Sunday, February 14, 2010

The Tick

Spoooooon! Oops, wrong Tick.

One thing I forgot to add yesterday was that my hip was hurting when I got home. I thought it was just me getting old, but when I pulled all my clothes off to do tick patrol and jump in the shower to wash off the grunge, there it was on my hip -- a tick, having apparently made it past my defenses, probably when I had to dig a cathole and drop trow to take a dump (yes, I know how to shit in the woods). Pulled him off, tossed him in the sink, washed him down with soapy water, gone. But I'm apparently allergic the the blasted things because I have a big painful welt there now, same as the last time I found a tick on me (that one dug in on the backside of my knee a few years back).

At least I know he was the only one, because I don't have a big painful welt anywhere else. I just hope that you can't get Lyme Disease from a tick that was only on you for five or six hours max :(. Yeah, I know they say the tick has to be attached for 24 hours and so forth, but c'mon, these are the same folks who said that anti-depressants are more than placebos despite half of their trials contradicting that assertion...

-- Badtux Ticked-off Penguin

11 comments:

  1. Did you get the whole thing out?

    Way back in the Eisenhower administration, when Republicans weren't bat-shit crazy and I was a Boy Scout, I learned that their heads could break off and stay inside.

    Uh - ticks, not Republicans. Not Boy Scouts.

    Lyme disease is nothing to trifle with. Make sure you're OK. I don't have many penguin friends.

    Cheers!
    JzB

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  2. Well, when I tossed him in the sink but before I flushed him down with soapy water he made a beeline as fast as his little legs could carry him to get out of the sink, and I don't *think* ticks can travel in a straight line if they're headless. I guess I should have saved him, but he was on me for less than six hours, far less than the 24 hours they say is necessary to get Lyme Disease, so I just didn't think about it.

    Hmm, Republicans are blood suckers and their heads are empty, so I suppose if a Republican latched on to you and started sucking your blood out and you yanked him off, he could still walk around fine even if he left his head behind. But that would be a lot ickier than yanking a tick off of you, because Republicans are covered with slime. Ick!

    Note to self: When have to drop trow to take a shit in the woods, spray my nether regions with Deet (avoiding the sensitive bits) to avoid this situation in the future. Tick infestation, not Republican infestation, I mean. I haven't figured out any way to deal with Republican infestation.

    Regarding making sure I'm OK, the only diagnostic tests for Lyme Disease don't work until 3 months after the bite, so not much to be done there. If I start having characteristic symptoms such as aches and fever I'll head to the doctor, but thus far I've not had any such symptoms.

    - Badtux the Symptomless Penguin

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  3. Not a whole hell of a lot bothers me out there but these damn things are just gross period.

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  4. You talkin' about ticks, or Republicans, One Fly? Personally, I can't figure out which I think is more gross. They're both blood suckers, after all ;-).

    - Badtux the Snarky Penguin

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  5. Now we know the answer to the age old question, Does a Penguin shit in the woods?

    Keep checking for a ring around the welt. It does not always appear but you have your answer if it does.

    You might want to talk to your Dr. anyway as early treatment is the easiest, even if you don't need it.

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  6. Montag, I'm allergic to the silly buggers so I decidedly have a huge welt there, had it within an hour or two of being bit actually. That's why I think I'm probably safe, because I'm allergic to ticks and for a tick to grab on and suck for 24 hours straight like they say is necessary to transmit Lyme Disease, I'd have to ignore a huge friggin' welt.

    That said, of course I'm going to keep an eye out for a rash after the welt goes down. I don't expect to see it, though.

    As for getting treatment in the absence of a diagnosis, you haven't dealt with Kaiser-Permanente, I suspect. They're so tight they make a nickle scream. A co-worker had to beg them for six weeks before they'd even do a MRI on his back to figure out which discs were bulging and rendering him basically a cripple, and it took another month after that before they finally decided to give him an epidural to take care of the disc swelling, which *finally* allowed him to heal (a swollen disc cuts off the blood supply to the area and won't heal by itself)...

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  7. They both have plenty in common that is for damn sure. For some reason they don't like me so much.

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  8. Tux,

    The damned things inject you when they bite with anticoagulant. That's what you're allergic to. Later after digestion, they also dispose of their waste products the same way (tick scat injection, ewww, and double-use orifices, double ewww). Me, I'm violently allergic to that. And that's the stuff that is what contains the bacteria, apparently.

    It's the tiny little deer ticks you really have to worry about, and they can hardly be seen until they've engorged.

    At this time of the year we don't have these problems where I live. First, you couldn't make a hole with anything legal, and second, we won't be seeing any ticks until May.

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  9. Mr. Penguin, the next time you need to get a tick to let go of you, warm him up with something like a lit cigarette. Hold it close enough till it becomes uncomfortable for you. After a few seconds, the little sucker will back right out of you.
    Maybe you can get a Repub to smoke the cigarette for you.

    Fred

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  10. I wouldn't trust a Republican with a lit cigarette near me. Evil bloodsucking bastard would probably burn me with it just on general principle that helping people is bad for business, and leave the tick alone figuring that bloodsuckers have to stick together.

    I've heard the heat thing before. But all the medical sites say to use tweezers as close to the skin as possible so that you get all the mouth parts. Huh.

    -- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

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  11. Lyme disease is nothing to f**k with. The wife of a close friend is going on her thirteenth month of hell from this very disease. It affects every system in your body, and also comes with a host of co-infections that can be just as nasty.

    My own wife also had a Lyme scare a couple of months ago. The problem with waiting several weeks for symptoms to show up is that by that time, the disease has already spread. Whereas, if you can get on a regimen of antibiotics early on (say, within a week of a bite) it can be knocked out fairly easily. It's a four week course of antibiotics, however, and they're fairly powerful.

    There are no known antibiotics that will knock out an infection of Republicanism, unfortunately.

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