Ticks!

[Hawkeyewife]

Last night I found the fourth tick on my 6 yr old daughter in the last 10 days! It was a tiny deer tick. We do a check every night after bathtime. She also had one taken off last week at school by the nurse. Has anybody else seen an increase in ticks this year? We live in Southern Maryland.

I feel weird about sending my daughter to school with repellent on everyday but will send her with a bug band to put on her ankle whenever they go outside. She is in school until June 26th and goes back August 12th so I fear this will be an ongoing problem.

I am so annoyed! I have found three of the ticks on her body but one in her hair (which was engorged at the time). She has VERY thick, long hair and the ticks are so tiny... my SIL has Lyme disease which has been devesating to her for about a year now so I may be a little more sensative about this.

I know I will just continue daily tick checks, this is terrible. AHHHHH!

[jgenie]

No advice, but I'll be watching this thread. We're in NY and I'm worried about Lyme too. Where did you find the bug bands?

[Melaine]

I'd also like to know about the bug bands. Hopefully you won't have more to deal with. It is definitely scary!

[DietCokeLover]

My MIL had one on her last week.

I want to know about bug bands too.

[Hawkeyewife]

I found them at Target. They smell like citronella. I am having my daughter put one on her ankle over her socks when she is outside at school. The box says they last 120 hours and there is a container to store it in when not in use. DH and DS went camping this weekend in WVA and I gave them each one to try out in addition to bug spray.

[trales]

Our infectious disease doctor recommended double sided sticky tape at the top of the socks.

[MamaMolly]

Oh my, we are in VA. I'm so glad you posted because DD is old enough to enjoy playing outside and it hadn't even crossed my mind to do a tick check! Thank you so much! Off to mama-monkey my kiddo...

[gatorsmom]

Every year we deal with this. My dad said he found 5-6 ticks on him already this year after going to his hunting shack in central Wisconsin and because of the weather, he's only been there a few times in the past 3 weeks. We went camping there last weekend and i was very vigilant about checking all the kids and combing through their hair looking for ticks but we were really lucky and didn't have any.

I couple of years ago I researched this well and read that the beginnning of the summer you find many more tiny ticks (they can be the size of a fleck of pepper) and as the summer progresses you'll see the larger size ticks. I thought I'd read that some of the smaller ticks are babies which are abundant this time of year. It's true I've seen plenty of the teenzy ticks early in the summer but almost never see them in the middle or late summer.

I don't spray or use anything really on the kids to fight them. I just check them over carefully every night before bed. Please let me know if the bands work!

[star04]

I am in Northern VA (outside of Leesburg), and deer ticks are definitely a problem around here. My MIL and at least 3 of our neighbors have Lyme. I've gotten to the point where I'm afraid to go outside in the grass anymore. I've heard that the DC/NOVA/MD area has had at least twice the number of Lyme cases from 1-2 years ago, with some counties 4X as many cases. We live out in the country and have tons of deer. I just wanna go out and shoot every one of them! (I know mice and other animals can carry them too, but there's no way I could get all of them too!!)


You should keep an eye out for the red bullseye mark where a tick has biten, but I've read you don't even have to have that mark to be infected. If you guys get biten a several times this summer, I would get tested for Lyme maybe at the end of summer just in case. It's easier to treat the sooner you know you have it.


I didn't mean to scare anyone, but Lyme can be very serious, especially when it has affected loved ones. Take care!

[maestramommy]

I have been a bit paranoid about ticks since we moved here. The other day I was asking some moms in my choir about tick repellant (we usually use DEET). One of the mom's DS goes to a montessori that is on the crunchy side, and she said they use citronella. She said while it works pretty well for mosquitos, it doesn't really work for ticks. So to the OP even if you are using the bands, do the tick check every night anyway. Another thing you can try, my ped spends a lot of time outdoors. He sprays his hat with DEET and just wears it when he's gardening or whatever. If you can spray a sun hat for your DD to wear when she's outside, that might at least keep the ticks off the head and out of the hair. From what I read, the stronger the concentration of DEET in the repellant, the longer it lasts. It's actually pretty specific how they've broken down the times that bug repellant is effective.

Other thing is that citronella is not recommended by the AAP for those under 3. I was going to switch once the kids were older, but if it doesn't work for ticks we might just stick with DEET, unless we're just trying to repel mosquitos and black flies, of which we also have PLENTY.