Tick Bite Prevention and Care w/ Andy Wood

If you’ve been outside on a trail, field, or wooded area for work or for recreation this spring or summer, chances are, you someone you were with had a tick on them. Ticks live in grassy, brushy, or wooded spaces, or on animals themselves and can carry germs that can cause serious and sometimes fatal disease.  While not all ticks are dangerous to humans, there are a few that can make you or your pet sick. There are currently no vaccines to prevent tickborne disease in the United States, so avoiding tick bites is the best way to protect yourself. On this Episode of the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast, I talk with Andy Wood, Safety Management Consultant for our Forest Products Programs here at MEMIC. Together we will dig into tick history, their life cycle, how to identify them, and the best ways to prevent tick bites.    Peter Koch: Hello, listeners, and welcome to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast. I'm your host, Peter Koch. It's open season. And what are we hunting? Well, it might actually be the other way around. Something is hunting us or at least trying to use us for a free meal. If you've been outdoors on a trail field or a wooded area for work or recreation, the spring or summer chances are you or someone you were with had a tick on them. Ticks can carry germs that can cause serious and sometimes fatal disease. While not all ticks are dangerous to humans, there are few that can make you or your pet really sick. Ticks live in grassy, bushy or wooded spaces or on animals themselves. So being outdoors in those areas can bring you in close contact with them. There are currently no vaccines to prevent tick borne disease in the United States. So avoiding tick bites is the best way to protect yourself on the line with me [00:01:00] today. To dig into tick history, identification and safety is Andy Wood, safety management consultant for our forest products programs here at MEMIC. Andy, welcome to the podcast. Andy Wood: Well, thanks, Pete. Thanks for having me. And I look forward to our conversation here. I've spent a lot of time in the woods and, you know, ticks have been a prevalent issue for since my pretty much my entire career in the woods. Peter Koch: Yeah, for sure. And I know in our history here, going back and thinking about all the work that we've done together when we're out doing chainsaw training for our different accounts, it's one of the things that we have to pay a lot of attention to. And almost every time, depending on the state that we're in, we'll find at least one if not on us, we'll find one on one of the participants. So it's definitely prevalent. And it is a it's a topic, a timely topic for this time of year. So before we get going. Did you have anything to add to that brief history of ticks that I just gave? I know you were talking a little bit about some  [00:02:00]interesting facts that you dug up when we were doing some research on this. So I just want to give you an opportunity if anything fits in. Andy Wood: Sure Pete. You know, it's a relatively new disease that we talk about. And we've had trouble diagnosing it for a while because people aren't so familiar with it. But actually, it goes back a long ways. The bacteria that causes Lyme disease was recently identified in amber. OK, so Amber is the fossilized sap from conifer trees going back fifteen million years. So before the humans walked on Earth, there was a bacteria that generated Lyme disease. And the first human case of Lyme disease that I could come up with was from a fella called Ötzi, who is the you might remember the iceman that was discovered in the Italian Alps in the 90s. Let's see. Was murdered in the Italian Alps and was left up there, covered over in the glacier and through global warming [00:03:00] and glacier movement was exposed and was discovered by a couple of hikers in the 90s. And with the all the research that we can do today and, you know, taking apart the DNA of people, they discovered that he actually had Lyme disease. So it's really been around a long time. There's quite a history, although it's just become prevalent, you know, here in the States. We're just dealing with this in the last, you know, 20, 30 years. Peter Koch: Yeah, really. I mean, growing up and I'm from Connecticut, which is really sort of the epicenter of Lyme disease itself. But growing up, I never really talked to. We never really talked about ticks. Well, you know, 50 years ago when I was grown up in Connecticut. So it just seems like it's this brand new disease. But really, evidence shows that Lyme disease and then ticks go back millions of years. So they've been around. They've kind of been partnering with us. I guess you could say for a long time. So let's talk about the ticks [00:04:00] themselves. Then we'll get to some of the diseases that they transmit later on. But I think it's important for us to be able to know that there's not just one type of tick out there and tick identification is important, especially if you get one on you or if it bites you so that you know what you might be at risk for. So let's talk about the different or the common types of ticks that there are. And then we can focus on the ones that are most prevalent here on the East Coast. So can you take us through some of the different types of ticks that we can see. Andy Wood: You know, sticking to the East Coast we really have 15 ticks that are, you know, very common, have established populations. And researchers say that eleven of them have very little impact on humans. For example, in Maine, we have the moose tick, which is killing moose. They call it the winter tick or the moose tick. And it is killing most currently in northern Maine, but has no impact. It's not a Lyme disease. It doesn't have any impact [00:05:00] on humans. And I'm sure other states would have similar situations. So we really have as far as the ones that are impacting humans and vectors for human borne diseases, we have the woodchuck tick, which isn't as is common. That tick carries Powassan, in which we've heard a little bit about recently, the dog tick, the American dog tick, probably a little more common. Keri's Rocky Mountain spotted fever. And again, you know, in the northeast, not really huge, but, you know, nationwide, that is an issue and that's a very serious disease. Newer entry to the northeast market is the Lone Star tick and the Lone Star tick is, you know, its claim to fame, I guess, is that it's the tech that generates the allergy to red meat, which people might have heard about relatively new. And then probably the big one, the most common tick is the black legged tick or the deer tick. People call it either one. And that is pretty much goes a little bit from the little [00:06:00] west of the Mississippi, going up north and south all the way to the east coast. And that is the carrier of actually all those anaplasmosis, babesiosis, Powassan and the Lyme disease, the one that we haven't really the biggest problem with right now. Peter Koch: Wow. So how would you identify? I mean, I understand this is a podcast, but what are some of the common characteristics of, like, the Lone Star tick, the dog tick or the woodchuck tick? And how would you be able to differentiate those between themselves. Andy Wood: Depending on their lifecycle as a larval or nymph, you really won't be able to see them anyways. They're so small. You know, the black legged tick as a nymph is the size of US poppy seed. So it's pretty tough to pick up any markings unless you're in a tick lab. So first, I would encourage folks to save the tech and send it to a lab if they have one. And most of the states, I think, have some active tick programs that they can identify those. So your [00:07:00] only chance would be identify the adult ticks so the black legged tick its legs are black it's head is black look at it from the from the top down and it's black. It's got kind of a black shield, they call it down, coming down from its head to the back. Most of the body in the back is more of a brownish or sometimes even a little bit of a reddish color. So that's a distinctive color tradition in the black. Coming down from the from the from the head, the Lone Star tick in the adult form is more of a brown tick. And it has a spot right in the middle of its back, a whitish spot, a very light color that's usually disconnected from the rest of the body. So it's a it's a it's an independent light coloring in the middle as opposed to the dog tick, which is also a bit of a brown or tick. And it has colors that start right at the head and that's little bit striped. And then it has a white spot as well, [00:08:00] but it's connected to the back of the head. It's not so standalone as the Lone Star is. And the Woodchuck Tick is has a similar color pattern to the black legged tick. It's the rest of the body is not as black. The legs and the head and the back of the head and the neck are not as dark, but it's kind of a little bit darker of a brown and then a lighter brown across the back. So you really need to get a tick. You know, if you get online, the CDC, Center for Disease Control, you know, have some good photos and an I.D. information