“We've already had a few calls,” said Holly Jordt, public health nurse in Flathead County. “The ticks are definitely out and about.”
Generally, Jordt said, ticks emerge as snows retreat, basking in the warm, moist conditions created as winter's white evaporates.
It can neither fly nor jump, but instead reaches out with its two front legs and quickly crawls onto deer and dog, pet and person.
“They hold onto twigs or grass stems with two of their hind legs; their other legs grasp anything they touch,” according to a notice issued Friday by the Missoula City-County Health Department. “When a person or animal brushes against vegetation, the tick will try to grab onto clothing or hair.”
Tick bites - they feed on blood - can cause a variety of infections, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever, relapsing fever, rabbit fever and Colorado tick fever. While tick-borne diseases can kill, they usually don't. But that's not to say those infected don't sometimes wish they'd died, what with the soaring fevers and rasping joint pain and splitting headaches. Symptoms are remarkably persistent.
For such a tiny animal, health officials agree ticks pack a powerful punch.
To avoid being bitten, experts recommend staying out of the woods.
Barring that, wear light-colored clothing, so the ticks are easier to spot. Tuck shirts into pants, pant legs into socks, and bind them off with a rubber band. Wear long sleeves, a hat or a scarf, and stay on the path, away from the bushes.
And make sure to stop and do a body check every now and then, because ticks tend to crawl around for a few hours before latching on. Bring a friend, and pick each other over every once in a while. And when you're back home, strip down for an all-body examination.
If you live in the woods, move that picnic table away from the brush line, and cut back the brush near the kids' sandbox. Groom the dog with extra care and don't feed the deer, because that brings them closer to home and deer carry ticks.
In fact, state health officials report increasing numbers of ticks in town these days, due to increasing numbers of urban deer.
If you want to know if your neck of the woods is infected, place a few pieces of light-colored cloth across some likely bushes, and come back in 20 minutes to see if anything's crawling around.
Some folks like to spray their skin with deterrents such as DEET, or better still, their clothing with chemicals such as permethrin. Both are proven effective, as are flea collars for pets. But both are also poisons, and should be used with care.
Of course, ticks are nothing if not tenacious. If one still manages to crawl through your defenses and actually attach, health officials say to pluck it out slowly and carefully with tweezers or forceps. The old techniques of match heads or Vaseline don't work, nurses say, so don't bother.
Once the bloodsucker's out, clean the bite site and apply an antiseptic. Keep the tick in a plastic baggie, just in case the lab should need it.
Usually, a tick bite is nothing more than a mild irritant, but some ticks do carry disease, both bacterial and viral. Most tick-borne diseases show up within about a week of the bite.
“Ticks have become active,” Todd Damrow, state epidemiologist, said in a written statement. “They are out feeding now.”
And you could be the next meal, until the heat of July's summer sun finally drives the parasites off.
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com
Ticked off?
Call the public health department in Missoula County at 258-3896; in Flathead County at 751-8100; in Lake County at 883-7288; in Mineral County at 822-3564; in Sanders County at 827-6931; in Ravalli County at 375-6268. The state Communicable Disease Bureau can be reached in Helena at 444-0273.
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