mayaland
Lest anyone [re: city folk] think living in the country is all sweetness and light, let me disabuse those folk of that notion in one word: seed ticks.
Okay, it was two words. Sue me. But really, seed ticks are disgusting, horrible, nasty, annoying, and gross. Now, let me tell you how I really feel.
I HATE SEED TICKS.
And we live in Tick Central. This is the Tick Ranch. Our main crop is, you guessed it, TICKS. It’s just a fact of life in central NC.
What? You don’t know what a seed tick is?
A seed tick is the larval stage of a tick. They sit in masses of hundreds, if not thousands, in grass, or maybe in some alternate tick dimension where they phase into existence just as one of the kids walks by. Innocently brushing said grass/inter-dimensional portal, hundreds of tiny, teeny seed ticks glom on and begin swarming up the leg or arm at near superluminal speeds. When you notice it, you look down and see this massing army of what looks like moving dirt spreading up your leg and generally what happens next is you freak the fuck out.
Here, look:
Can you see those little dots? Those are about a hundred baby ticks crawling across my hand and up my arm. This is actually a small tick bomb, as a big one can look like mud on your hand, the tick mass is so large. Can you believe I had the presence of mind to stop and take a picture before I washed those mother fuckers off? I can’t.
When this happens, we call it a Tick Bomb, as in, “Mom! I just got tick bombed!”
If you don’t get the ticks off, they bite in, leaving tiny, blister-like bites that itch for weeks, months even. Seed ticks supposedly are too small to spread Lyme Disease or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, so there is that in their favor I guess. I don’t know—if someone introduced me as “At least she doesn’t carry any major diseases,” I don’t think it would be a huge compliment. Just saying.
When we were looking at this land to buy, we hired a semi-realtor dude to come out and handle the paperwork for us. He came out to walk the land with us with the seller’s realtor—I guess this is normal, like having your lawyer present or something. Anyway, we warned him about the ticks. We told him to take preventative measures. But he totally dismissed this and showed up in slacks and loafers. He later told me that no amount of money from the sale of that land could make up for the torture-by-itching that he experienced from all the tick bites he got on that walk.
So what ARE preventative measures? Well, some people use the chemical method, some people use the barrier method. For the ticks, I mean. For example, people try to keep the ticks away with tall boots, sprayed down with poisonous toxins. This can do all right, unless you get ticks on your arms. And if you spray your whole self, there you are, covered in poison. No thank you. Other people say to tuck in your clothes tightly, putting your pants into your socks, that sort of thing, in an attempt to keep the ticks on the clothes and off your skin. They they toss the clothes in the washer. But I’ve seen ticks come out of the washer alive (obviously they are the scourge of the earth, a mix of nuclear waste and the Undead), and one or two or ten always seem to get through anyway and bite you in the armpit, or along the elastic of your underwear. I HATE that.
Here’s a weird one: I used to put a super thick layer of lotion or vaseline around my ankles. The ticks couldn’t climb any higher than the lotion (they would get stuck in it) and I could just wash my feet after the walk and be done with it. I did this until one summer I got about 200 bites on my left foot and decided even localizing the torture wasn’t good enough.
What to do?
The first thing is when you see this:
Don’t Panic!
And the second thing to do is pull out some TAPE.
Because look:
Tape pulls those ticks right up! I’ve gotten tick bombed so bad at times that the tape has been wall-to-wall ticks. DISGUSTING! We NEVER go on walks in the woods around here without tape.
Look at what the macro feature on my camera does to that tape:
Can you see their evil little legs??? They are about the size of the head of a pin. Smaller. There have been a couple of times where we have been out on a walk and forgotten the tape. Someone gets bombed and we just run for the yurt, yelling. It’s pretty funny. “Tick Bomb! ARRRGGGG!!!” We make a joke about it, to stave off the horror and panic. And I buy lots and lots of tape. It never hurts to have extra.
You can pop seed ticks between your fingernails if you’re feeling vengeful, or you can burn the tape, maybe, and maybe do a little victory dance around the flames.
I knew a gal who lived a couple of miles from here who thought she had a spider infestation in her carpets—you could run your hand across the shag and a little hail of tiny bugs would spring up out of them. SEED TICKS. The exterminator was so grossed out he went home to take a shower. She was from the north and had never seen ticks before. Her dogs had brought them in. NASTY. Don’t worry, every one lived. And they didn’t even have to burn down the house.