so you can see the differences in color Peter Koch: They are hard to see I mean, we're only talking about something that's maybe half the size of a dime from leg to leg when they're an adult or even smaller before they've embedded or after they've bitten you. So I guess some of the things that I'm hearing differentiation. So leg color and the black legged tick for sure. And then body color, like you said, the black legged tick has a black head [00:09:00] and a black spot behind its head that connects to its head. And then the rest of the body is brown. And then the other two ticks, brown legs. So that's a good differentiator. So if you get one with black legs, you know, pretty close that it's going to be a black legged tick because the other ticks that you described have brown legs and then they're really distinctive white spot or light colored spot in the middle of the back. Disconnected from the head for the Lone Star tick. The other tick there with the woodchuck tick. Is that the one that you went to next or. Andy Wood: The dog tick has the connected colors that start right at the head and stripe down the back. Peter Koch: So it's good to know. Especially if your going to be out in the woods. You should be familiar with the well one where they are. We'll talk about Habitat in Life-cycle next, but be able to identify them because certainly as some ticks are more dangerous to humans than others. So you really need to know. And if you're going to be working in the outdoors or if you're going to be [00:10:00] recreating in the outdoors, you should know. So identify and you brought up some good points there. Go to the CDC or go online. There's a lot of information out there, both at the state and the federal level that could give you some good information about how to identify the tick when they're in their adult stage. So I think that's a good transition. Let's talk a little bit about the lifecycle and what the lifecycle of the tick is and where their habitats might be. Andy Wood: Sure, the lifecycle is kind of an interesting lifecycle that ticks. The ticks have. Depending on which one, two or three year lifecycle our black legged tick our most prevalent tick and our most hazardous, I guess, to our human population has a two year lifecycle. So they start their life in the leaf litter, usually in the forest floor or in the grasses close in the ground. And the eggs would have been laid in the spring and they will hatch out in [00:11:00] the in the larval form. Now, the larval form, the nymph form and the adult form, they look like ticks in each of the forms in the larval form. It's not like a caterpillar or worm or anything different. They look like a tick through the whole life. The only difference being in their larval form, they'll have six legs. And then when they molt into their nymph form, they get the eight legs so they can hang onto branches and quest in the beginning. They'll hatch and they'll be in the leaf litter in the brush. And they're going to have to get their first meal. They're going to quest. So when I say Quest, the way that they're going to Quest is they're basically going to climb up to the highest thing they can because the larval form are so small, they don't climb very high. So they're basically going to call up on that on a leaf. So if you walk through the force and the leaf layer, they're going to be on the tops of the leaves, hanging on with their back feet and just reaching out with their front feet, hoping something walks by that they can grab. So [00:12:00] obviously, a lot of, you know, a leaf layer, they're going to be in brush piles and things like that. They're going to be close to the ground. OK. So each of their lifestyle. Each of their life segments. The back legged tick has four stages, you know, eggs, larval, nymph, and adult in three of the stages. You know, once they're out of the eggs, each of the stages needs a blood meal to live and then move on to the next stage. So the blood meal in the larval stage is going to come from animals that are right close to the ground. The most common would be the white footed mouse. So mice are running around the ground and also they have nests in the ground. So the larva might move into a nest where there's, you know, there's young mice they'll attach to chipmunks and shrews and birds and other things. But generally, things are going to be right close to the ground. Those ticks in that form are going to be in the leaf layer or short grass detach under their first. Now, at this point in their life, it's interesting to note they do not have the pathogen for Lyme disease. They're pretty much sterile at that point. So if you get happened to get bitten by [00:13:00] a larval form, there's no hazard because they carry no pathogens for Lyme. So they first have to attach themselves to a host that is infected. The white footed mouse can carry Lyme disease, can't bite you, but it can pass it to the larva, which would then carry that into its next stage of life when it will turn around and then bite the humans. Peter Koch: How big are the ticks at the larval stage, Andy? So how large are they? We're looking at the difference between, say, a larval tick and a nymph and adult tick. How big is that larval stage for that black legged tick? Andy Wood: The nymph stage is usually considered the size of a poppy seed, something that most people are familiar with. A lot of them will only be half of that. You're talking something that is half a poppy. Yeah. So it's hard to even see them  if they attached you in a larval stage. Peter Koch: So it would almost be like a like a freckle. Like you might have a tiny freckle on you someplace. And yeah. You know what, I've heard [00:14:00] that before. If you're walking through the woods and you get back to your car or you're working out of doors and you've got a freckle that wasn't there before, or if the freckle moves that it's probably a tick and they need to go. Andy Wood: Yeah. So they're going to and they will they'll have a blood meal and they'll be attached for a certain period time, which we'll talk a little bit more about, and then they'll fall off and they'll go back in the leaf litter and they'll spend the rest of the summer, the fall in the winter and the leaf litter. And then in the spring, they will molt and come out as a nymph. Now they have a leg so they can climb, they're a little bigger and they can climb a little better. So they're going to be in areas with tall grass and bushes. So they're going to be up a little higher when ticks attached to people ticks don't jump, fly or fall out of trees. They're always coming from the ground up and they need to be in the ground because they need to have that really high humidity, high moisture content to survive on a hot day. They can climb up a piece of grass to quest and look for a host. But if it's a hot, dry day, they've got to go back down on the ground [00:15:00] to re moisturize or they will dry out and die. So as a nymph, it'll have the eight legs and it'll be in the early part of the spring. It'll be in the leaf litter in the ground. And then as things warm up, it will it'll come out and it can start questing and it can go a little bit higher. It'll be in tall grasses and bushes then and more apt to attach to a host that's a little bit bigger. A fox, a deer or a person. At this point, if it had a host that was infected with the Lyme pathogen as a nymph, now it can it could be carrying the pathogen for Lyme. So the question is always, well, how many ticks are infected? And a recent study in Maine showed that they're averaging about 40 percent of the ticks that were tested were carrying alive the pathogen for Lyme disease in some counties, up to 50 percent. But statewide, it was about 40 percent of the ticks were carrying Lyme disease. Peter Koch: Wow. And that's all [00:16:00] for the nymph or adult stage, correct? Andy Wood: Nymph through adult. Yeah. So they are so up. The 40 percent were infected when they had their first blood meal on an infected host. Peter Koch: Alright. Andy Wood: We're at the nymph stage. We're going to attach to another host, have another blood meal. We're going to fall off. Go back into the leaf litter. Spend a little bit more time before the end of the year. We're going to molt into an adult. And then the adults are going to do the same thing that adults are the ones that in the fall. Sometimes some of the chart will show a little bit of a spike in the tick activity in the fall. And that would be the adults after they come out of the leaf litter, they're going to do the same thing. They're going to quest they're going to have one blood meal. And again, they're going to be on the bigger hosts. This is when they get on the moose and the deer and again, the humans and something like a deer is a great host. They're so big, dominate a lot of ticks that Lyme disease has no effect on the deer at all. [00:17:00] So it doesn't really bother the deer other than having the you know, the ticks bite them and extract a certain amount of blood. They're going to fall off that host. They're going to go into the leaf layer. And then in the spring, they're going to lay eggs. And in the spring, those eggs then if they survive, the winter