This Season, In My Body: Looking For Ticks

And a PSA of sorts

I’m doing an extra free essay this month because this feels really pertinent to this season. I want you to be safe! This may turn into a bit of a series, exploring the season through my bodily experience. But we’ll see!

We need to talk about the ticks.

I know a lot of you are nature-loving people who will be spending lots of time outdoors this season. I want you all to be safe and I have a good reason for being concerned.

I was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2019, after ten years of crummy health. Whether I had Lyme disease all that time is something I can never know. I did play in the woods of Maine and Pennsylvania from age eleven onwards and we seldom sprayed for more than mosquitoes or did tick checks. So it’s possible. My husband also worked in environmental science at the time I was diagnosed and may have brought a tick home with him. During a bout of fieldwork in April, he was picking them off himself by the dozens (*shiver*). Lyme disease is so common among the environmental scientist he worked with that some of them had stocks of antibiotics just in case.

While I may not know how or when I got it, I do know that delayed treatment of the Lyme infection and five weeks of doxycycline (the best antibiotic we have for treating Lyme right now) brought on three horrible years of severe chronic illness.

I don’t want that for you or anyone. Or to have to go through that again myself.

Ticks carrying Lyme and other co-infections are all over the world. There are ticks carrying disease in Antarctica!¹ I’ve read about ticks being found in cities and on beaches (warm places). My husband and I have both gotten ticks on us in our suburban neighborhood. I got a dog tick on my sock in March just from bringing in the garbage cans.

There are many kinds of ticks. I recommend reading up on what kinds may be in your area and what infections they might carry.² This can help you understand what to look out for in terms of risky environments and possible symptoms. Also, acquaint yourself with the size of the ticks you might see.³

A note on the bulls-eye rash myth. Not having a bulls-eye rash does not mean you haven’t been infected. I’m sorry. I wish that was a sure sign. Lyme is tricksier than that. I’ve seen varying estimates, but something like less than fifty percent of people who are infected present with a rash. I never had one and I know I had Lyme disease. (I didn’t have flu like symptoms either.) If you get a bulls-eye rash it can also take two or more days for it to develop. Please don’t wait that long to get treatment! The Lyme spirochetes quickly replicate and settle into the body quickly. Waste no time in eradicating them.

Also, please don’t think you can use herbal treatments alone. I’m a fan of herbal approaches and I will never go that route. Lyme is nothing to mess around with.

A concern here is our rising temps and, in my area, our disappearing winters. The temps don’t get low enough anymore. Where I am, we had no snow and no extended period of cold this winter. Deep cold would kill (some) ticks who are overwintering. This is not happening, and so the tick population is increased this year.

So now, Lyme symptom free (knock on wood), I check for ticks all day long.

Really. All day. If I go outside to take the compost out, I check for ticks before I come back in. I have it easy because I can do a quick glance over my very pale legs. If I’m hiking or walking, I stop along the trail and do a quick once over for them on my shoes and pants. In the evening, I more thoroughly check all of my skin regardless of how far afield I went that day. My legs, my back, my arms, all the little creases, then run my fingers over my scalp.

But this feels less and less like a chore. I’m actually starting to see the beauty in it. I recently saw a florist who lives in the woods of Canada say she appreciated how her daily tick checks were increasing her intimacy with her body.⁴ Yes, exactly.

My many, daily tick checks make me stop to consider my body. In the past, I have gone days without really stopping to have awareness or appreciation for my body. My calves, my thighs, the part of my hair. Run my hands over my skin. Checking for ticks makes me stop and feel into it. Stop and connect. Hello, skin on my calves. Oh, you’re feeling a bit dry. Hello, back of my arm. Doing this over and over changes you. It changes how you relate to this form you’re in.

Or, at least, it’s changed me.

This is just part of this season. There’s nothing to be gained from ignoring it and, in fact, you could miss out on an opportunity if you don’t.

After I was diagnosed with Lyme I wondered if I would ever feel comfortable going to the woods and fields again. It took time but I do. Now, I still gasp and curse when I see a tick. But they don’t stop me from going outside.