Moral: don’t give up walks in the beautiful woods. Don’t live in fear! Just don’t leave home without your tape.
Finally, although this post is about ticks, look at what a yellow jacket did to little Sophie’s hand:
Poor baby! It swelled up so much she couldn’t make a fist. Mean old yellow jacket.
There are a few advantages to living in town. Not getting Tick Bombed is one of them.
ETA: There is quite a discussion in the comments section on this post. Including a longish reply from me that talks about how to get them off, once they have bitten in. Scroll down to find it—look for the bold print if you don’t want to read the other comments—especially if you’re googling because you’ve got ticks on you and you are freaking out. 
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222 Responses to seed ticks: the devil’s spawn
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- MAYA LASSITER is a writer of fantasy novels, an unschooling mom, a yogini, a former goat keeper, a yurt dweller, and an all-around cool person. Except when she's a boring ninny. Hopefully she won't post on those days.
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today's yoga practice
- monday
June 19, 2013 | 10:41 amFull Primary. Actually, that’s a lie. I left off those butt balance poses at the end of seated. I kind of hate those. They bore me. [hangs head] I’m weak.
- sunday
June 16, 2013 | 10:10 amPrimary to supta konasana. Long stay in baddha and uphavista, then ollapse. i feel so winded today!
- friday
June 16, 2013 | 10:09 amFull Primary.
- thursday
June 16, 2013 | 10:08 amyin yoga again. lazy yoga.
- wednesday
June 13, 2013 | 2:19 pmPrimary to Janu B and then I ran out of time. Better than nothing, I guess.
-
Archive for today's yoga practice »
- monday
"Dusi's Wings" April, 2003. . . .
"One thing fantasy can do for us is to give shape to the mysterious in the world; another is to make emotional yearning concrete. The early sections of "Dusi's Wings" do just that...there was a strong grasping towards the spiritual in fantasy here that was very promising, and I look forward to reading more by Lassiter." --review, Tangent Online.
- MAYA LASSITER is a writer of fantasy novels, an unschooling mom, a yogini, a goat keeper, a yurt dweller, and an all-around cool person. Except when she's a boring ninny. Hopefully she won't post on those days.
Seed Ticks strike again!
I feel for him, since I know just how he feels. its about 3 weeks since my encounter, and i still have the little red dots all over my feet. Thankfully the itching has subsided.
And that is living on farms! I miss florida! lol
Last night when we went to bed, my hubby was itchy and scratching his thighs as he scrolled through the tv channels. It was like having a dog with fleas next to me, so i told him to turn on the light and I would dig out my soothy itch cream. When he did his legs were covered with red splotches!! Alllll over! and on his stomach. So then I had to spend the next hour picking them off him, although i think most of them had eaten and left (wonderful, so now I have a tick house?! Time to move!) Anyway, then he showered and spent the rest of the night scratching anyway
We’ve just recently moved back to VA from FL, and although im not saying there’s none down there, in our 4 years there I came across not one tick.
I just googled seed ticks and discovered this blog post after the vet finally identified the nasty buggers that attacked my poor cat! He is a beautiful long haired grey fellow who seemed unusually agitated several days ago. The vet couldn’t find anything wrong other than a few tiny “bumps” around his neck that were not visible and assumed to be an allergic reaction to something. well, couple of evenings later I notice dozens of these tiny fat black bugs radiating across my bed from his body and they are still crawling!! I immediately think OMG we’ve got bedbugs! I’d never seen anything like them. They were so tiny that I had to use a magnifying glass along with my reading glasses to ID them as ticks! of course we immediately treated Morgan with whatever flea/tick stuff was available and within 24 hours I was sweeping up HUNDREDS of them! Coincidently I’ve been suffering the past few days with over 30 of what I THOUGHT were mosquito bites (now I’m not so sure they aren’t tick bites!!). the vet said Revolution wouldn’t kill ticks, only fleas but I’m here to tell you it’s killing those tiny devils. these things are the scourge of the earth! anyway, glad I found this post and thanks for all the good info, unfortunately I think it’s too late to help with my itching, the bites will just have to run their course.
Hi all~
Just getting over my first experience with seed ticks…received about 200 bites on my ankles and legs after a trail run in KS. They SUCK and I barely slept the first night with all the itching. Just wanted to share that I have been taking 2 Benedryl every night (starting night 2)and bought some Chigarid at the drug store. It really helps…its kinda like nail polish in that it coats the bites and turns hard. So far, its been my saving grace. Ticks SUCK!!