will hatch and start the life cycle again the following spring. Peter Koch: So when during the year are the most active and when are our people most at risk of being bitten by an infected tick? Peter Koch: So as far as time of the year, ticks are active anytime the temperatures above freezing, I was in Vermont last winter in late February. We had a tick, came on the dog on one of the dogs. So a warm spell, you know, it got above freezing and they were active. But generally, it's going to be the early part of the spring. The nymphs are going to be out. And [00:18:00] then in the fall, there's going to be kind of a second little bit of a spike when the adults are out. So a little bit earlier on and of course, in the middle of summer, it's also the driest part. That's a problem for the ticks. Again, they need a lot of moisture and it gets too dry. They don't do well. So as far as time a year, early in the spring with the nymphs and in the fall with the adults, both at that point in their cycle, both could be carrying the Lyme pathogen. Peter Koch: Very good. So it's really good to start paying attention during those times of year and really to maybe educate yourself a little bit more. And as an employer, maybe in the early spring or at the end of the winter, start thinking about maybe doing some education for your staff, about ticks and environments and what to do for prevention, which we'll get to some of that as we move through this a little bit farther. Andy Wood: Sure, people are most active in their yards in the spring, right? gardening, winter clean up and all the rest of that. So. Peter Koch: Yeah, And if they're coming out in the in the spring and they stay in the [00:19:00] leaf litter, I mean, that's what most of us are taking care of any leaves that haven't been picked up from the fall through the winter. You're trying to disturb that leaf litter and pick it up and maybe move it to compost at some point in time in that the spring and summer time frame. So. Yeah. Most at risk for maybe a larval connection or even the nymphs at that point in time because they're going to be in the taller grass. Andy Wood: Interesting. Pete, with the leaf litter at my house. I live in central Maine. I've never had a tic problem. Here, I've never had a tic on myself or the dogs. This spring I raked up the leaf pile. Didn't get it taken care of. Went out probably three weeks later to clean it up. Came back in that night, had four ticks. Peter Koch: No kidding. Andy Wood: So just a direct correlation to what we just talked about. We had a leaf pile, got ticks into it, got ticks infested it, and then I went out a little bit later. Take care of. And they ended up on me. Sure. Peter Koch: So we've talked some about their life [00:20:00] cycle. We've talked about when they can become carriers of the disease and certainly at the larval stage, right after they hatch, they're not born with the disease. So they have to have a blood meal from a host that's infected at the larval stage or the nymph stage in order to become infected with Lyme disease. So let's talk a little bit about transmission. It's not an instantaneous thing like a mosquito. Mosquito bites you and you're going to get a reaction from that right away. But with ticks, it's a little bit different. It's not an instantaneous transmission of the disease from the tick to the host, is it? How do how does the tick transmit the disease when they bite something? Andy Wood: Interesting to note that most ticks don't make it through the questing process, so most ticks just die. They never complete their lifecycle because it's just standing on a leaf. Well, you're holding their hands out hoping something walks around that [00:21:00] you can latch onto as is free. Unless you're in a place where there's a lot of people or a lot of animals, it's pretty tough. Peter Koch: it's a rough life. Andy Wood: It is, So luckily for us, most of the ticks don't make it through the lifecycle.  They are not successful questers. So they don't get attached. So the tick is going to get on your body and it's going to crawl around to find a good place to for blood meal. They like soft warm soft skin, moist skin. They're going to crawl around on your pants or on your boots and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. But they're going to just be crawling until they get on your skin and then they're going to look for a kind of a hiding place, like behind your legs or behind your ears or, you know, in your armpits. It's dark. It seems to be quiet in there. There's lots of moisture, a good place for them to settle in. And they're going to attach themselves. You know, they can crawl out around on you for hours before they find a place they're going to attach. And they're going to they're going to grab [00:22:00] on. But it is going to be a while before they start feeding. Now, depending on the studies you see, 24, 36 hours, there are going to be attached at one spot before they actually start taking on a blood meal. It is kind of interesting the way that works. They're going to slice a little hole in your skin and they're going to insert their feeding tube. Their technology is unbelievable. They're going to insert an anticoagulant so the blood doesn't gel on them. They're going to insert an analgesic so that you don't feel the pain of them being there. So you usually have no idea they're there. a human analgesic and they're going to have a secrete, a glue that helps stick them into the your skin. So kind of if you think of that, that's superglue for skin. they're starting to use it at The doctors, same kind of stuff. They have that so that when you try and pull them out, not only do does their feeding tube have barbs on it, but it's also glued in after it's been there for a while. So really important, if you can get it, if you can find the ticks before all that happens, you can usually scoop [00:23:00] them off pretty easy. But once they've gone through that, the barbs are in the glues in, you know, it's really tough to pull them off. So at that point, they may stay attached for 24, 36 hours before they start their blood meal. You know, an adult female may attach and drop right off to go lay eggs. And the male might stay attached for a few days and just take multiple meals so that does take a while. But if you think about if you've ever tried to pull a porcupine quill out of your dog's face, you know, you think, yeah, I've had them on the tailgate of my truck laying down and I can't even hang onto the quill. I have to go and get the vice grips and I'm pulling on. The dog's head is getting snap. I'm thinking, how can that quill be stuck in there so hard? If you tried to pull out ticks, it's really the same thing. Sometimes those little barbs and that glue gets in there and it's really tough to pull them out. Peter Koch: Yeah. And we'll talk about how to do that here as we get into the prevention part. So it takes a while for them to get attached. [00:24:00] So obviously, if you feel that that freckle crawling, you should know it's the best time to get them off of you. But even then, you know, if you do have one in and it starts to become embedded, you do have a little bit of time before they start taking the blood meal. Does the tick transmit immediately the disease once it starts taking the blood meal, or does something else have to happen for the disease to be transmitted? Andy Wood: Once they insert the feeding tube they can glue themselves in and they can put the anticoagulant, but generally until they start feeding. So it's really considered to be that 24, 36 hours before the Lyme vector is actually going to come out of their gut during the feeding process. That's going to infect you. So time is of the essence if you can get them, you know, fairly quickly every day when you come home from work. Do that tick check. You know, you can  usually head off to the Lyme disease. Peter Koch: And you said that the Lyme disease itself [00:25:00] lives in the gut of the tick, too, so that'll come up later on. We start talking about how to take get an embedded tick out. It makes a difference of how you latch onto that tick in order to prevent the accidental transmission if they haven't started taking the blood meal for that disease. So we get into that later, too. So we'll keep that in mind as we go. Let's talk a little bit about Lyme disease and the symptoms of infection, because you hear about it often people have Lyme disease. I have some good friends. One of my friends is in their 70s now and has had Lyme disease for the last 20 years, and it has really significantly affected him. He's an amazing woodworker, a wood turner, and he loves the work in his woodshop. He used to, you know, on his days off from the job as a carpenter. He would spend all weekend in the woodshop, building guitars, building boats, turning lampshades out of logs, [00:26:00] just an amazing turner. Now he's unable to spend more than maybe an hour or two in the shop at a time before he gets either exhausted or he's in too much pain to do the things that he loves. And that all happened from a tick bite that really went not only unnoticed, but then untreated and then misdiagnosed. And then finally properly diagnosed. But by