Good things to know
School is off to a flying start. I'm gone from the house by 7 or 8 most mornings and don't come home until after Cody is here(6pm) the majority of the time.
The pink is my independent study lab and the blue is my job at USDA. Not labeled on that schedule is our DnD campaign every Tuesday night until about 11pm, the fact that I leave the house at 7am on Wednesday and Friday.
Learned some neat things in my Parasitology class that I thought were of particular use.
1.) The only truly effective way to remove a tick is to pull it out using a tweezers or similar implement. Heat, Cold, suffocation or various chemicals will not remove a tick from you. You must PULL. And if you get a chunk of skin to come out with the tick, that's even better, that means you pulled the head out. Why? Because when a tick attatches to you, it secretes a cementing substance that glues it to you so it can feed in peace. This cement chemical does not dissolve until the tick has finished its blood meal, at which point there is a chemical signal produced that dissolves the cement.
2.) I'm sure some of you are familiar with chiggers. You may get them while in grassy areas or while at the beach. If your mother was like mine, she told you that the chiggers burrowed into your skin and that was what caused the itching. This is incorrect. The larva of the chigger is what causes the itching, but it does not burrow into the skin it simply crawls onto you until it reaches a tight fitting area (crease, underwear line) and bites you, then falls off. Resulting immunological reactions of itching, redness and heat are simply an allergic reaction the chemical used by the chigger larvae to feed. Putting fingernail polish or vasoline on the bites won't do much of anything. Use a histamine blocker/anti-itch medication like hydrocortisone or calamine.
-Interesting side note related to chigger myths. There IS a mite that burrows into your skin and lays eggs, it's a scabies mite and often manifests as a highly contagious rash. Scabies is quite closely related to mange, to give you an idea of the nastiness of it. Also, scabies mites really like soft tissue, like hands, areolae and male genital areas. There's some nightmare fodder for you.
Yep.
@--(--
The pink is my independent study lab and the blue is my job at USDA. Not labeled on that schedule is our DnD campaign every Tuesday night until about 11pm, the fact that I leave the house at 7am on Wednesday and Friday.
Learned some neat things in my Parasitology class that I thought were of particular use.
1.) The only truly effective way to remove a tick is to pull it out using a tweezers or similar implement. Heat, Cold, suffocation or various chemicals will not remove a tick from you. You must PULL. And if you get a chunk of skin to come out with the tick, that's even better, that means you pulled the head out. Why? Because when a tick attatches to you, it secretes a cementing substance that glues it to you so it can feed in peace. This cement chemical does not dissolve until the tick has finished its blood meal, at which point there is a chemical signal produced that dissolves the cement.
2.) I'm sure some of you are familiar with chiggers. You may get them while in grassy areas or while at the beach. If your mother was like mine, she told you that the chiggers burrowed into your skin and that was what caused the itching. This is incorrect. The larva of the chigger is what causes the itching, but it does not burrow into the skin it simply crawls onto you until it reaches a tight fitting area (crease, underwear line) and bites you, then falls off. Resulting immunological reactions of itching, redness and heat are simply an allergic reaction the chemical used by the chigger larvae to feed. Putting fingernail polish or vasoline on the bites won't do much of anything. Use a histamine blocker/anti-itch medication like hydrocortisone or calamine.
-Interesting side note related to chigger myths. There IS a mite that burrows into your skin and lays eggs, it's a scabies mite and often manifests as a highly contagious rash. Scabies is quite closely related to mange, to give you an idea of the nastiness of it. Also, scabies mites really like soft tissue, like hands, areolae and male genital areas. There's some nightmare fodder for you.
Yep.
@--(--