Anyone ever get ticks when they're cycling? « CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum

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Anyone ever get ticks when they're cycling?

(23 posts)

Started 10 years ago by I were right about that saddle
Latest reply from the canuck
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I were right about that saddle
Member

I think it must have been when I was crashing through the foliage of Greenroofer's railway snicket from Myreside Road to Colinton Road down the side of Watsonian's cricket ground that I picked up a tick on the back of my thigh.

Now my doctor gave me a formal instruction to take ticks seriously after learning that I got them regularly whilst running. Shorts and short sleeved tops are verboten to avoid tick-borne encephalitis or even Lyme disease. Any ticks got are to be removed by no means other than a tick-pick;

http://www.otom.com/how-to-remove-a-tick

Now I don't keep a tick pick in the office, and in fact I left mine at my mate's in Northumberland at the weekend. So I'm oddly proud of the improvised pick I just made from a sheet of Diet Coke can. Quick trip to the disabled toilets and the unwelcome arachnid has been consigned to the sink intact and alive.

I think I'll add the improvised instrument to my toolkit.

Posted 10 years ago #
gembo
Member

looks like you are prone to ticks

always keen to remove them since story of person in bath and all the babies burst out

wish i had known bout tick picks when I had one (inner thigh, Fort William 1985)

I have some right itchy bites because I went down the garden last night after cyling home and had on little cycling socks which did not extend up my leg enough for the prevention of the little ground dwelling midges biting me.

Posted 10 years ago #
wingpig
Member

I had something fairly sizeable hanging onto my calf after visiting Dunvegan years ago but round here it's only Diptera and Hymenoptera which harass me.

Posted 10 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

Ground dwelling midges? I've recently twigged that all the bites I get in the garden are down to minute pirates;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthocoridae

Not sure if I'm prone to ticks, but I am prone to wading through vegetation. Inner thigh tick desperately unwelcome, even in 1980s Fort Bill.

Posted 10 years ago #
Min
Member

I am prone to ticks. I carry a tick remover in my first aid kit. I favour incinerating them with a lighter after removal, just to make sure.

That tick video is oddly compelling.

Posted 10 years ago #
Uberuce
Member

I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit, Min?

I swept a round black insect from my thigh a couple of weeks ago, which I assume was a tick. It left a little mark on said limb, anyway.

My ex got Lyme's from a tick, her main symptom being a tick bite that didn't heal so I watched the <1mm wound closely, but since it healed in a handful of days, I assume I've gotten away with it.

Posted 10 years ago #
Min
Member

I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit, Min?

I like that plan. Failing that, telling President Obama the tick has access to Russian made surface to air missiles would have a similar effect.

My ex got Lyme's from a tick

This is what bothers me. I read that it takes a few days for the disease to get passed to you so the sooner you find and remove the tick the better.

Posted 10 years ago #
Cyclingmollie
Member

Never while cycling but a few times while walking. The dog gets one now and then. I've not seen Anthocoridae but Trombiculidae were a problem when I was a child. My parents called them heat spots. A friend from Perthshire explained they were "berry bugs", tiny red spider mites. We never knew to avoid long grass (we lived in the country) nor found an antidote (Anthisan ftw). I hated them.

Posted 10 years ago #
gembo
Member

My youngest was bitten by a cleg this summer as we were in Devon I suppose it was a horsefly. Nasty. I was bitten by. Cleg t the third hole of lochwinnoch golf course so often as. Child that it became a feature of the hole, bit like the bunker. Nasty.

Posted 10 years ago #
JohnS
Member

I have just finished a course of antibiotics as a precaution against Lymme's Disease. I caught two ticks cycling with silly loose shorts in Tentsmuir, Fife. It can take up to 15 days for symptoms to appear - usually an odd/ red large rash around the bite at least the size of a 50p piece. I developed these within that period. My GP advised to go straight onto antibiotics as the symptoms can be slow to appear. Blood tests show all clear thank goodness. Long term side affects can be nasty. I've picked up ticks hillwalking in the past, but nothing like this. GP said there has been a twofold increase in Lymme's largely due to mild winters. From now on it's lightweight walking trousrs on the hill and lycra on the bike.

