Save ticks that have bitten you

Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 09:16:50 -0500
From: “Peggy Moody”
Subject: Ticks

One thing I have not seen regarding ticks is the need to save ticks that have bitten you. Almost two years ago we took my husband to Moore Regional Hospital thinking he was about to have a heart attack. When his heart specialist examined him he said that fluid had accumulated around his heart but that was not causing his high temperature. I overheard another doctor telling the nurse they were going to do some test and were looking for an infection that could be causing the temperature. My daughter in law and I decided to go home while they were doing test. I remembered his tick bites two weeks earlier. I got the ticks and carried them back to the hospital. Immediately they started treatment for tick fever.

The disease specialist wanted a blood sample about two weeks after he was released from the hospital to determine what kind of tick fever. When she called my husband with the name he said I he didn’t remember because he had never heard the name before. The specialist said there were at least seven different kind of tick fever.

The doctors said we should encourage all our friends to save any ticks that have attached to your body. They also asked why we thought about saving the ticks and I told them it was because I read in the Chatham News that we should because we were having so many ticks in Chatham County.

Peggy Moody
Silk Hope