“Independent” article on ticks and Lyme disease

To TJ – do not freeze? To be clear

I’ve been using O’Tom for a long time, and been happy (as happy as you can be..) but the key above looks interesting , and harder to lose.

That video from Australia seems to favour freezing and they seem to have some pretty nasty outcomes from tick bites like anaphylaxis and mammalian meat allergy.

The other mention ester containing freeze spray specifically. Is there something particular about the ester component or is it just because it’s the default there?

Would be a lot easier to freeze them off the dog. I think trying to part the fur to get the O’Tom in there tickles and she wriggles.

Daft question, but how does the key actually work? Do you put the tick in the gap and drag it?

Cinnamon – I watched the video, but only because you shouted about it here, so I guess the question for the “Lyme disease community” to consider is whether shouting about what you consider to be poor information is helpful or hindering!

Firstly, he said that a tick is the size of a poppy seed and easy to see. He must have brilliant eyesight to see a speck, cos that’s all it is.

Every one I’ve ever found on me/the kids, has been about the size a poppy seed. I guess how easy to see it subjective, and depends on your eyesight etc- but they aren’t invisible.

Secondly, he claims that to remove it with a tick remover tool you should twist it. No, you want it removed in one piece otherwise you could end up leaving the mouth parts embedded.

As others have said the dog removal tools use a twist – and if you listen to what he actually said he quite clearly said don’t twist when removing from people!

Thirdly, no mention of how to check thoroughly for ticks ie paying particular attention to behind the knees, hairline, around the ears, armpits etc etc. so this information is extremely important.

There’s a difference between misinformation and not describing something you think was important.

Fourthly, he claimed Lyme disease is very rare. Fact: in my UK Lyme support group there are 12,000 members.

He emphasised at least twice that there were different estimates on the number of infections. But by anyone’s measure, it’s an uncommon disease. There are actually legally definitions for rare/orphan diseases – you’d need to have ~ >30K cases in the UK to be not be considered officially rare.

The impression I got was “he was a dog guy” who was primarily interested in animal welfare and was perhaps primarily expecting to talk about Lyme in dogs.

FWIW it’s Lyme disease. Not Lyme’s or Lymes.

The extra teeny-tiny Twister sounds handy for those awkward ones.

Smidge works well as a preventative measure. At this time of year I’d not go walking or cycling off-road without spraying my legs.

Daft question, but how does the key actually work? Do you put the tick in the gap and drag it?

Yep, hole in the key over the little bugger, and then slowly pull the key so they go into the gap.
It levers them off as there’s a bit of a chamfer on the inside edge.

As others have said the dog removal tools use a twist – and if you listen to what he actually said he quite clearly said don’t twist when removing from people!

So then O’Tom Tick Twister could potentially be looking at a class action suit if they have been advising against safe removal in favour of selling a product which is all about twisting ticks off human skin?

https://www.otom.com/en/tick-twister/21-how-to-use-tick-twister-

https://www.otom.com/en/tick-twister/33-new-tickremover-human-little-tick

Lyme disease is not common by any metric – it’s not at all incorrect to call it rare

That’s true if you’re looking at incidence across the whole population, which includes lots of people who live in urban areas and rarely venture out into the countryside.

But for a sub-population of cyclists who spend a significant amount of time out in areas of the country frequented by tick hosts such as deer, sheep, other livestock, the risk of ticks and subsequent infection is much higher.

So raising awareness of the signs (that bullseye rash) and symptoms, how to remove etc can only be a good thing. Reliable sources are obvs important, and some of the lyme groups do provide valuable info on how to recognise and manage, and hot spot info. It is as always on the web a case of caveat emptor and some common sense about which info you rely on.

West Sussex has some hotspots for instance, and using information from one of the tick groups, i was able to ID the bullseye rash and get antibiotics to sort me out.
The Tom Tick twister has worked subsequently in my own experience

West Sussex has some hotspots for instance

Where should i be avoiding?

@5lab keep everesting the beacon and you should be fine 😉

I don’t think the hot spot info is granular enough to give you info on specific places to go/not go. So it’s probably not a case of avoiding, cos then you’re missing out on much of the downs, but awareness of taking the right measures to reduce pick-up, or spot them post ride/run.