that time, it was it was too late. And he's you know, he suffered with Lyme disease for quite a while. And then I have some younger friends that, with kids that have had Lyme disease fairly recently. Once you've been bitten and the tick transmits the disease, Lyme disease to you, what are the symptoms? What are the early symptoms? And then what happens to those symptoms and what are some of the later symptoms that then that might happen? Andy Wood: Sure. So any time you get bitten by an insect, there's probably going to be a just a minor [00:27:00] infection at the site of the bite. Same as if you get a little splinter in your finger or something. There's going to be a little minor, you know, maybe swelling or just a little soreness so that may have nothing to do with Lyme disease. You might have just gotten you know, it's just from the infection of the bite and nothing will probably happen right off. It can take several days like the rash that people commonly look for that can take from three to 30 days before it shows up. Peter Koch: Wow. That long. So you really need to pay attention too, especially if you do find a tick on you and it's been embedded. It's not just one of those instantaneous things. Oh, there's nothing there. I don't have to pay attention to it anymore. You really should keep looking at that site for a while. Correct. Andy Wood: You need to be vigilant for a while. Yeah. And because the symptoms, you know, they vary a lot from person to person and they, you know, up to 30 days just for the rash. And who gets the rash? Well, depending on the study, from 60 to 80 percent of the people will exhibit the rash. Some people never get the rash. So the rash itself isn't the only [00:28:00] thing you really need to look for other symptoms, you may get the rash a few days later. It could be several days, could be a month. Fevers and chills, you may start to feel. Fever, hot and cold, aches and pains in your body. They'll start out just as maybe minor aches and pains like you had a rough day at work. Think nothing of it. They'll get progressively worse to the point where it'll start in your bigger joints. You know, it'll start to feel our arthritic almost and the joints may even swell as things progress. Fatigue will be another one. People who have had Lyme’s that went undiagnosed were often diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome because that was their prominent symptom was just the continuous fatigue. They didn't ever had that rash. they didn't associated with a tick bite. But they were tired all the time. So aches and pains the fatigue. Some people will have swollen lymph nodes as well, and that could start again several days out, or it could be quite a while. So headaches are another one. And then, just like I mentioned, just veins muscles [00:29:00] and joints overall. So the light can progress and a lot of different ways it can be, you know, exhibit itself. Peter Koch: I've heard this, too, that the symptoms will sometimes appear like you might miss the rash or you might not get the rash and then you might have flu like symptoms, but then they'll go away. They'll subside for awhile. But that doesn't mean that the disease is gone. It just means that it's in a different stage or maybe dormant. And well, what happens if it progresses beyond the achy kind of flu like symptoms and swollen lymph nodes? Andy Wood: If you don't identify the issue, though, and get a treatment, that's that cycle of aches and pains and headaches and fatigue that can go on for quite a while. And one of the big problems when we had Lyme and ticks in the late 70s and through the 80s, we didn't know what the problem was. We hadn't really identified it. The conditions would get worse if it's not identified and be it early on, they can actually lead to, you know, neurological disease, heart disease, brain [00:30:00] issues and death. And it did in its early days. Now, usually we get a diagnosis before it gets to that. But in the early days, there was a lot of suffering going on by a lot of folks before people finally made the connection between what their symptoms were and the fact that it came from, you know, a tick bite. I had a I had a logger I worked with and he was recovering from cancer. He had been treated successfully with cancer. And he started feeling fatigued and achy and pains. And they said, oh, that's because of all the cancer treatment you've had, you know, last year. That's going to linger on for a long time. Well, little did he know that he was actually getting Lyme disease and it was put off and put off, all these being attributed to his cancer treatment. And it was a he was severely incapacitated when they finally put two and two together and figured out that, no, it wasn't leftover cancer treatment issues, it was actually Lyme disease developing further and further. And the further it gets, the more serious it gets. Peter Koch: Yeah, and I think one of the keys or key takeaways from this is for you, the individual. [00:31:00] If you're starting to feel symptoms like this and your you know, you can connect it back to the tick. You should make sure you telling your doctor those things, because a lot of the symptoms that you've described can be anything. They could be the flu. It could be another illness, a seasonal illness even that's coming through. And it's going to present itself not like a tick bite, especially if the rash isn't there or you missed the rash goes it goes beyond the rash. So cuing in your doctor that there might have been a tick by may prompt them to explore further and not just treat it as a seasonal illness or a flu. So those are, I think, really good points to take away from this. This part of the conversation, at least. Andy Wood: And if you know, you had a tick bite, if you can identify that tick, I would keep that in the back of my mind. And then, like, as you said, any of those symptoms start to develop, [00:32:00] you know, just tiredness or aches and pains. knowing that you had a deer tick that you definitely, I would want to get treated for that, tested for that fairly soon afterwards. Peter Koch: Yeah, because treatments come a long way as far as you've alluded to. And the sooner that you can get treatment, the higher the potential is for that treatment to be successful. So can you talk a little bit about what some of the available treatments are for someone who has Lyme disease or have been bitten by a tick that is infected with Lyme? Andy Wood: If you have a tick bite? As I mentioned, you could have an infection cleaning the wound site that, you know, regardless of Lyme right up front, you know, antibiotics, triple antibiotic, alcohol, whatever, that's the first thing you'd want to do. But as far as the treatments from the doctor go in the early stages, they would say once you have the disease, you'll never get over it. You can have it treated and you can manage the symptoms, but you're not going to, you know, completely eliminate it. With treatments they have today and the research I did, they actually use the word [00:33:00] complete recovery. So some of the treatments they have now apparently can give you complete recovery. And again, the sooner you get it, the better. The more successful that's going to be. And it's usually antibiotics they're going to give you when they identify that. So it's going to be a series of antibiotics over a certain length of time. They give you to address that. Peter Koch: Good. So, again, early identification is a key part to this and getting to you and your doctor. That might not just be this seasonal illness that you're coming in for, but letting them know that there could be tick involvement, even if you might not have found a tick on you. If you know, you've been in areas that have high infestations of ticks, you've been hiking frequently or often or been doing a lot of yard work and all of a sudden this comes on. It might be a good connection for your doctor, especially if there's no other indication that it could be a different type of illness or disease. Andy Wood: Yeah, I think one of the one of the challenges is because this is a moving target. You know, [00:34:00] when we first got Lyme down in Connecticut, it took us quite a while to figure out what was going on. They figured out what was going on in Connecticut, but they didn't know in Massachusetts. And then they figured out in Massachusetts as their age group, they asked its doctors to it, to that. But then in Maine and Vermont, New Hampshire, they weren't aware of it in Pennsylvania. So as this grows, new doctors need to be educated and need to always think of that worth something they think about. You know, our first case was in 75. If someone went to medical school coming up through the 80s, probably never had any training on tick diseases. It was interesting in the research I came up with what they call an LLMD and at first I thought it was a joke. But it's actually a medical society that certifies LLMD that's Lyme literate medical doctors. Peter Koch: Oh, no kidding. Andy Wood: It's special training to be able to recognize this stuff. So I'm sure in and along the coast and Connecticut and Massachusetts and New Jersey, you know, they're aware of it. But as we