Where have you got tick bites?

I want to know how you get them to attach in such nice places.  I’d say 80ish percent of the ticks I’ve had in my life were in groin, cheeks, or worse.  The other 20% have mostly been in armpits and under waistbands.  (I don’t get them much at all anymore, since I discovered Permethrin.)

Grew up in Minnesota, and my dad managed a tract of native prairie, so we had ticks all the time. The most buried were one behind my ear, and on lodged deeply into my scalp. I found dozens on my legs, and we learned early to do the full body check in a mirror, with a handheld mirror for those hard to see spots. All before the days of Lyme, thankfully. My dad liked to collect them in jars of rubbing alcohol. Scientists!

Only two actual tick bites over the years.  The first one happened maybe ten years ago and I was aware of it immediately.  I had just returned from a day hike and was sitting down to eat dinner when it bit me on … well use your imagination on where a tick biting a dude would be instantly felt!  Since then I have regularly treated all of my hiking clothes with permethrin and hadn’t had a problem. The second one happened just this past fall after walking the dog in a local park – and not wearing treated clothing.  The tick bit me right along the waist band of my pants, but in the back were I did not notice it until it was fully engorged. There was enough of a reaction that my Dr. ended up giving me a course of doxycycline and thankfully that was the end of it.  Non backpacking friends always ask me if I am afraid of bears when I hike – I tell them that ticks are the only thing I fear!

I usually got them around the waistband of my pants.  Even found one once under my watch band!

However I haven’t had a tick attach itself in over 5 years.  This coincides with the decision to invest in having ALL of my hiking clothes be Insect Shield treated.  Whether they come treated from the manufacturer or you send them to Insect Shield yourself this, to me, is a no brainer.

And lest you think I hike in areas where ticks are not prevalent, I’m in the SE and we practically invented ticks.  Cumberland Island National Seashore almost has more ticks that grains of sand on the beach.

Thanks

I am going to have to be more careful about treating clothing with Permethrin.  I just treated my boots, gaiters, and pants.

It’s not where I’ve gotten bit for me, it’s more where haven’t I gotten bit?

While there are other threads on how to prevent tick bites, merely the subject of these nasty beasties naturally brings up how not to get bites in sensitive and non-sensitive body parts. So.. in the interest of encouraging proper use of appropriate pesticides, I thought I’d suggest some useful information sites. While people can certainly find them on their own, I think many folks won’t bother. Misuse of pesticides can affect wildlife and water quality both at home and on the trail. In the interest of making it easy for everyone to use prevention wisely, here are some highly reliable sources:

CDC – Prevention of mosquito bites: http://www.cdc.gov/westnile/prevention/index.html

EPA – Insect repellants: www.epa.gov/insect-repellents

National Pesticide Information Center: pi.ace.orst.edu/myrepel/

Okay, now back to gruesome tick bite stories. I have to not read this thread at breakfast.

That’s interesting, they mention a repellent IR3535, I’ve never heard of that

It’s been around for decades, repels ticks as well as mosquitoes, since it’s been around for so long and used a lot it’s deemed fairly safe

in places I wont mention here.

On my thigh, on my hip, on my belly, on my bellybutton, on the back of my arm, many on my shoulders, on my chest, on my breast, under my armpit, on my shoulder blades, on my back, on my groin, on my butt, the small of my back, behind my knees, on my neck, by my ear, on my throat and on my calf. On several of those places a handful of times. That is just the embedded ones. The flickable ones are in the several hundred.

you are statistically significant all by yourself : )

I’ve found them crawling on many places (arms, legs, waistbands), but few ever attach. I did have one a couple years ago that went un-noticed on my butt. It was a Lone Star tick with a pretty white spot I got in SNP…I was later diagnosed with Alpha-Gal. I continue to use permethrin to try and keep them away.

I’ve only found a few; the first time was during college days when I went out one night into the East Bay hills – when I got back to the dorm, there were a couple sort of in my hair around the temple, luckily not embedded very deeply.  Then years later found one on the back of my neck after a walk in the Oakland hills in brushy area.  I’ve read that they like to go for tight places like under elastic (I think my sister got one as a little girl under some panty elastic, while at a friend’s ranch outside of town).

@ John: Wow – I had to look up Alpha-gal.  That sounds like the pits.

I hiked the Rogue River in Oregon a couple of years ago. The first night in the tent, it was dark, I was alone and there are lots of bears in the valley, so I was having some anxiety about bears…The next night I found my first ever tick knawing away at my thigh. It freaked me out, I had never gotten naked so quickly in my whole life, looking for more of the beasts. The good news is my concern about being devoured by bears was gone…

It was a four-day hike, on my return to civilization and the obligatory bath, my wife pointed to my clavicle and said: “is that a tick?”… it was a stomach-churning experience for both of us as she dug it out. We didn’t have the stomach for dinner that night.

I just got two on the Rogue River

” I had never gotten naked so quickly in my whole life,”

I noticed the tick on the way home to Portland.  Pulled off on the side of the freeway.  People were honking at the frantic naked guy…

>Maybe they were honking for the naked guy.

loaned my tweezers to a boy scout to remove a tick from the tip of his penis…where can I get replacement tweezers?

Several all over the body that were just in the beginning stages of embedment. Mostly scalp and waistline. No REAL bites. But there was this one time about 15 years ago. Got in the car to go home after a weekend in the Ozarks. 3 hours later we stopped to gas up and use the bathroom. I probably don’t even need to elaborate further. Left a mark for a damn month.

Another one at the nape of my neck and another one on my shoulder blade area. Both embedded. Two on my legs, barely attached. About a dozen got flicked off mt shirt. Two crawling around my head.  I had sprayed my pants before heading out yesterday.

I’ve had them all over but they seem to like the soft skin that is usually covered by underwear.

But you ain’t seen nothing until you have been eaten up by chiggers. Do you even habe those in the West?

Oh, yes we do.  Probably not as common here (SF Bay Area); I’d thought we didn’t until a few years ago, when a colleague got bitten while gardening.  Then about a year later I got a bunch of bites on my ankles while visiting my sister; she said, “oh yeah, I forgot to tell you I don’t walk out there because there are chiggers.”

I’d always assumed they were confined to the South.

Chiggers.  They call ’em redbugs where I come from.  They mainly strike at your mental health, at least if you try to resist scratching.

After a recent trip,  chiggers showed up on me . From the waist to the toes, every chigger bite had at least one other 1/2 centimeter from it.  I’d rather take my chances with the ticks. You can at least find and pull of the ticks.

Groin, nipple, back under bra strap. They like to burrow into tight places.