I picked up my tick/bullseye in the sheep fields south of Hurstpierpoint on the way to Wolstonbury, and also around Arundel.

Smidge works well as a preventative measure. At this time of year I’d not go walking or cycling off-road without spraying my legs

I also got into the habit of brushing my legs down every now and again. Seems helpful at keeping them off…. but watch your arms, pretty sure I had one transfer and bite me there instead. Also they can be carried on your clothes or bag and get you later, particularly an issue if camping. All a bit of a pain.

I’ll also stick my head above the parapet about the Lyme support group that was mentioned, which I assume is the one on facebook. Lots of very well meaning advice on there, but I’m not convinced it’s all helpful. The private testing and treatment options are a bit of a rabbit hole.

Just to clarify what many have already said: O’Tom Tick twisters are without doubt the best way to remove ticks from both animals and humans. Twisting only works alongside one of these – I would not try twisting a tick with tweezers or any of the other crappy devices you can buy.
When it comes to animals of course it’s fairly easy to prevent ticks using various systemic or topical prophylactics.

That’s true if you’re looking at incidence across the whole population, which includes lots of people who live in urban areas and rarely venture out into the countryside.

Presenting it wrongly as though it is some sort of common disease is probably counter productive though – it will discourage people from venturing into the wild and getting the physical and mental benefits of that. The risk to health from not going to the countryside is probably far higher than from not from going there and getting Lyme.

But for a sub-population of cyclists who spend a significant amount of time out in areas of the country frequented by tick hosts such as deer, sheep, other livestock, the risk of ticks and subsequent infection is much higher.

the independent weren’t targeting cyclists! Yes, it is good to promote / raise awareness, to some extend even wishy-washy articles or videos do that.

FWIW I’ve never picked up a tick on the bike, and I’ve never picked up a tick when I’ve had smidge liberally applied.

FWIW I’ve never picked up a tick on the bike, and I’ve never picked up a tick when I’ve had smidge liberally applied.

I think a lot depends on the type of trail. Its very easy to pick them up when riding tight cairngorms singletrack through overhanging heather, unfortunately! Agree that smidge seems pretty effective though.

IME tick attractiveness is quite person specific..

when I used to ride with sharki all the time on the quantocks, most rides he’d pick off a couple of ticks, sometimes more. I would almost never get them and I’ve never had one that has actually had a decent meal from me.

IME tick attractiveness is quite person specific.

Agree, and animal specific. Wife gets them far more than me, one of our dogs gets them far more than the other. No, I can’t post any scientific evidence of that 🙂

I think a lot depends on the type of trail. Its very easy to pick them up when riding tight cairngorms singletrack through overhanging heather, unfortunately!

definitely – and its another reason why even amongst mountainbikers Lyme is not a common illness (but should be a concern). I do like riding that sort of terrain, but generally would wear long tights under baggies to reduce the constant whipping from the heather.

IME tick attractiveness is quite person specific..

I would agree with that; I attribute that on a very non-scientific basis to being at least in part due to me either being smothered in factor 50 or smidge or sometimes both!

To TJ – do not freeze? To be clear

Yes – do not freeze them. the best and recommended way is the tick twister. Never use tweezers, cover them in vasiline or burn them off. all cause them to regurgitate. Use the correct tool – the tick twister

I did look at some of the lyme communities – a ridiculous and dangerous lot of misinformation and utter nonsense on most of them.

Medical consensus is shifting over tick bites and disease but be very wary of those self help sites. Very dangerous

My understanding is that freezing is largely recommended not because it’s necessarily great but mostly because you can’t screw it up? Whereas most other methods even the likes of the o’tom are open to human error. And they’re kind of working from a baseline of “ew squish it” after all and freezing as a message has the advantage that it’s totally different from that and tweezers (“remove it with the right tool” can definitely have an implication of “if you don’t have the right tool, use something similar” and then the tweezers or pliers come out…)

Also, bear in mind that different countries have different ticks with different risks and behaviours. Like, Australian advice is mostly going to be for their paralysis tick frinstance, and some countries have low/no incidence of Lyme.