get further and further away from where we started, you know, we [00:35:00] had to work to make sure doctors are aware of it. Peter Koch: Yeah. And if you look at a map of the United States and start to look at where the concentrations are, when we talked a lot about Connecticut, Rhode Island, the New England, northern New England area, but really you start looking at it, it's you start looking at it from like Virginia north to Maine and then northern New England into like to the Michigan area. But just about every state has some reported cases of Lyme disease now. So there's a substantial part of it. But, you know, in those states that have few, like some of the a lot of the southern states or the Midwestern states or even the Western states, there might not be a Lyme literate doctor there. They may be misdiagnosing or misunderstanding the symptoms. So, again, taking part of your own medical treatments and bringing as much information as you can to the doctors so that they can make a proper diagnosis. [00:36:00] Those are all really great points. Andy Wood: There's a couple of things at play there. One is that you went to visit another state that has a higher concentration of Lyme disease and were infected there. And you went back to your home state in the Midwest where there is almost no Lyme disease. You get diagnosed there but that doctors never seen it. So that's part of the equation. The other part of the equation is with the global warming, the migration patterns of some of these animals, particularly birds that can carry Lyme disease and carry the ticks themselves. They're going into new places. There may not be an established population that lives through. It's entire two or three year lifecycle there. But a flock of, you know, Canadian geese can come into the mountains of Maine. And for the next several months, there'll be ticks all over the place of a tick. What we don't normally have, like the Rocky Mountain spotted fever, we don't see much. There could be people are seeing it all the time. Well we have these well if just once short piece of their lifecycle, they might stay and eventually establish a population, but they might not be there [00:37:00] permanently at that point. So the migration patterns are part of that as well. Peter Koch: Right. So let's talk now about prevention. And, you know, we talked about treatment. We've talked about where the ticks are. We've talked about how to identify the ticks. And obviously, if you find one on you, we'll talk about how to take them off or remove them if you find one on you to get rid of it right away, is best. But even better, if you can prevent the tick from being on you in the first place, then you really don't have to worry about it that much. So let's talk a little bit about some of the prevention strategies that are out there, either for maybe a homeowner or a business owner, or if you don't own the land, what can you do to help protect yourself personally from getting a tick bite? Andy Wood: The first would be, you know, about the whole tick habitat thing. You know, you can spend a little bit of time walking around at work or your own personal property, decide where you think the ticks are going to be the greatest. And [00:38:00] you can just avoid that. Or if there's a chance you can eliminate that, that's always a good option. Well, I work with a lot of landscapers and tree service companies. And one of the services that are really hot the last few years are spraying for ticks. So they do have ticks that they can spray on the land that are very environmentally sound and not completely eliminate, but can control the ticks really well and bring the population numbers down. So I mentioned that one first because it's an engineering control. And if you look at our hierarchy of controls, eliminating the problem would always be one of your best options. Obviously, if you can't do that, if you can avoid that type of habitat. So look along the edge of your mowed yard. If you work at a campground or summer camp or ski areas just off the most areas, there's always going to be piles of brush or rake leaves that people have put up over the years. You can't treat them. You can't put them somewhere else. Just try and stay away from a more even moving a little back. So as kids and animals are running around, they're not right on the edge of that [00:39:00] big tick population. Peter Koch: Hey, before we move on to more avoidance, can we talk a little bit more about engineering controls? And this is something that I've heard and maybe it's off base, but going to what ticks like for an environment. Right. And they don't fly or jump. They actually have to be carried or crawled from place to place. I've heard from a landscape standpoint that you might be able to put in like almost a tick barrier between if you have a wooded area or a high grass area, and then you can put an area of maybe it's crushed stone border or a barrier that would remain dry, that would help prevent ticks from kind of migrating from the warm, moist habitat into the yard more. Is that a possible engineering control or is that sort of an old wives tale? Andy Wood: Yeah. No, I actually saw that in some of my research. The other thing that is a border of chips. People are using chips. Yeah. Not  [00:40:00]chips that are ground into mulch because they tend to be better habitat and will hold more moisture. But the bigger chips. So chips or crushed rock that they're both going to be dry areas. You get a couple feet of that at the edge. Your lawn between that in the woods and the ticks are not apt across that. So that. Yeah, that's true. That's there's places that are doing that. Peter Koch: That's great. So just another thought from a personal standpoint, you probably won't be able to do that if you are you have a job working in the woods, you're not going to be able to put a border in. But as a property owner, you may be able to do that, especially if you are in an area of high tick populations. So like the New England area that we know, we have a high population of ticks. So Connecticut through up into Maine. Good engineering controls is something to think about. All right. So we talked a little bit about elimination through the treatment of Habitat. We talked a little bit about some of the engineering that we can do. And you were just getting into avoidance in some of the other strategies that you can put into [00:41:00] play. So keep going. Andy Wood: Clothing is a big part of it. So what you wear and how you wear it, people will push light colored clothing. And the reason for the light color is not that. You know, I've heard over the years bright colored clothing attracts bugs because it looks like flowers. It's bright colors and the pollinators. That's true. The pollinators are attracted to the bright colors. But this isn't really a pollinator. The only reason for the light colors is so that you can see the tick when it's crawling around on you. Peter Koch: Good point. Andy Wood: So if you have a camo pair of camo pants on and tick gets on your leg, he's got a long time. He can crawl around there for an hour. You're not going to see him. Whereas if you have a really light colored shirt on or light colored pants on, you might see a much more quickly, particularly if he's an adult. You got a pretty good chance to see him and brush him off. So light colored clothing just helps in identifying the ticks they have to there. Again, depending on their stage that they're in, they might attach down on your get on your boots and have to go up your pants. They might have to go up to your shirt until they finally find an opening to get into [00:42:00] your skin. So the harder you can make that for them and the longer and the better you can see them in the interim, the better chance you got to dust them off. One of the common practices is one of the first things that come up is tuck your pants in to your socks. Now, as long as you're not trying to make a fashion statement, that one works pretty good. It's kind of goofy looking. But I do see a lot of people when I go on Woods tours, people are tucking their pants into their socks and some are wearing gators. Now in the woods people who are working there, typically they have boots, work boots, you know leather work boots that are maybe eight inches high. And they tie their shoelaces at the top once around their leg before they tie them. Some of the military dress uniforms, you'll see, are their battle field uniforms. They tie their pants for the same reason you not catching anything and the ticks can't go up. Now they've got to go not just up into your leg, but they've got to come all the way up to your waist to find the next transition into clothing. Tuck your shirts in. If you have a tight fitting shirt, like a T-shirt, then [00:43:00] they've got to come all the way up to your neck before they can find a place that fit to your into your skin. If you have a loose fitting button up shirt, they've only got to come to your waist and then they can jump inside and run around inside and find a nice place. Tighter fitting clothes and pants tucked in your pants or gator or pant tied shirts. Again, tighter fitting, better seal tucked into your pants as well. And