I'm trying to write a post about tick safety and avoiding tick bites, but a lot of the info on websites is like "Avoid going in the woods, in plants, and where there are wild animals" and "Activities like hiking and gardening can put you at risk" and I'm like thanks! This is worthless!

As ticks and tick borne illnesses are expanding their range, I think it's important for people to be educated about these things, and I think it's especially important to give people actual advice on how to protect themselves instead of telling them to just...avoid the natural world

Rough draft version of Tick Advice:

The above is useful for figuring out whether an area is likely to have lots of ticks, and how vigilant you have to be in that area.

If you're careful, you can usually catch ticks before they bite you, but if one does bite you, it's not the end of the world. Since tickborne diseases are different regionally i suspect this advice will differ based on where you are, but the important thing is remove the tick with tweezers (DON'T use butter, a lit match, or anything that kills the tick while it's still attached, please) and contact a doctor to see what to watch for. Most illnesses you can catch from ticks are easily treatable if you recognize them when symptoms first appear

Also, don't assume that just because you weren't in tall grasses you don't need to be checked.

Some advice from a former camp counselor:

- If you’re camping, check your towels, blankets, and anything else you’ve hung up before letting it touch your body. Ticks are drawn to wet towels and find it an easy jump to a person.

- If you’re out with a dog, check them over thoroughly before you pet them. Anti-tick medication can kill ticks that attach to your dog, but they can still hitch a ride on fur and then jump on you. Consider getting an outdoor comb and wear gloves while checking.

- Invest in a pair of fine-tipped tweezers to remove ticks. There are a ton of special “tick removal” tools that will work, but they’re essentially a riff on a basic set of fine-tipped tweezers. The fine tip allows you to pull a tick off without killing it while it’s attached. Standard, blunt-edged tweezers for eyebrows don’t work as well, because they can crush the tick’s body and release germs into your skin at the bite site.

- If you have a tick on or near your genitals, just go to a doctor. Just...just do it. Trust me. I’ve seen this happen. Do not engage with the junk tick.

- When you need to remove a tick, grasp it firmly with your tweezers as close to the skin as you can get it. If you can, grasp it under the head. Pull straight up - do not twist the tick. That’s going to be your best bet to pull it all off without leaving the head or mouth embedded.

- If you do break the tick, leave the mouth alone - don’t dig in to get it, since that can break your skin more and cause infection. Without the tick attached, the mouth should eventually fall off. If it doesn’t within a day or so, call a doctor.

- Disinfect, disinfect, disinfect. I’d recommend hitting the area with rubbing alcohol several times.

- Keep the tick in a plastic bag in your freezer or fridge. It’s gross, but if you start having any illness symptoms, it can be helpful for your doctor to have the tick itself.

- Watch for a rash on the site, a fever, chills, or body aches. If you experience anything like that, go to an urgent care or hospital.

- Don’t panic! Lyme disease is treatable. The quicker you get medical treatment, the less likely that you’ll have significant long-term effects.

Speaking as a long time outdoorsman this is all great advice. I’ll add one thing: in the past many places have had traditional tick seasons. Be aware that these seasons are shifting and expanding due to global climate change. I’ve spent a lot of time in the central Rocky Mountains and traditionally tick season was early to mid spring. That has shifted to late winter in the valleys and ranges to mid summer at higher altitudes.

Additionally, tick species ranges and the tickborne illness ranges have also been shifting because of climate change. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever used to be moderately common in the Rockies and has expanded east.

Teal deer: don’t rely on traditional information, verify seasons and ranges before assuming you’re safe.

As a medical entomologist/disease ecologist I am thrilled to come upon a tick-borne disease thread containing all accurate information. Everything above is fantastic but I’ll add a couple of things I would love for everyone to know

1) re: climate change. @mybigfatgaylife mentioned that tick seasons are shifting. This is absolutely true. Consider also that if it is 45 degrees or higher, ticks are out. If you have an unseasonably warm day in January the ticks will be questing. There is a clear relationship between winter Lyme diagnoses and warm weather roughly one month prior to positive tests.

2) Diagnostic tests for Lyme disease are often complained about but in fact they are really accurate though often improperly used. A blood test for Lyme will not be positive unless it is administered 4-6 weeks after the tick bite. Often physicians do not know this and give patients false negative results. You know now so you can inform your doctor. You can ask your doctor to look up the guild lines for testing and treatment on the CDC website.

