I once went on a Holiday to the west of ireland for 3 week's and Let's just say it was Tick City..i had them bloody everywhere..most mornings was the same Routine ,me adn my friend would get up..inspect each other..Get a Pin..heat it with a Lighter..and Pluck them out..painful?...yes...effective?...Yes!...oh and i also found one on my Penis in the shower...almost had a heartattack..Suffice to say getting him off was not easy...i shall spare you the Detail's.
from: http://www.stretcher.com/stories/02/02aug12a.cfm "In the meantime, many military folk in the field use sulfur powder to repel bugs. It works better than any commercial product that I have ever tried. Go to your local pharmacy and ask for either sulfur powder or "flowers of sulfur". It is over the counter, but often is kept behind the counter. Put the powder in a large holed salt, pepper, or Parmesan cheese shaker. Military men will sometimes pour it into a sock and use it as a powder puff. One inexpensive bottle can last a family of four for more than a year. Put on as you would talcum powder. It will not stain or leave a sticky residue. Sharon" Powdered sulfur works the best out of all the others I have tried and it's completely safe to use. Eating garlic cloves is also very effective.
naw you just gotta pull em off when you feel em crawlin. then light em on fire so youre sure theyre dead. youll feel em long before they bit you though. you gotta watch out for your dog though, theyll get the size of golfballs suckin away on a dog. check em 3 or four times a day. i used to have to pick a couple off every morning when i stayed in the TeePee.
Only Disadvantage to that i found was Their head's stayed stuck in yer Skin when yer ripped the body's off..dang annoying!
Tick's are seemingly impossible to repel at times. I hiked through Los Padres National forrest with my dog some years ago and was pulling around a hundred ticks off of him every night. The cool thing about this part of Alaska is there are no ticks, fleas or snakes. We just have the bear to worry about.
wear pants. with gators. thats what i do...and im usually safe from em. they also protect me from other woodland nasties. like thick prickers snakes....and they can keep your boots dry.
bug spray, and check yourself often. if you find a tick on you/imbedded in your skin pull it out and if you get the slightest rash (or if you have a doctor/insurance, do it right away) GET TESTED FOR LYME DISEASE!!! the earlier you catch it the better. and even at that, it can still suck....speaking from experience here.......
I had to pull a tick out of my head last week. I find the best way to get them out is to put vaseline on them, then they just back out and you can pluck them off with tweezers.
woodtics are bib black and round and youll feel them crawling before they bite you, as they like to crawl up and bit your head. a dear tic is oval shaped almost too tiny to see and red, these are the ones that carry lime disease
If you eat a lot of garlic it will help to repel ticks, mosquitos, and chiggers. It won't completly stop them but it can cut down on them.
I wouldn't recommend inhaling large amounts of sulfur, just as I wouldn't recommend inhaling large amounts of coal or bug spray or cocaine...It could produce a burning sensation or a sore throat if you deliberately inhaled large amounts of it...I never have a problem with it since using it as a bug deterrent does not involve inhalation of a massive quantity of sulfur particles and it does not cause any reaction with me when I use it, I use a small amount around the ankles, the neck, and other places where ticks might be able to get to my skin...I don't use a large amount of it only a little sulfur is needed to repel members of the arachnid family (chiggers, spiders, ticks, etc) which despise sulfur and thus avoid contact with it which is the reason why it works. It's a naturally occuring mineral so it's not a man-made chemical and it's non-toxic to use on your clothing, it's effective and cheap to acquire.
arrr , ya i've had the Lymes disease from a tick bite and i'll tell ya it's the most alien thing i ever experienced . it so weirdly affects the nerves that i really don't know ... gawd , it's Alien ! which , i spose , could maybe be a good thing ... who knows ... the doctors are clueless , they don't know much . i was freaking about ticks this spring , found three on me , then no more but i sure had the creepycrawly paranoid feelings of bugs in my pants anyway at anytime , and i'd take my pants down and look ... nothing . in fact , i've had no more ticks , and i don't think they'll come round me no more . it ain't really occured to me that i'm 'one of them' , ha , just that we 'speak' of love and desparation
Use peramathon(sp) on clothing and it will kill tick, tuck pants into sock so they can't crawl up your legs and if you have peramathone(sp) on your pants it will kill the ticks and then you should use bug repellant on your skin. wearing light colored clothing will help spot them also. Check yourself dailey as it takes about a day for the tick to really dig in. If you get one- use tweezers and attempt to pull it out by the head, don't squeeze the tick as it will regurgitate into you and that may help the spread of disease, keep an eye on the bite site and if anything appears abnormal see a doctor and they can prescribe an antibiotic to kill any disease you may get, if symptoms appear and are left go too long then it gets harder to get rid of the disease. And you don't have to be in the woods to get them either, my wife had one on her thigh just the other day and she was nowhere near the so called wilds, ticks are where you find them, all over.
I got home from a rafting trip on the John Day River, in Eastern Oregon, and I found a tick...must of been under my waist band...that's why I didn't see him earlier. Now I check myself for ticks all the time. heh
There are special tick tweezers that work quite well to get them out, and these things aren't expensive. And check yourself regularly. A lot of websites advice you to wear lots of clothing, long pants, stuff them in your socks, long sleeves, hat... but I agree with LotusBlossom's advice; wear little clothing if possible. Ticks crawl into stuff, so they can still crawl into your clothing, or even hitch a ride and end up inside your home. Also lots of times they'll drop on top of you from bushes above, and last of all -maybe not a problem in this time of the year, but a good part of the year it's warm enough that if you dress up like that you'll drop dead from heat exhaustion and then what good does it do you not to have a tick? Much better to use a good insect repellant and keep an eye out for them; on bare legs and arms you'll spot them before they attach, and even if they do attach if you get them quickly enough it won't have exchanged enough of its fluids yet for you to get sick. That's also the reason it's not a good idea to use any chemicals; not because the small amount of chemicals or alcohol will harm you directly, but often it causes the tick to 'throw up' as it were; spitting more of its body fluids into your body even while you're trying to get rid of it. The more of it gets into your body, the higher the risk you'll catch lyme. Stick to tweezers and make sure you don't squeeze the body itself.
The weather's weird though this year... some areas have snowstorms but here it's very mild and I've picked a tick off my cat about a week ago. If you're in one of the mild areas, heads up!