then there's a question of what the clothing is made of. They have clothing that is treated. There's different manufacturers that treat clothing. You can buy it for many or popular sporting goods, outdoor clothing places. The treatment this is came out of a military study, you know, in parts of the country where we're fighting malaria, an insect, how to get insect repellent to stay on clothing for over a long period of time. And in the research, labs have come up with the permethrin treatment that they claim can stay in clothing for 70 laundries. So that's 70 washes and 70 dry cycles, which just that's quite a bit more than the life of most your clothing. So the clothing, the treatment of the [00:44:00] clothing is good. You can buy the clothing that's treated some of the some of the same company is offer a service where you send them your clothing, and they will treat it for you and they will send it back. You get the same 70 washing guarantee or there's treatments you can buy or you can just buy the squeeze bottle yourself, but your pants and your boots and you can treat them yourself. You need to treat them when it's not on your body. You need to let that dry. Overnight would be good. But I think usually they say let it dry about four hours before you put it on and then it has no effect on your on your skin at all. So you can treat it that way. So without putting any treatments on yourself, you can start with that kind of a treatment. And those have actually proven to be pretty, pretty effective. Peter Koch: So I think that's a good point to settle on just for a moment here, because as you think about it from a workplace safety standpoint or even from a personal safety standpoint, like it's summertime, it's hot, you know, you're going to want to be in a short sleeved shirt, a light shirt. Maybe shorts, maybe sandals. But [00:45:00] again, let's make an intentional choice here. If you're going to go into a habitat again, where you we know that there are going to be ticks and we understand what the consequences are. And they're pretty significant consequences of being bitten by a tick, whether it's a deer tick or whether it's a Lone Star tick of the woodchuck tick. There's plenty of different diseases, some that we haven't even discussed here, that the ticks will transmit or can transmit to us. So the first and best prevention that you have personally, if you're not going to be able to engineer, is choosing the proper clothing. So you're going to be in the right spot, make a good choice. So maybe you're going to wear long pants instead of shorts and maybe you're going to have even a pair of tights on underneath the long pants if you don't want to talk your pants into your socks. And then those are all good strategies for preventing the tick to get onto your skin, especially if you are one that doesn't like to use [00:46:00] chemicals for prevention. And then you can move into the treated clothing and making some intentional choices because of where you're going to go and what you're going to do about how you're going to protect yourself. So just some things to think about. Like you people might be thinking all I want to do that because it's going to be hot out. You and I hear that all the time. We go into the field and we talk to people about wearing personal protective equipment. And one of the biggest complaints that you get, whether it's a pair of safety glasses or a pair of chaps or a helmet is hot. I don't want to wear these when I'm in the summertime because the glasses fog up or the chaps make me sweat or whatever that is. But, you know, honestly, if you can identify the hazard and how you're exposed, you can make some good choices about prevention that way. So don't just toss the clothing out there and just rely on repellents because repellents are only as good as the applicator. And sometimes clothing is a much better barrier than [00:47:00] covering yourself in a pesticide that may or may not be effective, depending on how you've applied it and how long ago it's been applied before the tick attached to you or got onto you. Andy Wood: If you look at all the high tech fabrics that's out there and all the money that's being put into casual clothing, there are some nice high tech clothing that is super lightweight and super protective compared to wearing a pair of jeans, which are terribly hot. You know, they've got some really nice stuff out there. So you might take a little effort to put yourself together, a couple sets of clothing that you're going to wear on those hot days to be completely covered. But I think it's worthwhile. The other thing that you don't want to forget when you're thinking about the treatment of your clothing is the gear that you have with you when you go in the field. If you if you take a day pack with you and you go out in the field and you spend a day out there, you're completely covered and you don't get a tick on you. That's great. But if your day pack sits on the ground or say you started [00:48:00] the day with a, you know, a fleece, fleece pull over just first thing in the morning. And that was hung in the tree all day. You take that home, you go back and you throw that in your pickup. You just have just infected your pickup with ticks. You take that home. You bring that inside. You just infected the rug. The dog, the family members. And those ticks, they have a short period time. They're going to crawl around until they either die from dehydration or latch onto something else, you or the dog or they kids or somebody else. So make sure that everything that goes in the field with you that could be a reservoir for a tick, could be a host for the tick is covered as well. And I think particularly I've found that packs were a problem because a lot of people go with their lunch in a day pack and there's no spare clothing in a day pack. And that's the permethrin can be treated, can treat the pack, you know, very easily. So that's a that's an easy solution for that one. Peter Koch: That's a good thought. And so when we think about the Permethrin, that is the that's one thing that you that's good for fabric and clothing or packs, [00:49:00] but it's not to be used on skin. Right. So if we're getting into repellents and how to make differentiations of if you're going to use repellent, which one to choose. Permethrin is the one that you can only use or it's only rated to be used on your clothing or on fabric, not actually on your skin. So you've got to follow the proper instructions. You had mentioned it before. You know, you got to let it dry. So it's not going to then have an effect on your skin or be transmitted and absorbed by your skin. So you've got to be really careful when you purchase a repellent to make sure that it is correct for the use case that you want it for. So kind of moving in repellents other than Permethrin. What are some other repellents that can be used that are good against ticks? Andy Wood: Sure. Probably the most common one, the one that's been around the longest. Again, this came out of the military prior to Permethrin and the long term treatment was is DEET. [00:50:00] So DEET, depending on the study you listen to, you want, you know, 40 percent or more. The you know, Benn's makes 100 percent DEET. You can get whatever range you want, depending on what you want, expose your skin to, you know, I would more is probably going to be better. I think that one of the limiting factors is not just maybe 40 percent would be good for the first hour, but it's longevity is not that long.  It's life effectiveness, but one hundred percent actually has a longer, you know, cycle that it'll work over. So but what there's a lot of different ones. DEET is the most common. And there's a lot of manufacturers that don't have DEET on the label. DEET is an active ingredient, you know, at 30 or 40 percent for just that reason. A newer one is picaridin. DEET actually is very effective. One of the downsides is it dissolves vinyl and plastic. A lot of different things in the field, pieces of plastic. In fact, I was just a couple weekends ago, [00:51:00] I was working here at my house and I had put bug spray on and I had to use the phone. Now, when I was done with the phone. The phone stuck to my ear and I thought, oh, it's just sweats dry. And, you know, well, I'd looked at the phone. It had melted the phone against my ear. Peter Koch: The case for the phone? Andy Wood:  Yeah. And the phone was all kind of the plastic where the numbers come up. It's all kind of hazy now. So the DEET is very effective. And in theory, it doesn't harm your skin, but it does harm plastic and vinyl. So the picaridin was an option that is almost effective as DEET, but doesn't have the downsides of dissolving plastic and vinyl. That's another one you put right on your skin. Those are probably the two most common. And then I would say some of the natural oils, the lemon oil and the eucalyptus and orange, there's a bunch of different ones because a lot of people want to go with it more of a natural. And some of those of the studies have shown some of those are getting very effective now as well. The one caveat I would offer for spraying [00:52:00] the bug juice on you when you spray bug juice on your