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How long is a tick "good" for? :)
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leomom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Sep 28 2009, 11:57 pm
I found a tick (almost 100% sure) on my daughter's finger over a week ago. Got it out with tweezers and dutifully put it in a little bag... then forgot about it. Is it too late to bring it somewhere (where? doctor's office?) to be tested for Lyme disease?

I don't think the tick was on my daughter very long, and she has no symptoms so I'm not really worried, but I feel like I should find out if she was exposed to anything.

So, does a tick have an expiration date? Confused
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Bebe




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Nov 01 2009, 12:58 pm
I just had a tick bite and when I took it out it died. when I brought it to the doc to show him he said it cant get tested anymore if its dead. so if urs is dead then its too late!
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pina colada




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Nov 01 2009, 2:18 pm
dd had one and I was told by pple that live in country areas and are familiar with ticks that I should remove it and watch her for symptoms. If she has any symptoms then lyme disease should be suspected but if not, she's fine. I was told that it was not important to test the bug. ( I was in the country so it was a whole parsha to have it tested)
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leomom




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Nov 01 2009, 9:58 pm
Thanks... I decided I was tired of looking at a dead tick in a plastic bag, and tossed it (about three weeks ago)! My daughter is B"H just fine.
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chavamom




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Nov 01 2009, 11:36 pm
First of all, they can't tell you if the tick was infected with anything. They can only tell you the type of tick and the length of time that the tick was "feasting". And to do that, the tick must be placed immediately in alcohol in a bag to kill it. Only certain types of ticks carry disease (deer ticks for Lyme disease) and they have to have been on for more than x number of hours (I think it's 48?) for transmission to occur. Most MD's no longer recommend prophylactic treatment even if a deer tick was found to be on the body long enough for transmission to occur. Such a small percentage of deer ticks carry Lyme disease, it is better to just be aware that your dd has a history of a tick bite if she should develop symptoms of anything in the next few weeks or mos.
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bnm




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Nov 01 2009, 11:39 pm
I had a tick bite but we couldn't find the tick so I got 3 weeks of treatment....
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chavamom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 12:25 am
bnm wrote:
I had a tick bite but we couldn't find the tick so I got 3 weeks of treatment....


Yeah, well, that really isn't the recommendation!
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chaylizi




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 12:29 am
chavamom wrote:
bnm wrote:
I had a tick bite but we couldn't find the tick so I got 3 weeks of treatment....


Yeah, well, that really isn't the recommendation!


in case you haven't noticed- some doctors really 'practice' medicine. but not in a good way.
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bnm




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:22 am
chavamom wrote:
bnm wrote:
I had a tick bite but we couldn't find the tick so I got 3 weeks of treatment....


Yeah, well, that really isn't the recommendation!


whats the recommendation these days? I didn't have internet service at that point so I couldn't do research. I probably needed the meds anyways cuz it was very infected.....
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bnm




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:24 am
I was also told to keep a picture of the bite for my medical records in case I do develop something down the line.
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chavamom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:27 am
Only to treat if there are signs of infection (bull's eye rash, serologic evidence of disease, etc) or you become ill.

Last edited by chavamom on Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:29 am; edited 1 time in total
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bnm




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:29 am
so I had the bulls eye rash. was very big, I was stuck upstate and it took 2 days to get the meds. it went from being the size of a quarter to larger than my palm and was painful to walk. I couldn't even go swimming......
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chavamom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:31 am
Yeah, that's different than "I got bitten by a tick so I got three weeks of antibiotics"! At camp, we do have a lot of parents and apparently even some city doctors unfamiliar with ticks that think that every tick bite should be treated that way.
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bnm




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:35 am
someone who was in my colony only weekends got a similar bite and same instructions. she did see the tick but threw it out.

when I first called my dr he sent one dose of doxcycline, the on grounds dr had told me to expect 3 weeks worth of meds and called him back. once I said I see the bull's eye and can't take doxcycline due to nursing they sent me a 21 day supply of something else.
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chavamom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:41 am
The one dose doxycycline isn't recommended any more either. It's a problem, the recommendations change all the time and MD's really have to stay current.
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estibesty




