By Pat Dray
The Garden Spot
Pat Dray.
I’m sure those of you who spend any amount of time outdoors find a tick or two on yourself or your pet sometime this spring or summer. If it seems like this year is one of the highest tick years in quite a while, it’s not your imagination.
The combinations of a relatively mild winter and an extraordinarily wet spring have led to a tick epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control, suburban development has increased the spread of ticks because people, deer and other tick hosts such as mice and chipmunks are in close contact. There is also an association between “mast years,” when oak trees have plentiful acorns, and the amount of ticks. Acorns feed the mice that are hosts for the ticks in their larval and adult stages. So if you remember an unusually high number of acorns in recent years you can understand why we are seeing so many ticks.
Though many people will immediately fear lyme disease if they discover an imbedded tick on their body, a total of seven new tick-borne illnesses have been discovered over the past 20 years.
Ticks that spread germs to people can have up to two to three-year lifecycles and go through four life stages: egg, six-legged larva, eight-legged nymph and adult. After hatching from their eggs, ticks must eat blood at every stage to survive. They’re pretty adept at finding a host to feed on– they can sense body odor, heat and vibrations. They wait for hosts in areas of tall grass so that they can “hitch a ride” when the potential host brushes up against the grass. It will generally take between 10 minutes and two hours for a tick to imbed itself on a host. It takes over 24 hours after attaching for a tick to spread Lyme disease, but other diseases can be transmitted much more quickly, so avoidance and prompt removal of any ticks is key to prevention.
Since ticks live in areas with tall grass, brush or wooded areas, when enjoying a walk outdoors stay in the center of the trail or in the street away from any vegetation. Wear a hat and long, light colored pants tucked into your socks so that you see any ticks easily and can remove them before they reach your skin. Use Environmental Protection Agency-registered insect repellents containing DEET, picaridin, IR3535, oil of lemon eucalyptus, para-menthane-diol or 2-undecanone. You can also treat your clothing with products containing 0.5 percent permethrin, which will remain protective through several washings. You can also buy permethrin-treated clothing and gear. I spray my gardening pants and hat with repellent and always leave them outside between washing just in case they have a hitchhiker on board.
Shower as soon as possible upon coming indoors, but always within two hours to minimize the potential for any tick to imbed itself. Wash clothing in hot (not warm) water and/or put clothes in the dryer on high for 10 minutes to kill any ticks that may have attached themselves. Follow these tips to have a safe and enjoyable summer.