skin to prevent the bugs, you usually just spray it on your skin, spray your arms, and may be around your neck where the bugs can bite you without your clothing. But if you're trying to prevent ticks from going up your pants and your pants aren't tied, you really want to spray down low where the ticks are going to start to come on because of your pants and then they can climb up to somewhere else. So with the treatment for myself, I treat with Permethrin my pants. I have certain pants that I wear working all the time. I spray those and I spray a couple of different pair of boots that are in the field all the time as well as my pack. Generally going to use a regular bug juice that I'm going to spray on, depending on what the situation I'm going to be in. So I'll start with you. So if you haven't treated it boots or pants and you're using just bug repellent, you spray yourself, spray your self down low even though you don't have a skin exposure. You want to prevent the ticks from getting on you and going up inside [00:53:00] your pants as well. Peter Koch: All right. So those are all great. So making sure that you're choosing the right repellent for the use case that you have. Are you going to put it on your skin? Are you going to put it on your clothing or your pack of treating the habitat? Avoiding the habitats? Wearing the correct clothing or the clothing that is going to be best for the environment that you're going to be in. So you've done all that and you know, it's not a perfect solution. And you get a tick on you. And now it's bitten you. Not sure how long it's been there. How do you once you've identified it and it's bitten you. How do you take it out? What are the steps that you can take to remove the tick once it's been embedded? Andy Wood: The first question I ask is, did you get tick on you? So the last part of that prevention is tick checks. Like you said, you done like precautions. You get home at night. It's not a perfect system. You can still have a tick on you. So doing the tick checks is really important. [00:54:00] You need a mirror to look behind you. You want to do a close look. If you can jump right in the shower, right, then if you have ticks that are on you that aren't attached yet, some will be washed off or in the process of washing. If it's a bigger tick, you might feel it or see it. The smallest, the larval form. You might not see or feel when you're doing that. So take the time to take a tick check because that's the easiest time to get him off in the first few hours. They might be crawling around or you have just attached before they've glued themselves in. You can usually pull them off with some of the tools pretty quick. So tick checks are probably really very effective form of prevention as well. And then and then you're going to go to get the ticks off. The worst way to get a tick off is to grab him and pull them off. You know, unless he's just walking around and you can dust them off, that's OK. But once he's attached, you really don't grab them in the field, a lot of people just reach down and grab him and pull him off. He comes right off. No problem. But what you've done in the process of pulling him off. If you [00:55:00] squeezed his body, when you squeeze that tick, you're going to anything in his gut and his mouth, in his saliva. You're going to squeeze into that wound. So saliva. Normally, it would take 24 to 36 hours for him to inject that into your bloodstream. Now, you've just squeezed it right out of him and he's either squirting that right out or he's, you know, regurgitating that right into your bloodstream. The old methods we heard about put alcohol on them, cover them with Vaseline and they'll die and pull them off. All those agitate the tick. The tick may just throw up. And if he throws up, then that's going right into your bloodstream as well. So avoid all those things we used to try before we realized how this works. So the best way to remove a tick is to do the same thing. Get right as close to the skin as you can, grab on to the to the mouthparts and pull them slowly and consistently off. So they have the tweezers. They work good. Get right close to the skin. Pull. Don't pull the  [00:56:00]body of the tick again. Just pull the mouthparts. They have the little, the Tick key is what I like. The Tick key is a little bit bigger than a quarter and it's got a kind of a triangular shaped hole in the middle and you put the tick through a hole and pull it towards the part that tapers. And it just that little wedge shaped grabs him right by the mouthparts and lifts him right out. They make the tick's bones same thing. It's it looks like a little measuring spoon and it's got a little groove cut in that you do the same thing. Put it right close to the skin. It's as tight to the skin as you can. Again, it grabs him by the mouthparts and just steady even pressure and pulls him up. So the thing about the key tick is it's not very big. It's got a hole to put in a key ring you can put in the pocket on your pack. It's not very big. It's you can have it. I have one and all the bags that I have in the field and one in each vehicle. So if it's not right handy, you know, when the tick first gets on you, it doesn't take much to get them off. If you get home and it's been ten or twelve hours or the next morning, then it's a challenge to get them off. [00:57:00] So get them off early. So I haven't some of those tools, those options right hand in the field with you are important. So any of them. A lot of will work good. But they all going to work the same. They're going to go against the skin, pulling the mouthparts steady, even pressure up. Peter Koch: Yeah, those are all good points. And again, the key there is to make sure that you have the tool with you. So if you do have a potential challenge or you're going to go in to an area where you know you're going to have ticks or even if you're just going to be out in the woods, then you want to make sure that you are that you have the correct tools with you. So a lot of this is about planning to make sure that you have the right stuff with you. So be informed. Make sure you have, you know, where you going. Make sure you that you can identify the ticks. Make sure that you have the information to be able to protect yourself from the insects that are there. We're getting close towards the end here. So let's talk just briefly about pets and then we'll talk a little bit about resources. So you talked a little bit about pets being one of the potential for bringing a tick [00:58:00] into your home. What are some of the concerns about pets and ticks that you might help us with here? Andy Wood: You can't have a package of treatments for yourself without considering your pet. Both dogs and cats can get Lyme disease. We know a lot more about the dogs. They have more debilitating issues as humans do. So we want to protect the pet for his own self, his own welfare. But we also want to prevent him from being a carrier of bringing ticks into the house with him. So then infecting someone else in the family was you or your kids or anyone else there. The dogs and the cats. Your vet can give you all kind of systemic compounds or topicals. There's actually a vaccine for a dog. So the humans don't have a vaccine yet. But the dogs do. You really want to talk to your vet about it. Because the treatment needs to be specific to your pet. It needs to be specific to the lifecycle of the tick in your area. And it needs to be specific to the tick or a spectrum of pathogens that you're expecting it needs to be exposed to. So to have a conversation with your vet about which one [00:59:00] you think would work the best. They have collars that are impregnated with the treatments that whether its permit there. They have, you know, the bandanas that all the dogs wear are treated with permits and they have the dog coats wear the high visibility dog coats that you see during hunting season so dogs can be seen or the ones that are for winter that are warm. All different styles are treated with the tick prevention compound. So there's a lot of options there for the dog as well. So that needs to be part of your whole package of prevention for yourself and for the good of your dog.   