Don’t be so contemptuous of the Lyme groups even if you think it’s causing harm- it’s the same thing you see with fibromyalgia, or with say pscychedelics for depression- if people don’t feel their condition is appreciated for what it is, or is dismissed, or if they think that good advice is being effectively suppressed by the scientific method as it’s not adequately proven, then it’s natural that people are driven away to alternatives. A mix of desperation and marginalisation, a bit of victimhood and community, and on the other hand enough genuinely good advice and valuable understanding so that even skeptics can find credible info. But totally unregulated and unmetered so that the good advice can give strength to the bad. The whole thing is a symptom.

At the end of the day, your dismissal/contempt isn’t going to encourage anyone away from those groups.

Fair point northwind but I gave up after reading some of the advice given which was positivly harmful

@onzadog – it’s ether not ester 😉 and as you may remember from high school biology ether anaesthetises insects.

The reason you freeze with ether is that it’s an extremely easy and effective way of killing the insect without touching it. When you use it there’s no physical contact with the insect and it doesn’t struggle. Then you can remove them easily.

… and I trust the professional opinion of tick entomologists over general clinical advice any day. It often takes many years for things to filter down to them. It may be specific to Australian tick species – Ixodes holocyclus (IH).

This is from the research paper i mentioned previously:

“During his research, Stone noted that shortly after forceful tick removal, paralysis tended to worsen in cats and dogs. In humans, however, anaphylactic-like symptoms were more common immediately post removal. Since IH is an unusual tick in that it does not use cement, instead anchoring itself by inserting its barbed hypostome much deeper than other ticks, Stone et al. [26, 27] hypothesised that it might have a complex bite-site with accumulation of proteins that are somehow dispersed during forced removal. To mitigate this, he suggested killing ticks in situ and leaving them to fall off. The ideal tickicidal agent would need to be rapidly penetrating, rapidly acting and suitable for use on human or animal skin. Stone was hypersensitive to tick bites and had already tested the method on himself using household insect repellent containing pyrethrins. He noted that the ticks were killed instantly, that their mouthparts subsequently lost turgidity and the ticks would fall off within 24 hours, without causing an allergic reaction [26].”

As a family of four we get probably a dozen tick bites a year – June – December is peak tick season here. We’ve all had at least one each since May.

The best repellent we’ve found is actually made in the UK. mosi-guard. Living in a rainforest means we have mosquitoes like you wouldn’t believe and i’ve known locals that have caught nasty diseases like Ross River Fever from them.

We only get ticks when we forget to use mosiguard. And I don’t think i’ve ever had one cycling. They’re incredibly resilient – sometimes i’ve caught them before they bite, and once i washed one down the sink and found it back in the sink the next day. I’ve also read of a UK study showing that they will survive a trip through a washing machine!

reeksy – thats a different animal you are talking about. UK ticks a twister is best and the advice given

@tjagain – no, it’s not a different animal.
It’s the same genus, different species. Ixodes are hard-bodied ticks.
I do use the tick-twisters. But only after freezing if possible.

Hello, I’m another internet expert. In my defense I work in forestry in the Highlands and my record is 50 something ticks removed after one day (after being in Barr, Morven).

My take – Twisting – no need, just use the tool to remove the tick as quickly as possible with straight lever or pull action. Something that pulls the tick without compressing the stomach causing blood regurgitation is key. Any method taking more than a second or two such as freezing, smothering by vaseline etc. just gives the insect time to regurgitate.

Don’t arse about, whip it out as quick as possible.

Lots of responses to my twisting confusion, the few times I tried it it screwed the body off leaving the head in, itchy scratchy time, I may have been doing something wrong, but the tool looks to me to have a curved cam to lever by tilting? perhaps over thinking it, my method is to apply gentle pressure and wait a couple of seconds, there is a point where they sort of let go, main aim is not pull the body off leaving the head in, twisting sort of makes me think there is a danger there but if twisting works(and the possibility of regurgitating is a good point) then I’ll take that back and learn from it.

no, it’s not a different animal.It’s the same genus, different species

um – as a biologist, that does mean it’s a different animal. You wouldn’t say a lion (Panthera leo) is the same animal as a tiger (Panthera tigris)

Ditto Ixodes ricinus (UK) and Ixodes holocyclus (Aus)

Lots of good information here.
If I dont have tweezers, I put a blob of vaseline or suchlike on it so it suffocates.
Isnt Lyme disease confined to certain areas? Like maybe some counties?
It would be good to have a map of this so we know where we have to be extra careful.
There were a lot of ticks in Thetford forest but I didnt get lyme disease

I put a blob of vaseline or suchlike on it so it suffocates.

