Why checking for ticks is now part of our nightly routine
From Mother Earth News, August 31, 2016:
by Michael D’estries
The old nighttime family routine of bath, teeth-brushing and a bedtime story has a new addition: the evening hunt for ticks.
In our household, this daily occurrence during the warmer months involves my wife and me hovering over our two naked children with flashlights, analyzing their skin like alien visitors in search of a tiny black speck that could irrevocably change their lives.
It sucks, it’s exhausting, and it’s the last thing you want to do after a long day. But gone are the innocent days of 20 to 30 years ago when hiking through woods or fields in the Northeast U.S. meant at worst a bee sting or scratched legs. Try it today and you might bring home with you a blacklegged tick — a tiny, near-indestructible arachnid capable of transmitting a cocktail of nasty diseases with one bite. READ MORE.
I have Lyme and don’t even remember seeing a tick. I know people who also have it and the ticks were not only tiny, but they were not black or brown – only slightly darker than the person’s skin. I don’t see how a person could spot all of them on their body.