I just hate it when I feel someting crawling arond in the hair at the base of the back of my neck, wipe it with my hand and come back with a tick. Done that twice last year. Wife had a couple spud in. I had one. Started getting real spun up and paranoid. Researched the tick, the diseases te carry, their life cycle, removal, prevention, and on and on.
Here is readers digest version: Use the method the DoD uses (and is approved by center for disease control and several states) Permethrin. Check it out, it is much safer than Viet Nam jungle juice (regular DEET). It degrades in contact with your skin so it is used on yor outer clothing. Different amounts give different periods and levels of protection. DoD method I followed last year used 13.3% permethrin. The best price I found was $26/8 oz. This year I found 10% at $50/gal (multiple years supply for multiple users) or $10/8 oz for 10%. Used same formula just 1 1/3 oz of 10% instead of 1 oz of13.3%.
Here is the drill: 1 1/3 oz of 10% permethrin and 14 2/3 oz of water (makes a pint). Roll up a pair of long pants or long sleve shirt (cotton or cotton blend, more cotton the better) secure with rubber band, put into a good strong ziplock bag (freezer bags are real good), add the well shaken permethrin, squeeze out the excess air and seal the bag. It is ok to put two pair of pants in a large bagm just double the amount of mixture.
Treat outer clothing only not your underwear (not for panties or bra) Treat socks, pants, and shirts (long or short sleeve). Let it wick through the material for at least two hours, preferably longer to ensure a good distrubution. Clothing need not be saturated just moistened evenly. This amount is to put a certain number of miligrams per whatever area of cloth. This is all available to the surfer of the web if you want to get it first hand.
Let the clothing dry thoroughly before wearing. Permethrin solution may have some petroleum distilate but that will evaporate and the clothes become scent free. Wear rubber gloves to handle treated clothing while it is wet as a precaution.
This treatment will last through 52 weekly washings in hot detergent. Ticks will get sick and fall off after walking about a foot across treated cloth. Mosquitos will not bite you through treated cloth. Likewise chiggers and other stuff is repelled or sickened or killed but there is a really good human safety record. For maximum protection tuck your pants in your socks to force the little vampires to crawl furter to get to you and they wont finish their death march.
After we treated our clothes last year we got no ticks or chiggers at all at any time or any mosquito bites where we were protected by treated clothes. This year with three people wearing treated clothes we have seen one tick and that was dead floating in bath water having aparently died trying. There are lots of ticks in our environment but we feel pretty safe fishing, working outside, and running around on our land.
For virtually 100% protection from all flying stuff you need to add micro-encapsulated time release DEET cream to your exposed flesh (not covered by treated clothing). This is a safer form of DEET. It lasts longe rand does a better job than regular DEET but exposes your skin to a much lower dose. Yo can wash it off when the risk is gone like when yo return indoors for the day.
Additional tick comments: Never grab a tick to remove it. Squeezing a tick expells its stomach contents into the host which is you, your kid, dog, who/whatever just like a hypodermic needle giving a shot. Never use a hot pin, cigarette, turpentine, bleach, etc etc. No vaseline or any other substance. research has shown that the only chemicals or drugs that cause a tick to release are bad for the host as well. There are tick removal appliances of modest cost. These allow you to get the tick by the skinny area between his biting parts and abdomen (like a neck) and slowly pull it out with a slight rotary motion to help break lose the cement he secretes to glue his mouth to you. Lyme disease and a bunch of other nasties are carried by some ticks. In NJ (hope you don't live there) something like 40% of the deer ticks carry lyme disease.
Hope this didn't creep you out. Anyway we are again tick free and it is a wonderful feeling to not have to worry aout ticks giving you some disease or even discomfort.
There is lots of good information from reputable sources on the web about ticks and preventing their bites, even university studies of the effectiveness of various tick removal devices. ( I have two kinds) Don't expect to need them but they are cheap insurance and come with a small magnifying glass to aid in tick identification/removal shoud it ever be required again.
Patrick