Peter Koch: That's good. That's always good. Andy Wood: In my house, if I got Lyme disease, it wouldn't be a big deal. But if one of the dogs got Lyme disease, I'd be in big trouble. Peter Koch: Right? Very true. Very true. Andy Wood: I'd be sleeping outdoors in his house probably for two weeks. Peter Koch: Yeah. And we got to consider them, you know, the. The pets that we have. They can be a carrier of the tick into the house. And so you want to make sure you're paying attention and it's always good to make sure that you're able to protect [01:00:00] them so that they don't get the disease, because as challenging it is for a human to have Lyme disease. It's just as painful and as debilitating for your pet to have it. They really rely on you to make sure that you can protect them and do what you're able to do to manage their exposure to the ticks. So let's talk about a couple of the resources that we have. You had started this talking about some states or most states have a tick program and we're here in Maine. So let's talk a little bit about some of the resources that the states might have and how those resources came to be established. Andy Wood: I can speak specifically to my state, but an interesting thing that did happen just recently. I can't remember what state she was. But Senator Kay Hagan died in the fall last fall, 2019, with a complication of Powassan. And as a result of that, I think it's called the Kay Hagan Tick Act was passed in December of 2019. And that authorizes one hundred and fifty million dollars for [01:01:00] tick research. I think every state is getting 20 million for research and testing and education. So in the state of Maine, we have the Maine Tick lab, lot of resources. They have a lot of educational material specific to kids or adults. And they do testing as well. Send a tick in and they will test it. They can do it tick I.D. and they can also test it for pathogens. Every state should be developing some version of that. I can't speak to every state, but they've all been funded for a certain level to do research and development and education. So there should be more resources out there going forward. Peter Koch: So let's talk a little bit about what we have here in Maine. What resources here do we have in Maine that can help us with tick ID and other information about ticks and tick borne illness? Andy Wood: A lot of organizations are reaching out with training woodlot owners, a lot of the recreational communities, the forestry, you know, reaching out with educational material, which is good as far as someone [01:02:00] at home getting information. The CDC, they probably have the most information that's out there and a lot of good diagrams on identification of ticks and all that. So in Maine, we have the Maine Tick Lab and that's hosted at the university. They'll do ID for free and they test for pathogens for their own research. And they're also doing some other research projects with landowners to identify both the prevalence and how many ticks are infected with Lyme and habitat and things like that. So that's through our university. Peter Koch: Yeah, that's great. So that's through the extension .UMAINE.EDU/ticks. That's where you can find the Maine Tick Lab. And if you just Google Maine Tick Lab, it will come up as well. And there's a lot of great resources that will take you much farther down in to the weeds. Pardon the pun about ticks and how to prevent tick borne illness. How to identify ticks. What different diseases are there and how to manage ticks, whether it be around [01:03:00] your home or within the workplace. So that's a fantastic resource for you to go to the Maine Tick Lab from the University of Maine extension. So a great place to check it out. And then the Kay Hagan tick act is also really good. You can check out LymeDisease.org And they'll have some great information about the Kay Hagan, tick act and what it encompasses and what your states might be using that for or doing with it. So a number of good resources there for you. So a couple last questions, Andy, before we end the podcast here. What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started out? So about ticks, like, what do you know now about ticks that you wish you had known when you had first started out working in the woods? Andy Wood: Education is huge. And how easy would a little bit of prevention. You can solve a lot of a lot of serious problems, knowing a few folks that have gotten the advanced version of Lyme disease and how debilitating it is to think that just wearing the right clothing or doing a tick check [01:04:00] when you get home at night could have made all the difference. You know, it's the that's the age old classic. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And the downside of that, if you get a tick and you even if you get Lyme’s, if you identified early, but if you don't, you don't know you had a tick. You don't know you had the disease and it gets the advanced stages. It is a life altering event, you know, like I said, cardiac arrest and neurological issues and all that. So a little bit of prevention can go a long ways. And we just didn't have that. The other thing I mentioned I learned just recently would never had a tick here at home, worked in the brush in the in the leaf pile, got four ticks. So they're out there is just you got to avoid the places they're at. Peter Koch: Yeah, that's good. So education all around is a great thing to do. So no matter if you're a homeowner, if you're a school teacher, if you're a camp counselor or you're an employee who works in the woods or a business owner who has employees that work outdoors. Then some education is really important. So there's lots of resources out there [01:05:00] for people to be able to get more education on it. So as we come to the end here, Andy, is there anything that I should have asked you about ticks and tick safety that I haven't. That you'd like to impart to us? Andy Wood: I guess the one thing that I would mention, and I hear this a lot, I work in northern Maine where we traditionally have not had ticks and people will say, well, we don't have ticks here. Well, you've got to realize it's a moving target. It's moving and it's moving fast. If you are a land manager, if you are work at a summer camp or a campground or you're of a college campus or you're just a gardener or a landscaper, you're hearing a lot about invasive. It's these invasive species that are taken over our woods and take over and over our gardens and our yards. And that that's a result of part of it goes back to the global warming thing. And the climate is changing. Animals are traveling into different patterns in different places, needs invasive species that a lot of people are up in arms about invasive species, create perfect, perfect tick [01:06:00] habitat. So if you have the invasive species in your local people are saying you got to look out for this thing, grow in your yard for Barbaria buckthorn. And, you know, the Asiatic bittersweet. So it's a moving target. So you've got to think just because you didn't have ticks last year doesn't mean you're not going to have them next year. So keep that in mind and we might have it tomorrow if we don't already have it today. And the habitat, like I said, the that is just stirring that pot all up. Yeah. Creating new tick habitats where they never were before. I mentioned the you know, the global warming ticks like warm places and they like high humidity. And in the last several years, most people agree that climate warming is an issue in New England. We've had a lot of weather events that drop a lot of humidity, tropical storms. We never had those in New England. We've had a few in the last several years. So we're getting more rainfall or getting higher temperatures. And that's more tick habitat. Peter Koch: Sure. For sure. Climate change is definitely affecting. And you can see it with when you start looking at tick migration maps and [01:07:00] where the disease vectors are coming from. I go online and start looking at those. It's definitely following that warmer trend, making the tick habitat broader across the United States. So really good point there. If you've never had them, don't ignore it. Educate yourself, because chances are if you hadn't had them last year, you might have them this year. So pay attention, keep your eyes out for them. Again, they're tiny little things, but they can make a huge impact in our life. Well, we've just about hit the end of time here for the podcast. So I really wanted to thank you, Andy, for joining us today. Andy Wood: Sure it was a good conversation, Pete, and hopefully our folks got some good information. They can they can take back to the field and use for their for their own protection and protection of their pets and their employees. Peter Koch: I think they will. So I really appreciate you being here today. And thanks again for joining us. And to all our listeners out there today on the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast. We've been speaking about tick safety with Andy Wood, safety [01:08:00] management consultant with the MEMIC Group. If you have any questions for Andy or like to hear more about our particular topic on our podcast, e-mail me at [email protected]. Also, check out our show notes at MEMIC.com/podcast, where you can find additional resources and links about ticks and ticks safety, as well as our entire podcast archive. If you want to check out a different episode. And while you're there, sign up for our Safety Net blog. So you never miss any of our articles and safety news updates. And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you take a minute or two to review us on Stitcher, iTunes or whichever podcast service that you'd find us on. And if you've already done that, well, thank you. Because it really helps us spread the word. And please consider sharing the show with a business associate friend or family member who you think will get something out of it. And as always, thank you for the continued support. And until next time, this is Peter Koch reminding you that listening to the MEMICs Safety Experts podcast is good, but using [01:09:00] what you learned here is even better.