Never do this – it causes them to regurgitate into you.

IME tick attractiveness is quite person specific..

The only one I’ve ever had latch onto me died. Removed it as a dried and shrivelled complete corpse about 2 days after picking it up.

Isnt Lyme disease confined to certain areas? Like maybe some counties?

Yes, New Forest being one of them (carried by deer). Most of the ones we get are from our own garden which deer can’t get into so have to assume they are “safe” ticks unless carried from the forest into the garden by birds of course…

The only one I’ve ever had latch onto me died. Removed it as a dried and shrivelled complete corpse about 2 days after picking it up.

Bit like my Tinder experiences…

Boom boom

DrP

deer can’t get into so have to assume they are “safe” ticks

I wouldn’t rely on this. Most ticks are actually spread by mice/voles/squirrels (they act as the secondary host). They can go in and out of gardens, pick up ticks dropped by deer outside (the deer can obviously spread it over a larger distance)

Lots of good information here.
If I dont have tweezers, I put a blob of vaseline or suchlike on it

😱

Which leads me to question how do you (personally) differentiate between ‘good information’ vs ‘bad information’? What’s your evaluation/filtering process? Because every ‘how to’ article on ticks re the ‘vaseline’ thing I’ve read in the last twenty odd years says something to the effect of Do not put a blob of vaseline or suchlike on it

the vasiline thing is an old wives tale. Look on NICE for the correct ( edit but conservative) medical advice

Ticks breathe through spiracles located along the body and only need to breathe a few times an hour, thus if you smother the tick with vaseline you are increasingly likely to induce the tick to regurgitate into your bloodstream due to irritation than suffocation.

It would be good to have a map of this so we know where we have to be extra careful.

Map of risk by region in the UK:
https://www.msd-animal-health-hub.co.uk/KBPH/pet-advice/parasites/map-of-tick-risk

Model of risk in Scotland:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27030039/#&gid=article-figures&pid=figure-2-uid-1

Map of diagnosis rate by area:
https://bjgp.org/content/67/658/e329
(but note this is where people live not where they got infected; the more GPs see positive diagnosis the more its likely to be on their radar so clusters may be caused by better diagnosis rather than disease hotspots, but also the more their patients are likely to be exposed can lead to diagnostic suspicion bias)

but the answer is actually that there are many factors: weather/climate, time of year, what you are wearing, what you are doing, repellants you might wear, very specific local areas you might be in, the population of the animal hosts, the degree of infection of ticks with the bacteria, how long the tick is attached, how it is removed… none of that make it easy to model/map!

I’d like to hear some tips on how to remove tics from parts of the body I can’t reach, there is nothing more frustrating than detecting one on your back or even the underside of an arm that you can feel but cant see while trying to get out.

Vaseline..not for me, I want it off before it returns its breakfast with added infection.

Ticks are a daily occurrence in our part of East Devon if you walk in the country side. Last weekend I pulled four off the dog and eight off myself. We always use the Tom O Tick twister and can work with the tiny ones, those you don’t know about till the bite area starts to feel it. Twisting (always anti clockwise) works 99% of the time.
I understand Lymes to be rare but know two that tested positive and were pretty ill, though the response medication can also make you pretty unwell. That was my experience. I’ve been told some ticks without Lymes can still put something(s) in you that can make you unwell. On a couple of occasions when I’ve pulled a number off I’ve felt grotty for a day or two.
Not found much to put them off, I think Smidge does but sometimes the ticks aren’t paying attention to it. This time of year I wear trousers if I think I’ll be walking in the woods, bracken or long grass.
Apparently this is the worse tick year ever and our experience is the number of tick encounters we are having as a family is doubling each year!

Ah, the regular CG ‘post nonsense then scurry away’ thread.

Ah, the regular CG ‘post nonsense then scurry away’ thread.

Nonsense or not, I cant help but feel that the whole credibility thing is somewhat undermined by…..

Hang on, a disease kills 130,000 people and you go on a march to campaign against protocols put in place to treat/contain/eradicate it.

A non fatal disease affects 12,000 people and?

🤦‍♂️