Ick! A Tick!

In the last week I encountered two unwelcome trespassers. TICKS! Yuck!
The first I noticed while I was at work which was bizarre because I work inside an office. But I felt something in the crook of my arm wiggling and then hurting. I lifted up my sleeve to see a big fat ugly tick gnawing away. Ew.
I wanted him off as soon as possible so I ran downstairs and asked to borrow a coworkers lighter. I then proceeded to try to burn the little bugger off. Since I only had one functional hand to do so, the procedure was not going well. The tick remained firmly clamped in place. Luckily another coworker found a pair of tweezers and we were able to yank the tick out, head attached.
Two days later after a walk in the woods, I found a deer tick on my leg. He was also firmly embedded in my skin. He was removed and destroyed. Both ticks left ugly bites, but the first tick's bites (he left two) grew into ugly looking welts and a rash formed around one of them. I started to worry something might be wrong, the rash was spreading out and looking similar to Lyme disease rash pictures on the internet. So at this point I started to worry and I'm not a squeamish person. I've been bit by all kinds of things, but these bites looked ugly enough to make me go to the doctor. And I hate going to the doctor. He told me I was fine, I just had an unfortunate reaction not a life threatening disease.

So for everyone's benefit here are a few tick tips I learned:

Do not try to chemically agitate or burn a tick off you. Doing so can make it regurgitate the contents of its stomach which makes infection more likely. Use Tweezers, they're faster and cleaner.

Ticks usually need at least 18-24 hours to infect you so if you find a tick on you and it is not engorged you probably do not need to worry about infection.

If you contract Lyme disease you will begin to exhibit symptoms of the flu. A rash alone does not mean you've been infected.