Literally. Ticks suck, literally.
Oh, how I amuse myself.
OMG. I just moved to Oklahoma from Arizona and never knew about seed ticks. So when I saw a bunch of black “seeds” crawling around my bed sheet, I freaked. I cried because my daughter has three cats that I have had to leave outside just to protect our house from becoming infested. We have tick dipped them but I am so afraid to let them in. My dogs don’t seem to have them at least to the extent that the cats do perhaps because they have been on leashes when outside and not running through the bushes. This has been a horrible experience. Question, can the tick get on your scalp? My daughter is thinking she got some in her hair. I really don’t know what to do.
Hi I have A problem with seed ticks on my little Min Pin puppy he is 10 week old. What do you do to get them off? They are everywhere all over him.I have gave him severel baths and some come off but they are everywher. He is still covered what do you do to get them gone. Please Help Me!!!!!
After being bit at least 250 times I’ve came to a conclusion. If you pop the little blisters at the tip of the bites, the bite begins to dry up, but you have to watch out for infection. Also, the last time I was “tick-bombed” I ran into the house and washed with Technu poison ivy scrub and the ticks washed right off.
Thanks for the tape tip! Not sure how we never noticed these guys til this week (after 7 yrs in VA) & then met them 2x in one week. I found your tape trick last Sunday after finding myself covered with ticks – too late for me, but in time to help my daughter yesterday, since we brought tape with us, thanks to you.
Not to scare you all, but seed tick bites have been linked to the red meat allergy discovered by researchers at UVA – For example, read http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/253939
More about the allergy is here: http://allergytomeat.wordpress.com/alpha-gal-research-links/
Had an IDEA! Based on the tape idea -
If you dont mind tearing some sticky tape off your ankles (I doubt it would hurt as much as a millions ticks on you!) Put a strip of double sided sticky tape around your ankles! That way whenever you go for a walk in the woods, or a stroll across the yard, or out to prune the plants or you know, just step outside for 3 seconds, the ticks may crawl up your feet but they wont get far!
I know it doesnt help in the long grass where they seem to get to your arms first, but it reduces the feet ticks! lol
I’ve grown up in the woods in Alabama my whole life and just recently ran into these little devils playing near the Cahaba River. Thought I had dirt on me until I got home and took a shower. Thanks for the tape idea, but once they bite….the itching begins the next day. Been struggling for 4 weeks now. Takes forever to heal….good luck to anyone that runs into this hell.
me,my boyfriend & his friend went 4 wheeling and they asked me to video tape them going up this huge hill so i did. after they were done flipping stuff and proving to be fearless we left the hill and stopped under some shade it was then when i started to feel pain on my knees and i looked down and saw my pants moving, i lifted up some of the rip and saw little black things covering every inch of my legs, as you did i FREAKED OUT. when i realized they were ticks i made my bf take me to the truck and i stripped down and put only shorts and a sports bra on, went home and took a scalding hot shower and pored antibacterial soap ALL over me and scrubbed myself with a food stone. after that i took a razer and shaved my legs……..after that none survived….but tape sounds much easier.lol id like some heavy duty tape tho.haha. thank you for the tip
Had mysterious feeling something was crawling inside my shirt last night. Got home found nothing. All night felt this sensation on my chest area…started thinking I was losing it! Woke up this morning to two tiny dark dots. Thought they were bites but took initiative of using a pin (after sterilizing with alcolhol) and picked at them. They began to MOVE! I ran and got tape and stuck it to them. Got out a magnifying glass and voila! Seed ticks – have never had any encounter with them before – we have a ranch and have been out there all my life – never have seen a seed tick. Seems there are many little critters becoming big problems across the US lately. The officials on Discovery Channel say it is because our EPA keeps banning every good chemical that controls pests. I am going to fog my home regularly! Hoping it will do the trick. From now on, will be checking my clothing daily!
