Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 10:47:28 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Elise Kreiss Subject: Tick-related MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have been somewhat blase about ticks, and that is a mistake. By not checking myself carefully enough, I let a deer tick get attached for a period that could have met the 36 hour timeframe after which people get concerned about possible transmission of Lyme Disease. What I didn't know before reading up on it was that the bulls eye rash only occurs in about 80 - 90% of the cases, the early symptoms can be mild enough not to be alarming; and the blood test is believed to be about 30% false negatives! This is a good site for information: http://www.aldf.com/Lyme.asp, but not for the squeamish. Well, the tick and I did more than shake hands because it left a deep rose mark one inch across, and I was running a fever a few days later, so am taking antibiotics. I plan to be more careful checking; maybe even do the socks over the pants leg thing, squirted with bug repellent. Although at this point, wearing a light-colored shower cap on my head when birding (to avoid ticks in the hair) is also starting to seem like a REALLY good idea. . . Elise Kreiss Baltimore, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================