Hey everyone! I'm Amanda Khorramabadi with al.com. Let me start off this video by
saying I hate bugs, and with warmer weather here it feels like we've been
invaded by creepy crawlies. One particularly gross creature I was tasked
with researching for this video is ticks, and just talking about them makes me a
little itchy. The information I found out about these little guys is eye-opening.
Our great state of Alabama is teeming with ticks, and you want to know
something? That really ticks me off, but the good news is we can protect
ourselves from them. Ticks are arachnids, kind of like spiders, and they go through
four life stages: egg, larva, nymph, and adult. After hatching, ticks must eat
blood to survive, so they're basically vampires. To find their host, or who they
suck blood from, ticks wait in a position called questing. They rest on the tips of
grasses and shrubs, and when a host brushes by, they quickly climb aboard.
Then the tick grasps the skin and cuts into the surface. It inserts a feeding
tube and sometimes it even secretes a cement-like substance to keep it firmly
attached. What's even grosser is ticks' saliva has
anesthetic properties so you don't even know it's on you. Then the tick will
suck the host's blood for a few days, and if the host has any blood-borne diseases,
the tick will ingest those pathogens. On the flip side, if the tick has any
pathogens, then the host could get those pathogens, as well. When the tick is full,
it'll drop off, and at its next feeding it can transfer any acquired diseases to
the next host. I interviewed Dr. Pigott, a Professor of
Emergency Medicine at UAB to tell us more about the types of diseases you can
get from ticks. In Alabama, tick borne diseases include things like Rocky
Mountain spotted fever or Lyme disease, although there are a couple of other
illnesses as well. The CDC just released a statement beginning in May that tick
and mosquito-borne diseases in the United States have had a three times
increase in the last 10 or 15 years. So now that you're thoroughly creeped out,
don't worry, I am too, here's what you need to know before you go outdoors. Ticks
live in grassy, brushy, or wooded areas. They could be in your yard, in your
neighborhood, even on your animal. To prevent tick bites, treat your clothing and gear
with 0.5% permethrin. What's really great about this stuff is that it remains
protective even after several washings. And on your body use an Environmental
Protection Agency certified insect repellent, like deet. Once you're back
from the great outdoors, you may accidentally track ticks into your home,
so be sure to check your clothes. They could be on there. You can wash your
clothes in hot water or tumble dry for 10 minutes and that should pretty
effectively get rid of any ticks that are on your clothing. Most importantly,
check yourself before you wreck yourself. Check your body for ticks. I know it
seems obvious but you need to especially check these parts: under the arms, in and
around the ears, inside belly button, back of knees, in and around hair, between your
legs, and around your waist. And finally, if you have the displeasure of finding a
tick on you, remove it immediately. Using a pair of fine tipped tweezers, grasp the
tick as close to the skin as possible. Then pull that nasty creature upward
with a steady even pressure. Make sure you don't twist or jerk the tick, if
you do the mouth parts could break off and remain in the skin. If that happened
to me I couldn't handle it, but you're better than that!
Remove the mouth parts with tweezers and if you can't easily remove them then
just leave it alone and let your skin heal. After the tick removing ordeal is
over, make sure you wash your hands with soap and water. Or be like me and douse
them in rubbing alcohol. Whatever you do, don't crush the tick with your fingers.
Dispose of the nasty bugger by flushing it down the toilet, putting it in alcohol,
or placing it in a sealed bag or container. And even though some of my
co-workers swear by it, avoid burning the tick off, according to the Center of
Disease Control, that's just folklore. By the way, if you develop a rash or fever
several weeks after a tick bite make sure you let your doctor know
immediately. And to go out with a bang, here's a list of ticks in our state and me
trying to pronounce their scientific names. American dog tick, dermacentor variabilis.
Blacklegged tick, lxodes scapularis. Brown dog tick,
this one's really long so I'm gonna read it, Rhipicephalus sanguineus.
Guf Coast tick, Amblyomma maculatum. And the Lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum.
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