LymeNet Flash: Can ticks survive under water?

This is topic Can ticks survive under water? in forum General Support at LymeNet Flash.

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Posted by mallory (Member # 23364) on :

Can ticks survive under water?

I'm a swimmer and am trying to figure out when I first got Lyme Disease...I usually swim abotu 2 hours at a time.

Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :

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Yes. But I would not spend anytime trying to figure out where you were bitten. It could have been anywhere, anytime. Really.
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Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :

I've heard they can survive being in a washing machine!! Have also heard they can survive being flushed...so don't do that either!

Posted by LightAtTheEnd (Member # 24065) on :

Oops, I flushed one. They are too tiny to crush.

They like rain and water, but they get dehydrated and die from that very easily. They will probably die if you put them through the dryer (presumably because they were in the clothes you wore outside). Though now I have a picture in my head of one tiny, forlorn little tick, looking out the dryer glass and going around and around and around... [Smile]

I don't know how much air they need.

Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :

Yes, the dryer will kill them if you run it an hour.

Crush them after putting them in a baggie.

Posted by onbam (Member # 23758) on :

They can be anywhere. Mine got me in bed while I slept--the only tick i've ever seen anywhere near where I live--and I'd never have caught it had i not put some acne medicine on my back after my shower that morning.

Posted by Andromeda13 (Member # 8314) on :

I got my second bite 3 weeks ago, a nymph. No rash until day 13,when it suddenly appeared exactly where the bite had been and it's stayed at 1 cm approximately, circular in shape but with no clearing in the middle.

I'd had 2 weeks of 200 doxy, all through the 2 weeks, plus some Ivermectin and tinidazole, so is the red rash nothing to do with an EM rash? Or is it one of those "atypical" ones.
Bit worrying really, as my GP refused to believe it was a tick (it's just a creepy crawly" he said when I showed it to him in its glass jar)then he had the nerve to say it cannot have bitten me and anyway there are no ticks in our area. The last statement is so untrue it's almost laughable, but never mind, we nkow that most of us are totally on our own in the UK.

BW,
A.

Posted by MADDOG (Member # 18) on :

Hi,Maybe they would float a while but they cant swim anywere so they just go with the current.

It would be totally an accident for them to be in a river.

I have never seen any tick in any body of water.

Probably their thrashing would attract fish,GULP no more tick.

MADDOG

Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :

Andromeda... The rash you had could be considered to be an EM...or at least a rash caused by a tick bite.

There should be pics of rashes here:

Treepatrol's links
http://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000569.html

Posted by Tincup (Member # 5829) on :

They can live in water for a long while... or drown in a drop of water.

[Big Grin]

Posted by just don (Member # 1129) on :

I read that they actually have the ability to survive TWO WEEKS submerged in water because they have a gill like structure they can breathe like a fish.

Do they prefer to do so,,probably not,,,but I never asked one either.

The misconception that taking a bath would kill one
(many people THINK this)

is all wet or untrue.

I think we should start tying tick lures for those big tasty trout.