[at-l] Lyme Disease

[orangebug74@yahoo.com (Orange Bug)]

A side note from the Wilderness Medicine Conference. There was a neat
slide showing a deer tick. Pull a dime out of your pocket. Look at the
"m" in "Dime". That is the size of a bloated deer tick.

None of the attendees would acknowledge they do tick checks, aka
"Redneck foreplay." We all know that this is highly recommended. We
also know that with the size of this tick, it is highly unlikely one
would successfully find and extract a tick. The dog tick (the vector
for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever) is much larger and easier to detect. 

Hence, prevention of getting a tick is more important. Long sleeves and
pants, gaitors, DEET and fastidious refusal of sitting directly on
anything is more helpful than expecting hikers to do tick checks.

Bill...

--- WHHAWKINS@aol.com wrote:
> Lyme disease soared in the late 1990s as Americans built more and
> more homes 
> in the woods, bringing people into contact with ticks, the government
> reported Thursday. 
> The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it recorded
> nearly 17,000 
> cases of Lyme in 1998 and more than 16,000 in 1999, with the vast
> majority concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest. 
>     
> 


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