2.1) The Lyme blood test is two part and they both have to be positive for diagnosis. There is a really good reason for this. The first test is not specific to the bacteria that causes Lyme. It’s an assay for immunoglobulins that the body creates during an immune response. This can be caused by many infections and even autoimmune disorders. The second test is a western blot that looks at antibodies specific to flagellum on the bacteria. There are a few other important pathogenic bacteria that will show up positive on this assay including the bacteria that causes brucellosis. It’s important that these tests are administered correctly because while we want to catch Lyme disease and treat it we also want to avoid missing an alternative diagnosis such as autoimmune disease or other pathogen.

3) If you have been bitten by a deer tick, are in the general range where Lyme disease is endemic and the tick has visibly swollen from consuming blood… go to the doctor and request a post exposure prophylaxis antibiotic. Stop the infection when it is still migrating away from the tick bite and is not yet systemic. Fewer doses of broad spectrum antibiotics, no risk of long term symptoms from Lyme. Win win.

4) PERMETHRIN! @headspace-hotel mentioned a bunch of ways to prevent tick bites or to catch them early. Do all of those. Also, consider adding an a pesticide to your arsenal. Permethrin treated shoes and pants are excellent because you don’t put the pesticide on your body and the clothes continue to kill ticks for a few washes. When I do field work I wear a specific set of treated clothing and I change when I am no longer in tick habitat. I have never gotten a tick bite even though I actively go into tick habitat during their peak. Sawyer permethrin is my favorite. Treat clothing away from cats… permethrin is dangerous to cats while wet.

5) Be aware of all tick species because they all come with their own horrors. While the black legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) is the big baddie in public health the others cause issues as well. The American dog tick transmits the causative bacteria for Rocky Mountain spotted fever and tularemia. While rare these two pathogens are way more dangerous than Lyme disease. The lone star tick transmits the causative agent for Ehrlichiosis and Tularemia.

6) An immune response to the lone star tick can cause people to develop a severe allergy to mammalian meat. This disease is called Alpha-gal. It’s a sugar found in mammals that can be transmitted to humans from a previous blood meal taken by that tick. 25% of cases result in anaphylaxis and many others present with GI symptoms only. This is a big enough problem that a company is creating alpha gal free transgenic pigs. Science can do amazing things when motivated by bacon.

Lyme disease vaccine is on its way!



Highly recommend having your dog on a tick preventative pill PLUS using a spray like Wondercide when you go out. The pill will kill the ticks when they feed but by that time they have already been brought into your car and house. We haven’t had any problems with ticks since keeping a bottle of Wondercide in the car and spraying us both down before going on walks.

Nick Cave on A.I.

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett really looked at the Guardian Angel of the Eastern Gate and at the Serpent of Eden, and went, yeah, but what if.. gay??

And I don't appreaciate that enough

motherfucker said PROFESSIONAL

Here on tumblr we are all professionals.

we are allowed to post them early now, so here are my frames for the 'every frame matters - against the wall' collab. will let u know when the video is posted :--3

honestly i kept claiming more frames when i could but the first one took so long and totally wiped me out from the level of detail. so i got a bit lazy in the end

Swimming in hot cocoa? Why not☕️✨

Ray Toro appreciation

Making you blush..

Helena

mikey back at the studio. frank back at the studio. frank getting a tattoo by an artist in LA. frank wearing gerard’s ‘revenge of the jedi’ sweatshirt. frank (and mikey) presumably recording in gerard’s home studio,,,,,

brothers and sisters,,,, mcr5 may be coming,,,,

1941core

SCOTLAND FOREVERRR 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🪺

This is a Good Omens 2 Easter egg I've yet to see anyone else point out.

When Aziraphale is in Edinburgh investigating the record mystery, he borrows a cell phone from a Scottish man to call Crowley.

The busted old phone has a Union Jack wallpaper.

Once Crowley hangs up, Aziraphale miraculously repairs the phone to say thank you, as well as putting blessings upon Twitter and Grindr.

The blessed phone also now has a Scottish flag wallpaper! 😇

I interpret this as a pretty clear statement from Neil Gaiman supporting Scottish independence.

Made a video about this for TikTok too.

HE.  There exists a singular subject in that sentence and squidward is not NB.  We are shit-posters but we should try to have standards, damnit!

first of all youre a shit poster im a good poster second squidward isnt the only one underwater on spongebob dumbass

not to mention squidward is nonbinary

so basically, a lotta ppl online like to posture. they want to be badass, cool, the edgy kid - they call themselves things like "freak" or "fagdyke gendertrash scum" etc. and thats fine on its own, im not opposed to edge. BUT. theres a lot of ppl online who want to talk that talk but not walk that walk, and when a trans woman online does something that wouldnt fly in a conservative midwestern town in the USA, they wanna throw her under the bus as fast as they can. because her walking the walk does actually scare them, because theyre just posturing. theyre something worse than edgy: theyre Posers.