I went on vacation recently and left my dog with a dog walker/sitter. Two days after returning home and picking up my pup I come to find out he has Seed Ticks. I have removed atleast 35 ticks off of him. The vet advised me to put an additional dose of advantix on him along with revolution and comb his hair out with a flea comb 24 hours later. I did do that and with the help of tweezers and another pair of hands I am HOPING all ticks have been removed. It appears they were only on his back paws. I have also used the tick powders and sprays on my carpets, washed all my bedding, and am confining the dog to the kitchen/living room. I put the revolution on yesterday and have spent both days picking these nasty critters off of my dog and the carpet. Tonight I found one on my bedroom window sill. HELP!!!!!!!!!! How do I get rid of these nasty things ASAP? I want to be able to let my dog sleep on my bed once again and not confine him!!!!
Love your post and I can sooooo relate to your freakin out moments. Just had my first expereince with these little bastards. My dog has hundreds of them….it is AWFUL!!!!!!!!!
We just had them for the first time! I am from PA. Nasty little bastards. By we, I mean my 15 month old daughter, my wife and my sister in law. We spent an entire Friday night like monkeys picking off little ticks and eating them.
I had a question though.. have you ever had a delayed response to the seed ticks? It is now about three weeks after we had the ticks on us. Some of them dug in, some didn’t, we got most of them off. However, three weeks later all four of us developed horrible itching welt like bumps. These bumps were localized where the ticks had been (my ankles and my legs). It is strange that we didn’t have any symptons until three weeks later… what do you think? Ever happen to you? I can’t find anything on that internet
Thanks so much for this post. I first ran into these little %$^** bugs at Land Between the Lakes in Western Kentucky about 5 years ago, in September. I didnt know what they were, I just saw a mass of brown moving dust on my jeans. I had hundreds of bites, all over.
But I made the big mistake of covering over the ticks with Chig R Rid. This is a good product for chigger bites, but what I unknowingly did was to entomb the dead bodies of the ticks – while they were still attached. Great suffering for several weeks.
One thing that really sucks about seed ticks is that they are so small that most people dont know they have them until too late. We went hiking last weekend and my partner Patty got seed ticks that are small as black pepper flakes. You cant tell what they are.
This time around I used Tec Nu to kill them (my legs are really hairy so I cant use the duct tape method) and then took Benadryl to help me sleep and reduce the itching. Got good results after a few days.
For those that dont know, Benadryl – besides being a good all purpose antihistamine – is used in sleep aids.
We put something called Vectra 3D on the dog last night, today there are hundreds of little black dots on her sleeping pad. They are the engorged bodies of the seed ticks that were feasting on her. Poor thing. Well, I gotta go vacuum the whole house now.
Hi William, the bites usually take a couple of days to really get itchy on most people I know. But I’ve never heard of a reaction that is several weeks later. Could be, though…or possibly a reaction to whatever you might have been putting on the bites to stop itching?
I run into these bad bugs on a daily basis. I live in the woods in middle Georgia. I walk my 3 dogs on a path through the woods 2 times a day. It seems July-October is when they are out. I try to spray them with Adams Flea and Tick spray before each walk, I use bug spray with Deet. They still get on me but do not crawl or bite because of the spray. I was wondering if there was anyway to tell what their nests look like and what to avoid. You described the reaction to noticing hundreds of them on you at once… you do freak out. I run home and pour rubbing alcohol all over my legs, that stops the crawling… then pick them off one by one and drown them in a bowl of alcohol. Does anyone think that Frontline helps keep seed ticks off of animals?
Thought my son had a pimple on his chest and ignored it until it started to look infected. Then he told me about the one he’d had on his leg which had produced a ‘tiny, green-looking bead’. After he told me about that, I started paying more attention to the one on his chest. I tried to clean it out and it just hurt him a lot. I put Neosporin on it, in large quantities, to soften up whatever there was under his skin. After 2 days I was able to pull out another of the bead things. I live in rural Mississippi and ticks are a day to day problem. With 2 cats and 1 dog in the house I’m on the watch all the time for deer ticks, but until I went looking for something that may have been laying it’s eggs under his skin, I’d never even heard of seed ticks.
My question is, if he’s had 2 bites (I’ll be checking the ‘bead’ under a microscope at the school today), with no reaction until his body tries to eject the little buggers, where are the other hundreds or thousands described by everyone else?
CJ, as far as I know, you do not have seed ticks. Seed ticks are the nymph of an adult tick. They do not breed (until they are adults) and they do not lay eggs under the skin. I have no idea what you’re describing, but at least you can cross seed ticks off the list!
