How to Protect Yourself from Ticks | Camping

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Unlike bears and snakes, which you probably won't encounter on most of your camping trips, you will come across ticks. Ticks are a serious issue. They carry Lyme disease or they can carry Lyme disease so you want to be prepared for if you do get bitten by a tick and you also want to be prepared and take precautions to make sure you don't get bitten by a tick.

Ticks are spiders. They're not bugs. They're actually arachnids and they come in different sizes, or there are different-sized ticks. Deer ticks, which are the ones that can carry Lyme disease are actually usually the size of a pinhead or smaller, but ticks can be as big as a pencil eraser.

The biggest thing you can do to prevent getting bitten by a tick is to cover up. So if you're going to be hiking or walking in any kind of tall brush, you want to make sure you're wearing pants. You should tuck your pants into your socks. If you're wearing shorts and it's summer, I would definitely wear tall socks. That's the way that ticks usually hitch a ride.

From there, ticks are going to look for dark, warm places on your body. Ticks end up in your armpits. They end up on your scalp, under your hair, on your belly. They're looking for a safe, warm place to live so you really should do regular and frequent tick checks. Check all those places religiously. If you've gone for a hike, at the end of the day, just make sure you're doing frequent tick checks.

If you find a tick, if it hasn't bitten you yet, you can just pick it and flick it off. If it's bitten you, that's where you have to be really careful. Because if you did get the tick with a tweezer, which is one of the most popular ways to remove a tick, if you tear the tick or break its body, if it's carrying a disease, the disease can actually enter your bloodstream. So if you're going to use a tweezer to pull a tick out, you want to make sure you get the whole body and you grasp the tick and twist it, and pull it out.

If you get bitten by a tick, you're not really going to know, most likely, if it's carrying Lyme disease. If it's a small tick, I would definitely go visit my doctor when I got back from my trip. Just make sure and see if you can get tested for Lyme disease. Lyme disease usually can present itself with the bulls eye style rash, but a lot of times it doesn't.

So you might get some other symptoms, feeling like you've got the flu. But I would say, even if I'm not getting symptoms, if I was bitten by a tick, I'd definitely go visit my doctor when I got back from the trip. But the biggest things that you can do are just to try to avoid getting bitten by a tick. That's cover up, do tick checks, and also a lot of people don't like bug spray, particularly bug spray with Deet in it.

Deet is the most powerful ingredient that wards away ticks. So if you're concerned about ticks, I would definitely get a bug spray and I would get one with Deet.

[takioswad]

well....the best way to remove a tick is just cut off the whole area where the tick bites. For example: if a tick bites into your arm, remove the whole arm.

[chrislong]

I feel like I'm watching a 2nd grader presentation on ticks

[HEGW]

SHE IS WRONG ABOUT TICK
NEVER EVER EVER TWIST TO
You could break off the
Gently pull it straight

[badbrad]

twisting is the worst thing to do... gripping as close to the skin as possible with tweezers pull straight up and out

[katherinedecker]

NEVER TWIST!!! grab the tick by it's head with tweezers and pull upwards and make sure you get the head

[wolfrem]

easy, never leave your house, works everytime

[mrdottle]

If I went to the dr every time I've been bit by a tick, I'd be broke. She's crazy

[sopay]

also if none of these things work to remove a tick, i highly recommend shooting the tick off with a high caliber rifle, but make sure you shoot it off at an angle (left to right) NOT up to down cause you may cause injury to yourself

[k-sj-c]

If you guys ever get one a really easy way to get it off your skin is:

-burn a match and after 10 seconds blow it out
-touch the tip of the extinguished candlestick to the tick's butt (the part that sticks out)
-it's going to jump out from the heat, quickly catch it in a paper towel and squeeze it.

Hope this helped!!

[MultiRusty]

This may sound somewhat painful, but it works, if you catch the tick as it's started to enter.Hold a cigarette just close enough where you feel the heat.The tick will start to back out just far enough to remove it with tweezers.Works for me.

[DarthJanice]

Never twist! Ever! That can cause the the mouth piece of a tick to be left in the skin.

[The_Spyce]

i think this channel has the most videos ever!!

[Erim]

Girl:ticks are spiders me:shut up! Girl:they can be found under your hair me:not going o the damping trip!

[stevelahr]

use like vitamin E skin oil as a base & add eucalyptus oil to it.  Ticks don't like eucalyptus.  also add to it lemon grass oil, cuz skeeters don't like that.  works great!  tested it for skeeters in garden a couple of nights ago when they were biting me before I used the mixture.  Also, last year I went hiking two weekends in a row to same place.  Found like 15 ticks on each of us first weekend.  Next weekend we hiked same areas & used oil mixture & found only 1 tick.

[k-sj-c]

Once I got 2 ticks from my cat (he goes into the woods) one was on my foot. I was doing homework and I saw it buy I didn't know what it was so I pulled on it and it let go of me so I squished it (it was a deer tick). And an hour later I was looking at my arm and on my shoulder I saw one (it was a different kind) so we killed it

[lucyphillips]

im going campin tommorow thats why im looking at camping stuff

[brentspooner]

That was entertaining..you r the last one that should be giving advice about ticks

[MClifes]

About a year ago i have bin bitten by 13 ticks in 1 Day, and removed thema within 6 hours. Never got any desease out of it.

[davidwilliams]

OK, NEVER twist the tick when removing it. That will cause the head to remain in your skin. Pull out slowly until it detaches.

[mbyrd]

"Ticks are actually spiders" Um no. Ticks are parasites... I think the closest this girls gotten into the woods is the city park.