Last Wednesday,my girlfriend was admitted to the hospital in critical condition. She will be discharged from the hospital today or tomorrow after a very scary week. The doctors have tentatively diagnosed her with Babesiosis. This will be confirmed in a few days. The Friday before she was admitted, we were hiking in an area off of Hampton Furnace Road. The area is about three miles in where the bogs (ponds) are on the north side of the road. As usual our curiosity drew us further in. The trail had become increasingly overgrown. The exitement of being on a new exploration,common sense went out the window. We turned back because we started to pick off each other a tremendous amount of ticks. After reaching the car,we realized just how many ticks were on us. I counted over 40 deer ticks on one sock alone! She started to feel sick on Sunday morning. We did not go to the hospital until things were totally out of hand. Needless to say, itwas incredibly stupid and irresponsible not to take the precautions required prior to our outing. I felt it was important to relay our experience to the members of the group. I can't tell you how important it is to get your butt to the Doctor as soon as you can. This infection moves incredibly fast. Tom
Tick Warning - Stupidty Alert
- Thread starter TRA
- Start date
Symptons
At first aches, pains, and a slight temp., similar to the onset of the flu. Then temp rose in spite of taking Advil and Tylenol. She should have been in the hospital on Tuesday. It was out of control on Tuesday, full blown and critical by Wednesday morning when family members rushed her to the hospital. Her temp was over 103! Her liver was almost not functioning. She had told me other results, but I can't remember exactly what they were. I think high liver enzymes and low platelet count. The doctor said there were only 425 cases ever reported.
At first aches, pains, and a slight temp., similar to the onset of the flu. Then temp rose in spite of taking Advil and Tylenol. She should have been in the hospital on Tuesday. It was out of control on Tuesday, full blown and critical by Wednesday morning when family members rushed her to the hospital. Her temp was over 103! Her liver was almost not functioning. She had told me other results, but I can't remember exactly what they were. I think high liver enzymes and low platelet count. The doctor said there were only 425 cases ever reported.
That is scary - glad that she got to the doctors on time.
If you haven't seen this thread already, take a look at my comments about permethrin here (starting with post #6): http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/showthread.php?t=2749
This stuff continues to amaze me. In fact, two days ago I started to think that the ticks were all gone since I haven't seen one in so long. However the next day when I looked carefully at the clothes I'd treated with permanone I found twelve dead ticks on them! Then the next morning I walked out in the yard right next to the house for no more than a couple minutes in my untreated clothes, and there was a tick crawling up my leg!
I have two sets of "woods clothes" that I sprayed with permanone as per directions and they still work fine after washing. I just did a second washing yesterday, so I think I'll spray them again lightly now (3 weeks have passed since the first spray).
Get some of this stuff in the sporting goods dept at WalMart, it's cheap insurance against all these tick problems.
If you haven't seen this thread already, take a look at my comments about permethrin here (starting with post #6): http://forums.njpinebarrens.com/showthread.php?t=2749
This stuff continues to amaze me. In fact, two days ago I started to think that the ticks were all gone since I haven't seen one in so long. However the next day when I looked carefully at the clothes I'd treated with permanone I found twelve dead ticks on them! Then the next morning I walked out in the yard right next to the house for no more than a couple minutes in my untreated clothes, and there was a tick crawling up my leg!
I have two sets of "woods clothes" that I sprayed with permanone as per directions and they still work fine after washing. I just did a second washing yesterday, so I think I'll spray them again lightly now (3 weeks have passed since the first spray).
Get some of this stuff in the sporting goods dept at WalMart, it's cheap insurance against all these tick problems.
We have annoying biting flies here but I don't know if they're "pine flies" (BTW - one of my favorite Groucho Marx quotes is "time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a bananna")
Anyway, it may help somewhat, but remember it is intended to treat your clothes and not your skin. So it prevents ticks from crawling up you shoes-socks-pants such that they don't make it to any skin. The real annoyance for flies is around your face and neck (or at least that's what drives me crazy). Permethrin won't help much with that, although I treat my hat with it.
I think DEET applied to the skin may be helpful for those. But my real concern is keeping the ticks away. Flies are a real nuisance but not likely to cause the kind of health problems which a tick bite might...
Anyway, it may help somewhat, but remember it is intended to treat your clothes and not your skin. So it prevents ticks from crawling up you shoes-socks-pants such that they don't make it to any skin. The real annoyance for flies is around your face and neck (or at least that's what drives me crazy). Permethrin won't help much with that, although I treat my hat with it.
I think DEET applied to the skin may be helpful for those. But my real concern is keeping the ticks away. Flies are a real nuisance but not likely to cause the kind of health problems which a tick bite might...
