiction, the 1950s and Us (TV Movie 2005) ⭐ 6.8 | Documentary, Sci-Fi
56m | TV-PG
www.imdb.com
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I read about how they created that sound: They combined bird sounds with insect sounds.
"Santa Claus (Edmund Gwynne)has to save the day!"
Wow I didn't know Santa Claus was the hero in this one too! I liked Santa Claus in "The Nightmare Before Christmas". I like Santa Claus. (re Jean Shepherd's - who I grew up - and my mother before me - listening to and attending his shows - famous movie)
I was a kid in the 50's and I liked reading SciFi and watching the movies. Most of the movies were pretty formulaic and that used to crack us up, and still does actually. General plot was often a flying saucer lands in some field and the old scientist with wild hair like Albert Einstein says something like, "I'm sure they've come in peace.", and he walks down to greet them - and you KNOW he's going to get it, and you equally well know that his beautiful young daughter isn't even going to get her hair messed up. Then there was the spaceship crews, the same cast from the low budget WW2 movies, one being a skinny wisecracking guy from Brooklyn.
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And Santa Claus (Edmund Gwynne)has to save the day! I think the hunt and flame thrower battle in the storm sewers were James Cameron's inspiration for the scene with the Colonial Marines under the power station in Aliens.
There's a great documentary from 2005 called "Watch the Skies!" (a reference to "The Thing") where Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ridley Scott and James Cameron all discuss Science Fiction films from the 50's and how they were influenced. Worth watching, if you can find it (my copy was a bonus feature on some old Sci Fi DVD). But Spielberg specifically mentions (imitates) that ant sound!
Watch the Skies!: Science Fiction, the 1950s and Us (TV Movie 2005) ⭐ 6.8 | Documentary, Sci-Fi
56m | TV-PG
In the Plot Summary for Watch The Skies they mention some of my favorites, Destination Moon, the first movie I ever attended alone, playing with its co-feature, The Highwayman, based on Alfred Noyes' poem. I still remember both, especially the latter. The former, Destination, was considered quite ground breaking for its relatively authentic science, depicting a multi stage rocket etc. Then the great "Incredible Shrinking Man", War of the Worlds, and, of course, "Them"...woowoowoowoo!
Just in case my reference was too cryptic, Edmund Gwenn, who played the scientist in "Them" also played Santa Claus (Kris Kringle) in the classic "Miracle on 34th Street".
Think I've mentioned it before here, but I'm a huge fan of vintage Sci Fi films and have a large collection on my media server. Here's just the beginning of my 1950's playlist.
That movie "The Flying Saucer" is (IIRC) the first film on the subject and a very odd one that's worth checking out (if you can find it). Cold War drama where a government agent is called out of retirement and teamed up with a beautiful female agent to investigate reports of flying saucers in Alaska. Very low budget film, but not like the ridiculous 50's sci fi. This one is more like an excuse for a (real) Alaska travelogue, filmed on location in a single-camera documentary style in black and white. They go all over Alaska in search of the saucer, meanwhile Russian agents are after them. (Spoiler) Turns out, the saucer was created by a mad scientist from earth who has been flying it around, confounding the US military. Now the agents must stop him from selling the saucer to the Russians!
(We might want to split these posts off into a new thread, getting pretty far off the topic of tick bites now.... )
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