I have extremely itchy, pimple type bites all over the insides of my arms and the tops of my feet. I’ve been itching for 2 weeks. Last night I tried some Eucerin Creme, and when I rubbed it in, little dark brown spots came out of my skin! The majority of them were right around the bite areas. They looked like they could be tiny ticks, but they did not move. The itching is not as intense now, but I still have the very red inflamed areas. I’ve researched scabies, but I don’t have any between fingers or on my hands. Any ideas?
My best friend found your blog after receiving an 11:30pm phone call from me saying my bed,which looked PERFECTLY NORMAL when I left for work that morning, now looked as if someone had poured a largish jar of poppy seeds on my bed. WTF? We both said. We thought I had gotten chiggers on a Sunday walk in the woods with her, her husband and our dogs. So at first I thought they might be the adult form of the chiggers that had fallen onto the sheets. Till I popped one on the sheet. Eeww! Blood. They weren’t dead, but weren’t going anywhere either, I guess they were too engorged. Due to our dry summer I hadn’t had a flea issue, so had been very lax about treating my dog for fleas and ticks. Which in retrospect was a bad idea. Nor had I worn DEET, which I normally do, as I am prime mosquito bait. Once again, mosquitoes hadn’t been biting, so not only did I NOT take any precautions, I wore shorts. We walked four miles in all, lots of it through tall grass. Prime chigger location. Then the poppy seeds with legs. Where the HELL did they come from? Since I hadn’t yet treated my dog -you can bet I did the moment I noticed the little buggers on my bed though – all I can think of is that they became totally engorged and fell off, all roughly over the course of my day at work. (Note to self: never leave the house again.)
Your blog was both a revelation AND a riot to read. Thank you. I now have a prescription for a week of tapering-dose prednisone and some cream, thanks to the visit to my doctor. A happy ending for all. So far.
I was ready to go to bed tonight and turned on the bedroom light to pull back the cover. I saw 10 or 20 fat black seeds on my cover. I first thought that they were black berry seeds until I popped one and it bled. The first thing that came into my mind was seed ticks. I had never seen one and really didnt think they were real. Well, I now have a very clean dog and house. I just got off of Prednasone for over 100 chigger bites to my legs, I dont need this. Good night!
So I recently was “Tick Bombed!” and have been miserable since! Last night I tried a old home remedy….egg yolk and salt. Make a paste using with it and COVER all the spots with it. Cover with bandage….my husband is a vet so I used gauze and vet wrap…all night. Remove in the morning. So far the spots that I have used the egg/salt on are not itching! For the first time in 9 days. I wish I had used it first thing. Beware it BURNS but at this point even burning is a relief from the itching I’ve endured!
FSM, I’ve just discovered what it is that gets me every year and leaves terrible itchy sores that take months (and I mean until February) to heal. I got tick bombed (love the term) in late July and had to quit counting when I got to 65 bites just around one knee. I spent one night in a freezing tub filled with Aveeno oatmeal and hopped up to the eyeballs on Benadryl before I could get a full night’s sleep.
I’ve sprinkled diatomaceous earth on my dog when he gets those horrible fits in the summer, and it seems to really help. I thought it was fleas, but could never find any sign of them.
BTW, now I’ve got the itches all over from reading this. ;}
Thank you so much for this post. I thought I just had about a hundred misquito bites. Until I happened to see a spot that I had previously scratched and it moved! Tiny little black thing came out and started walking. As stated previously by others here I popped it with my finger nail and sure enough blood came out. Amazing that I didn’t see anything before that and could not figure out what the heck had lunched on me. I’ve never before seen anything like this. I’m familiar with the bigger ticks, like your dog usually gets but never seen these little vampires before. No new bites now for 2 days so hope they are gone; but every time something itches I head for the magnifying glass and start searching. Just horrible!
My poor dog got tick bombed when she escaped the other day. She came home tired and totally disgustingly dirty. After giving her a thorough bath there was this dirt that wouldn’t come off. We were curious.
The kids have a toy called an eyeclops that you plug into the tv and it let’s you magnify stuff. We thought we were going to see dirt and when we looked up I almost threw up! Disgusting! It is quite something to see one of these things magnified enough to cover a 52″ tv! GROSS! Then to look back at my dog and realize that she has HUNDREDS of these things on her!
It’s two days later and I haven’t slept well just because I think I’m itchy! Crazy! I can’t get it out of my brain that they are infesting my house as I type!
I have taken all the measures to get rid of them, (bathing, spraying, washing, chemicals, vacuuming, you name it) but can’t get it out of my head.