Posted 10 years ago #
paolobr
Member

I did find one on my leg while touring up to visit my family in Lossiemouth a few years ago. I'd been camping on the way, suspect it attached while I was rough camping at Loch an Eilein near Aviemore on the last day. Discovered it while in the bath later that day...

Posted 10 years ago #
minus six
Member

@JohnS

The NHS typically don't allow a sufficient antibiotic treatment length for Lyme. A fortnight isn't enough.

My partner has had Lyme for seven years on and off, and has developed serious secondary conditions which are now permanent.

If you developed symptoms you should be pushing for a full month of antibiotics.

Read this stuff * (everyone should, really):

http://lymeywifey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lyme-overview-presentation.html

(read both the presentation and the notes)

(* not written by my partner, someone else)

Posted 10 years ago #
Dangerous
Member

Yes.

Got a Couple whilst mountain biking in Scolty Forest near Elgin.

Didn't know much about Ticks and Lymes disease until about 3 years ago.

It can be fatal as a former colleague died from it.

Posted 10 years ago #
Min
Member

From now on it's lightweight walking trousrs on the hill and lycra on the bike.

I am not sure that works. I think all of my ticks have been caught while I was wearing trousers. My latest tick was on my stomach which makes me think it must have got up my t-shirt. Up until that point I had been wondering if gaiters might help.

Posted 10 years ago #
minus six
Member

I think all of my ticks have been caught while I was wearing trousers

neck buff is useful.

otherwise they nestle in the nape of your neck, under the hairline, until they get a better chance later

Posted 10 years ago #
Min
Member

!

Staying indoors for the rest of my life it is then..

Posted 10 years ago #
minus six
Member

The ticks they fall like rain, and Lyme Disease is endemic in Scotland.

Often misdiagnosed as MS, so i chuckle when they ponder why MS has such a high rate in Scotland.

There is a recognised political issue, both here and in the USA, surrounding antibiotic treatment for Lyme.

Your GP, or consultants at Infectious Diseases unit, will tell you that after the brief initial dose of antibiotics, you can't possibly still have Lyme, your symptoms are definitely not related.

However:

Bush and Lyme disease: what's the secret?

The White House won't reveal the length of the president's antibiotics course. Are they protecting the insurance industry?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/aug/13/bushandlymediseasewhatsth

worth a read.

Posted 10 years ago #
wingpig
Member

"otherwise they nestle in the nape of your neck, under the hairline, until they get a better chance later"

I saw someone cycling with a neck buff today. Tick-defence could explain that, but not the people wearing zipped-up anoraks despite the heat.

Maybe that's the purpose of my hypersweatiness - it's a defensive adaptation to try and drown stowaway arthropods.

Posted 10 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

Could be the start of taking this issue a bit more seriously...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-28755248

Posted 10 years ago #
chdot
Admin

“

We go on a tick hunt

Inside Health

We head to a leafy oasis in London to talk all things ticks - and see if we can catch some. How worried should we be about them?

“

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001y87fI’m

Posted 6 months ago #
the canuck
Member

I heard that. The advice to just check your skin wasn't massively helpful. Last time I got ticks (North West Scottish coast), many of them were so tiny that headtorches, magnifying glasses, and a second person were involved.

Posted 6 months ago #
gembo
Member

I listened to it too, they picked up some tiny ones on the travelling rug they were dragging around Richmond Park. Deer ticks?

How long have you got with them attached before trouble? Had the devil of a time getting one off the top of my leg in a car park in fort William in 1984.

Was probably from going through bracken in shorts.

Anyone else in the car park might have wondered what we were doing. But was empty.

Posted 6 months ago #
the canuck
Member

I suspect I'd picked mine up while using nature's toilet, so from teh evening into the next morning, and then we did our inspection that evening, so 24 hrs max.

Very helpful was to take phone photos of any mystery red spot, and then zoom in--several of them were so small they were just a faint shadow under the skin, only visible when magnified!

Posted 6 months ago #

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