Tick season is upon us, and it's a little apocalyptic to be honest.
Going for an unsuspecting beautiful summer hike and having little creatures burrow into your skin and cause you harm sounds like the plot of an alien takeover movie.
Tick season is upon us, and it's a little apocalyptic to be honest.
Going for an unsuspecting beautiful summer hike and having little creatures burrow into your skin and cause you harm sounds like the plot of an alien takeover movie.
In most cases, insects look worse than they actually are. However, ticks can cause some serious damage if they aren't removed correctly.
The bite-sized creatures latch onto skin and burrow their bodies beneath it to feed. No thanks.
The biggest to worry about is lyme disease, which currently has no cure. It can be spread to pets and humans—anything that has been bitten by a tick that hosts the disease.
As the CDC explained, for instance, the Lone Star tick located throughout the southern and midwestern United States can transmit the Heartland virus, Ehrlichiosis, and Southern tick-associated rash illness or STARI.
The blacklegged tick of the northeastern and upper midwestern U.S., however, is known to spread Babesiosis, Borrelia mayonii, Borrelia miyamotoi, Powassan disease , and the infamous Lyme disease.
We still skip through fields innocently as if we're Julie Andrews from The Sound of Music.
This doesn't mean you need to stay inside 24/7 and never see the light of day, but just to be a little more diligent than you normally might when hanging around out in the wilderness.
Christal Turner's young son was complaining of itching on his neck.
But after examining him more closely, she made a shocking discovery.
She wants people to understand how difficult it was for her to see the ticks, even when she was looking closely.
"To the unsuspecting eye, they just appear as specks of dirt or freckles."
It's really hard to see the difference.
Especially if you've pulled them off of you or your animal, you'll know they can be pretty easy to spot.
Textbooks really don't do these things justice. Showing the public what these bugs look like in real life in someone's hairline will help them recognize ticks and potentially prevent the spread of lyme disease.
Christal sure knows a lot about ticks. Thankfully, we all have her post as a reference.
Commenters haven't just expressed their fear—they're sharing personal stories as well.
"My husband had one and had to take meds to try to not get lime disease," one person writes.
Seriously. I keep looking back at the photo of the back of her son's head and there is no way I would have been able to tell had he not complained.
"A couple years ago I got very sick and was hospitalized, had several deer ticks on me and you couldn't even see them," another person writes.
Better safe than sorry, especially in this case. Happy tick hunting!