Thanks so much for this post! Glad that I’m not the only one dealing with these nasty little boogers!
Hi! I went for a walk with my son on Sunday. We were not in the woods, just went around the neighborhood but there are no sidewalks and we walked in the grass on the side of the road along the way to avoid cars (thanks to NO shoulders around here in North Raleigh!). Last night, I notice all kinds of bites on me – around my ankles, on my back, legs, places the sun doesn’t shine – you get the picture. I started looking closer at some of the bites and I saw some little black dots! I picked off 14 of the ‘dots’, put them on the white bathroom counter and I could see legs! and they moved! I decided to go to the doctor this morning because there were two dots I couldn’t get off me due to their awkward places. I saw a nurse, because the doctor was not available. I explained to her that I thought they were ticks because I could see their legs and they moved when I pulled them off, explained how I went for a walk through grass, etc. She insisted they were NOT ticks and that I have scabies!! Everything I find on the web about scabies says you CAN NOT see the scabies mite with the naked eye. Plus, with scabies, the rash gets in between fingers and toes, inside elbows, on wrists and behind knees, and guess what? I don’t have bites in those places!! So, I believe that they are, in fact, these ‘seed ticks’ you are talking about! The nurse prescribed permethrin cream, which I am now soaking in, but I really think I’ve been attacked by seed ticks and NOT scabies!
I manage herbicide crews working on transmission rights of way across NC and VA and never cease to be amazed by the ferocity of ticks. My line of work puts me on deerpaths primed with TNT… and I mean tormenting nasty ticks… and yes, I get ‘tick bombed’… a LOT. One great tool, much in line with your tape idea, I keep on my person is a sticky lint roller. I simply roll after traversing an area I am sure is infested. It never gets 100% of them (as they are often walking the seam lines… but it picks up plenty more than other methods.
My parents both had a bad case of seed ticks and had to go on tetracycline. My mom got cellulitis and my dad got rocky mountain spotted fever. So, I guess they can carry diseases!!!!!
I live in a rural area of northerneastern NC 3 miles from the VA border. My dogs stay outside during the day and sleep with us at night. For the past week or so we have had these “seeds” in the bed each morning when we wake up. We had attributed this to some type of weed attachment that had gotten on the dogs until I was examining these seeds more closely and “popped” one and it was bloody!! Hence the google search frantically began and I found this site. My dogs ARE treated with Frontline Plus and we have had good results, and I guess since these disgusting seed ticks do fall off, none the less on top of my covers, it does limit the misery my dogs suffer….but they have received a serious scrubbing, deticking bath tonight and Frontline is due Oct. 1. Thanks for the post and for making it entertaining as I dealt with the grossness factor of realizing I have been sleeping with seed ticks for a week!!!!
Ooo, yuck Dianne. I have to admit, ticks are THE reason my otherwise beloved pets do not sleep in the bed with me.
Dear All,
I wanted to share with you my seed tick experience because I found this blog very helpful after my first ever seed tick attack. I was out in the woods hiking for a few hours and when I got back to my car and started driving home my ankles started itching. I pulled my sock off and I noticed black spots. I didn’t think about it much (had no idea what a seed tick is and what it looks like) and put my sock back on thinking I will take a shower at home and it will all be good. The next day I also went hiking and same thing happened but this time I pulled up my pants and noticed hundreds of dots moving on my leg. As I was driving on the highway it took me 1 hour to get home. I went in the shower but when I came out they were still all over my legs. I got back in the shower and this time I decided to shave my legs which got all the tick out. I found few more on my body after the shaving. the next couple of days I started itching again around my ankles and legs but didn’t see anything. It was only after couple of days that I noticed the extent of the bites. It is now week two after the attack and I am still itching. I have easily more than 200 bites on just one leg, same on the other. They got to my arms, back and neck as well. I estimate about 500 bites all over my body (my boyfriend says it is more than that). It is a disaster for me and I am suffering every day. I go to work everyday and having just a simple cotton t-shirt on is a nightmare because it rubs against my skin.
Above is why I want to share what helped me to relieve the itching and sleepless nights:
1. For my ankles I purchased cold/hot therapy braces. These are fabric with liquid pouches inside. You put them in the freezer and then wrap them around the ankles. They are the best thing I ever purchased in my life. I keep them on my ankles where I have the most bites and they work perfectly to relieve itching. They are cold and calming, I absolutely love them and can’t live without them. For other parts of my body, I put frozen, wet towels wherever it itches and that seems to relieve itching for a while. The best is to get in the cold bath and stay there. It will calm the itching and give you some relief.