Increased cases of Lyme and co-infections are humans’ fault. Really, the ticks be ticking. The Lyme has been around for roughly 5,300.⁵ But we have invaded and pillaged natural, sacred spaces, displacing wildlife, raising the planetary temperatures. In our disconnection from the more-than-human world, we upset a balance. We’re not going to solve this issue by avoidance and further disconnection.

So get out there! Safely!

Here we are, in the era of Lyme, in the season of increased tick activity. And here we are in a time when checking for ticks can maybe help bring us home to ourselves.

What I do for tick prevention:

💧Spray with Cedarcide frequently. I’ll spray even if I’m going around our neighborhood or walking downtown. Cedarcide can be applied to the skin and, honestly, it’s my favorite perfume.⁶ My husband and I spray our shoes, hats, and up to our knees at least. Sometimes, if we’re going hiking, I’ll spray a bandana to tie around my neck too.

🌲If we’re going in the deep woods, we’ll spray with Picaridin and we’ll coat a pair of pants, boots and a hat with Pyrethrin.

🧢Wear hats. All the time. A dear friend recently got a tick bite on her scalp and this has reaffirmed my commitment to hats. Baseball caps are easiest but I do also like a hat with a brim since it feels like a shield for my neck. Bonus points, as mentioned above, spray hat with repellent, even a bit of Cedarcide.

🫶Frequent tick checks. As I said, I try to check each time I’ve been outside, however briefly. If I’m walking or hiking, I pause and check for ticks on my shoes, hats and clothes. My husband and I check each other thoroughly at the end of a hike—yes, I’m talking stripping down naked. Good old fashion bonding, as Erin Holt says.⁷

🧦The sock tuck thing. I recently added this in after my husband walked through a tick nest and got a couple suckers up his pants legs. (None of them bit him.) It’s the classic, tick-avoidance look. Tuck the end of your pant leg into your socks. Ticks cannot enter. It’s so glamorous. Everyone will envy your style.

⚪Wearing light colored clothing. Sometimes we do this but black leggings are too comfy not to wear on a hike.

⛰️Take care of my microbiome—my “terrain”—so that my body is able to fend off pathogens of all kinds as best it can.

🩹The goal is to not get bitten but if we do then we want to know that asap so we can start treatment asap.⁸

📖Also I highly recommend Stephen Harrod Buhner’s Healing Lyme if you have been bitten, think you might ever be bitten or are currently battling a Lyme infection. Be sure to get the newer edition.

⚪ Do you have tick prevention tips?

⚪ Tick bite stories? Lyme stories?

⚪ Unexpected things that have brought you bodily awareness?

Please share them! 🖋️

1. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-011-1000-7

2. https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/geographic_distribution.html

3. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/image?imageKey=ID%2F68309

4. Leah Gibson of Homebody Floral and impeccable fashion choices: https://www.homebodyfloral.ca

5. It is not, as someone once told whilst I was in the thick of Lyme disease, a manufactured bio weapon. https://vetmed.illinois.edu/i-tick/2020/06/07/tattle-talks-whos-older-humans-or-lyme-disease/#:~:text=According%20to%20Oregon%20State%20University,in%20the%20Italian%20Alps!).

6. I was out walking with a friend recently and then suddenly started looking around, trying to figure out why they were smelling evergreens. There were no evergreens around. Then they said, “Why does it smell like a cedar chest here?” And I realize: I was the cedar chest. I had a heavy coating of Cedarcide—main ingredient, cedar oil—on my hat and legs.

7. https://www.thefunktionalnutritionist.com/podcast/62-lyme-prevention-gut-health?rq=Tick

8. In case you’re wondering what we do if we do get bitten: We remove the tick properly, by using a tick remover. We do not apply rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide to the tick before removing, as I grew up doing! This will freak the tick out and that’s not going to help anything. After, we apply Andrographis tincture (we like HerbPharm). Then we get doxycycline asap. If we catch it within 24-48 hours we only do two doses. Concurrently, take a good quality probiotics. We get Resveratrol in our systems asap too—I prefer straight Japanese knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum) powder in a bit of blueberry juice but my husband likes Gaia’s product. Please also know that many doctors do not understand Lyme disease. Read up on the subject and try to find one that is. If you plan to get tested, make sure that you get both the Western Blot and the ALIZA.