• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Tick -vs- Rattlesnake

El Jefe

El Jefe

Mark 16:18
I have yet another case study on how rattlesnakes are not all that bad. Through both my Masters and Ph.D. I encountered timber rattlesnakes 2000+ times….no problems. One little tick, however, put me in the ER and hospital for 3 days!!! Apparently, I had a tick that was attached long enough to make me very, very, very sick. Two hospitals, one ER to the other ER (with an ambulance ride between them), CT scan, 2 chest x-rays, 3 MRI’s, spinal tap, Heart Echo, and a ton of other needles, IV’s, and various other things discovered I had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever that also became aseptic meningitis. This was over two months ago and currently I am at $57,000 before insurance (and counting). I am still recovering with neck and back pain as well as some residual tingling in my arms. Full recovery is expected but it’ll be a long while before I feel normal again as it takes a while to recover from the hard hit I had. Lucky for me, I was not one of 7% that die, but unluckily, I was one of the harder hit than most.

Being a field researcher I am well versed in tick checks and looking out for danger….but not well versed enough is seems. A few months ago while stomping around near Macon, GA I did find a tick on me that was attached for about 6 hours and I believe it was this one that got me. The literature, however, indicates you need 24 hours or more to get Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF) and my infectious disease specialist thinks I missed one. I always check for ticks and have been very careful when in the field so I do not know when/how I could have missed one…but maybe I did. I never got any of the rashes or anything else associated with RMSF. It came on all of a sudden and I was rushed to the ER with symptoms of a heart attack or stroke--severe numbness in my arm and leg on my left side. Eventually those symptoms went away and the fever and severe back/neck pain started. Those symptoms plus some of the tests that were done pointed straight to RMSF.

So…be careful out there! Wear repellent and make sure you check for ticks!!!
 
That's brutal, Jeff. Wish you a speedy recovery.
 
I work outdoors too and constantly get ticks on me. Even after a good skin check they still manage to slip by. I read they have to be on you for at least 4 hour before anything gets transmitted. The tiny ones are hard to find and tougher to remove. I strip down to my underware before I step in the house for that reason. Hope you get 100% soon Jefe.
 
Damn.... I've never much had a fondness for ticks, and I guess for good reason. Lord only knows how many I have pulled off of me over the years, but fortunately have never come down with anything as a result of their bites. I think the worst place I ever saw for them was in the New Jersey pine barrens. Literally zillions of tiny seed ticks could be picked up in some locations. But we have our fair share here in north Florida as well.

Hope you recover fully more quickly than the docs expect you will.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top