2. Took your advice on benadryl. It also helps with the itching and helps me get some sleep.
3. Not recommended but seems to work – scratch them until they bleed (or pop them). I tried this on one part of my leg and now that part doesn’t itch anymore and seems to be healing. I only did it in parts that I could not handle without scratching because I am afraid of infection I have so many of them. For your information, I went to my dermatologist and told her my story, she immediately took my blood and put me on antibiotics. She also gave me Clobetasol Propionate Creatm (steroid) which I used within the first couple of days. It helps a great deal with itching but you can’t use it for more than 2 weeks as it is very potent.
4. Aveeno skin relief calming lotion (medicated cream) – might not help with this type of itching much but lets your skin have a bit of cooling time when you can’t take a freezing bath.
5. Lots of patience and try not to get paranoid. Even until this day I sometimes feel they are all over my body again and I feel that I have new bites every day. Whenever I am in bed and not moving I feel my skin burning and pinching. So I try to be busy and move around a lot, it takes your mind off of things.
I feel for everyone who is going through this and am posting the above to share what worked for me during this nightmare. I have seen pictures of other people with bites but I can assure you that I haven’t seen anything like my own situation. Take care and I wish all of you fast healing.
This was a wonderful read – from Maya’s original to all the comments. I’m from eastern NC, and we live on a wooded lot. Like central NC, ticks come with the territory, and they are disgusting, and gross indeed!! It wasn’t until after Irene, though, that we would encounter the most disgusting of all, and we would learn about the “nymph” seed ticks. They are AWFUL, but one good thing to know about this infestation we are dealing with is – looks like we aren’t alone!
do the seed ticks turn in to deer tick. I got them in warren county nc
Yes my father got lyme disease from a seed tick and unfortunately ticks will also cause a new problem, an allergic reaction to beef pork and other mammals(when eaten by humans)my husband was suffering from hives and allergic reactions for some time before we found out he was allergic to beef shortly after a tick bite. It was the only incident I had heard of for years and then it just started turning up in more and more people. He went to a study/examination by the professor that finally diagnosed this and has since realized he cannot eat anything mammal. No matter how it’s cooked. It metabolizes into some sort of sugar in your body and about 4 hours later it’s not pretty :0(
I just wanted to post this bc it would’ve really helped us if there was a website that had info about it when we were trying to figure out what he was allergic to. No one expects beef. It’s just not American. Not fair. Poor guy. Anyway, I hope this helps just one person.
Ah, I just had Thousands of these lil creatures on me a few days ago. Thought they were chiggers! Must have used 30 feet of duck tape I was covered from my arm pits to my toes with them, even changed the color of my shirt I had sooo many of them. I ended up with about 80 bites, keep getting one here and one there. Now to figure out how to make sure my camper is tick free for next time we go out.
Wow guys, this is so scary. Up in Vermont we have the dog ticks which we find on the cats and horses. Last week I found three stages on the cat at one time, engorged, feeding and two babies looking to latch on. He’s wearing a collar now…
We haven’t experienced the “tick bomb” – yet. I do wonder though if what we thought might be spider bites may have come from seed ticks. We’ve had bites that just don’t go away, itch for weeks. Could be.
But – I also seem to get attacked every summer by “straw dust mites”. That creature hangs out on your body around the torso, especially the belt-line. An adult settles in, feeds for a bit and then gives birth. Later the initial bite is surrounded by another batch of bites, sometimes in a nice circle, but not usually. I often get them on my wrists (from old hay), then they spread up my arms.
The prescription cream does knock them back and will get all of them if you can get them surrounded by it.
I just wanted to throw that out because I noticed a couple of the previous writers had mentioned bites that seemed to spread, sounds like mites to me.
Love the tape / sticky lint roller idea, if those ticks make it up our way I’ll sure know what to do!
For pet owners, you may want to look into Comfortis as a flea/tick preventative. One pill per month and it does work.
Thanks for the tip, walkwoods.