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 7:55 am
I found 12 ticks in my son whitin 6 weeks I threw all but 1 out cuz that 1 looked diff. the common tick is the dog tick and that is fine bec. it doesnt carry diese
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DovDov




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:01 pm
They can test reliably for 24 hours or so after the tick dies. Ticks live in the wild for 2-2.5 years with only three or so "meals," so if you took the tick off carefully, and there was enough air in the bag, it shoudl still be alive. I know I threw out a tick we found when the doc's office told me Thursday to Monday was too long to bring it in, but then I mentioned at the next appt that I couldn't understand that problem since the tick was still crawling around and she explained that it's only too long if it's dead.

BTW, around here, default if you can't find the tick is observe the child closely for a month and if there's fever or flu symptoms, THEN give three weeks of meds -- not just give meds automatically.

Estibesty -- it depends where you live. Around here, the ordinary tick is the deer tick. I should know -- we found 9 ticks on my two kids this summer and every single one we sent for testing (7) came back "deer tick but no Lyme." Seven of the 8 we found June-July time were smaller than the size of a poppy seed -- much smaller than even the smallest dog ticks. The last was bigger, but clearly very engorged -- I guess we didn't check well enough the night before -- you can tell because the legs are all bunched around the head and the body sticks out behind, full of blood. The one we found in early October was larger, presumably because it was an adult, not a nymph, and the only one I had any doubts about, but it was a deer tick too.

Treatment also depends a lot on where you are and how familiar the doctors are with ticks. I found a tick on myself early in my pregnancy, and my doctor was happy to just put me on meds because she said ther'es no such thing as testing the tick. She offered to test me instead, on the spot, and I had to point out to her that a (human) Lyme test isn't even marginally accurate until 3-6 weeks after infection -- and even then it's really questionable.
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DovDov




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:07 pm
BTW, it's also false to say that dog ticks don't transmit disease to humans. They most certainly can -- just not Lyme disease. Tick borne diseases are generally very hard to diagnose, so if you know you've been bitten by even a dog tick (and ESPECIALLY if you think the tick was there for a while before being removed -- it looks engorged, for example, or the skin around it is already really irritated when you remove it) it always pays to learn about what to look for. Dog ticks can transmit Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, and possibly ehrlichiosis (the latter two of which deer ticks can also transmit).
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chavamom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:36 pm
DovDov wrote:
They can test reliably for 24 hours or so after the tick dies. Ticks live in the wild for 2-2.5 years with only three or so "meals," so if you took the tick off carefully, and there was enough air in the bag, it shoudl still be alive. I know I threw out a tick we found when the doc's office told me Thursday to Monday was too long to bring it in, but then I mentioned at the next appt that I couldn't understand that problem since the tick was still crawling around and she explained that it's only too long if it's dead.


According to the health dept. it's still a problem b/c they continue to digest their "meal" and then they can't accurately assess how long it was on its host. That is why it is important to put it right into alcohol to kill it. However, they can still tell what kind of tick it is.
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DovDov




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 02 2009, 1:43 pm
chavamom wrote:
DovDov wrote:
They can test reliably for 24 hours or so after the tick dies. Ticks live in the wild for 2-2.5 years with only three or so "meals," so if you took the tick off carefully, and there was enough air in the bag, it shoudl still be alive. I know I threw out a tick we found when the doc's office told me Thursday to Monday was too long to bring it in, but then I mentioned at the next appt that I couldn't understand that problem since the tick was still crawling around and she explained that it's only too long if it's dead.


According to the health dept. it's still a problem b/c they continue to digest their "meal" and then they can't accurately assess how long it was on its host. That is why it is important to put it right into alcohol to kill it. However, they can still tell what kind of tick it is.


I think that may be true if they do find Lyme and are trying to decide whether to medicate, because if they see it was there for 24-48 hours they'll assume it was transmitted. But they can still diagnose "no Lyme" so long as the tick is alive.
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