lyme disease - deer tick pictures

[Guest guest]

I chanted half of my japa this morning in the lobby outside our doctor's

office, waiting for the doctor to come in and tell me whether the tick I

had crawling around in a closed jar was a dangerous deer tick or some

other kind of tick.

 

My teenage son noticed the tick biting him as he was about to take a

shower this morning, and we did not know whether it was a deer tick,

which causes debilitating lyme disease or some other kind of tick.

 

Anyway, if I had looked at this website first, I could have chanted all

my japa at home, with no interruptions:

 

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/imagegal/ticks/

 

As it turned out, the tick that bit him was just an ordinary tick. It

was about 1/4 inch or 1/2 centimeter long. A deer tick, on the other

hand, is very small -- maybe just .3 centimeter or less than 1/8 inch.

Several photos show the deer ticks next to a dime. You can see that the

tick is only about half as long as the letter "I" in the word "DIME"

that is shown on the coin.

 

So, my son is fine. This is a dangerous year for lyme disease however,

because the dry conditions and big acorn crop from last year favor the

mice that carry the tick and also favor the tick.

 

People are advised to wear ample protective covering over their legs and

feet (no shorts) and to shower soon after coming in from woods or fields

to wash off any ticks that might have crawled on them outdoors.