Hi, read through the comments, learnt some useful stuff, I live in London uk seed ticks are not common here but I had a visit from relatives in southern Canada and my cat got infected and before I know it they were all over my house and when i got rid of the cat they started biting me, now after 2 months treating i’m finally getting the upper hand , they’re extremely hard to kill with chemicals, and to warn you all when you apply the foggers that kills them with dehydration they go into your intestants and stick and drink blood , antibiotics and lot of stinking raw garlic in your diet makes them come out of you, nasty animals, there’s still a few in my hair which whatever I do I can’t get rid of them, plus they go in your ears aswell and lay eggs there, cleaning on a daily basis is
required to make them get out, with disinfectants , the best way is to avoid getting them on you in the first place, gonna try lemon and vineger on my head in a minute see if it works. good luck.
Oh and by the way, the only thing that really really works is sulphur candles that I think its banned in the us, it kills them in the matter of few hours , just make sure u air tight the Windows and tape around the door or they’ll just come out and when the so2 gas is gone they’ll come back in, it kills everything including bacteria , plants and humans as well So make sure you get out as well and you put a sign on your door (no entry) danger of death
good luck
Hi Maya, love the blog here! Excellently written article. I grew up here in southeast Missouri and seed ticks have always been a fact of life here. I’ve learned to constantly watch for that black tidal wave coming up my leg whenever I’m out and about. Fortunately, I’m way out in the country and no one can see me shucking my clothes as I’m heading full tilt for the creek! During the summer, I usually don’t have any hair on my legs because a few quick sweeps with a handy Bic lighter moves them little devils out pretty quick too. Never thought of the tape, I will certainly try that, though I expect it’ll do the same for the hair as my lighter does! Lots of good tips from everyone else too. Thanks for entertainment!
Well, Kevin, I think lighting oneself on fire might be a bit extreme, but I certainly comprehend well the hatred of ticks that might lead one to think it’s a Good Plan. I’m recalling a Scottish book (can’t think of what now) talking about lice in your pubes, I think the stated treatment was shave half of it off, light the remaining hairs on fire, and when the lice run out, stab them with your dirk (honking big Scottish knife). Ha! Not recommended! But Ha!
Purchase a chemical called 38 from a plant nursery. Mix exactly according to directions and spray all over your yard, under decks any place your animals roam or children play. It will kill ticks, fleas and mosquitoes (flies too as far as we can tell). And be sure and treat your pets with frontline plus or something as strong, to help prevent them from tracking them back to your yard and home.
Are you kidding? Yuck!
Spraying poison that does who knows what horrible stuff to frogs/birds/people all over everything doesn’t seem like a great solution. Ticks are terrible, but I’m not going to drop a nuclear bomb to get rid of them, you know?
Good tick info. I’m over 50, spent more time in the woods than most but had never seen a seed tick until about 3 or 4 years ago. I’m in Ohio and have already been bitten by seed ticks here last week. We have had extremely warm weather lately. When I get bit I get big itchy welts that last about two weeks, I believe they are Lone Star tick nymphs here.
Last year I saw a turkey infested with seed ticks and suspect the explosion of wild turkeys and other wildlife combined with warmer temperatures to be partly responsible for the apparent rise in the tick population.
I have broken down and started using products containing DEET it helps a lot but is not fool proof.
Lastly, anyone who goes to spend time in the country and woods aware that they will be exposed to these micro beasts is very brave – even with chemicals on. I believe they are out early this year so watch out!
I live in central MA. My house, my yard, my whole area is heavily infested with ticks. I can barely go outside without getting a tick of some sort on me. Lately, it has always been some stage of deer tick. I have had Lyme disease. I used to use Frontline on my border collie. He was having seizures occasionally. Suspecting it could be the Frontline, I stopped. So did the seizures. Not very scientific but enough so for me. I tried the Tic-Clip. The first one seemed to work for 2 years. Just put a 2nd one on him 4 months ago and this time it doesn’t seem to work. Now, I think I will try garlic.
I can’t wait until I’m able to take Kate’s advice and move to FL.
I am from tennessee and we dont have seed tick problems here, but i turkey hunt I’n Oklahoma and i get bombed a couple times every year. The best thing i have found to get them off is a swimming pool. The chemicals I’n the water kill them dead, and i usually come out of the pool with barely a one on me and usually go I’n covered from my ankles to shoulders. I have been covered up by these little blood suckers more times than i care to count and there isn’t much you can do about the itching other than just scratch and deal with it. Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks some times longer. My last experience with them the bites lasted for a little over a month.