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I am curious about instances of disease carried by ticks on Big Island.
I am from Alaska ticks are not a problem there. My ignorance of tick born disease may be causing me serious problems now due to working on the land in Washington in past endeavors. Lyme disease is just one of many tick born illnesses that can happen and it is definitely there.
In researching this I learned that Big Island has a lot of ticks.
Any problems there in my soon to be home area in Puna? Home remedies?
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Wow. This is the first I've heard of ticks being Hawaii. I didn't think they were here. I grew up in Montana so I know what they look like and I have never seen one in Puna My dog has never had a problem with anything but fleas, but since I put her on a monthly flea/heartworm preventative, I haven't seen a single bug on her.
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I have never seen a tick, and I've had my kids all over the place on trails, and hiking though tall grass, and attempting to play in the jungle. I'm not saying they are not here, but I havent seen any, nor heard of any problems with them.
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My brother had a dog when he lived in Nu'uanu on Oahu. It's pretty wet there. The dog would get fleas but I never saw a tick. They moved to Kapolei, which is on the hot, dry leeward side of Oahu and boy did they ever start getting ticks. Maybe ticks don't like wet conditions.
As for tick borne diseases I don't know. Concerns with leptospirosis and more recently rat lungworm are widely publicized. I also took a hunter education course (one place they mentioned lepto). They said nothing about ticks so it may be there is nothing tick-borne in Hawaii.
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main problem is kona side. yes, we have ticks. no havent seen any on rainy side either
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I read everything I could find on the internet and it looks like there are no tick problems on Big Island, still it was kind of sketchy reading with actual facts and figures stopping at 2007. That probably says more about my poor ability to mine the net than anything else. Thanks for the input! As near as I can tell my routine of Doxycycline and raw garlic will at least beat that Lyme stuff back some.
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glen, i just went to hawaii dept of health site. it stated that although we have a big tick problem in the dryer areas, it is the brown dog tick. this tick does NOT carry the lyme disease. it stated that directly there is none (lyme) in the state, as that is carried by the deer tick. (we do have deer on maui,alot, but apparently they came without the tics)
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quote:
Originally posted by lquade
glen, i just went to hawaii dept of health site. it stated that although we have a big tick problem in the dryer areas, it is the brown dog tick. this tick does NOT carry the lyme disease. it stated that directly there is none (lyme) in the state, as that is carried by the deer tick. (we do have deer on maui,alot, but apparently they came without the tics)
Hi l, thanks! The tick born illness thing covers quite a range, Lyme is just one. I am kicking myself now for not putting two and two together sooner for what has been happening to me. My old place in Washington is deer central complete with tall grass with me being the perfect tick food working around there. Unfortunately I have not gotten on it early so it will be tough sledding for a while beating it back. The diagnostics on these things is not a perfect science. Spirochetes die!!
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I have a friend who found a dog on the Kona side that had literally thousands of ticks on it. It was only skin and bones because the ticks were literally sucking the life out of the dog. He took it to the police dept and they accepted it. Probably just hung onto it until the humane society came.
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That poor dog! I cannot help but wonder about the possibility of a dip solution that would cause the little critters to back on out.
