It’s been said over and over this year, but the warning cannot be more pressing—2017 will be one of the worst years on record for ticks.
We’ve already seen it in children everywhere—experiencing everything from temporary paralysis to extreme rashes and even death. Of course, one of the biggest concerns with this year’s tick outbreak is an increase in Lyme disease—a tick-borne illness that often causes a rash, flu-like symptoms, joint pain and weakness in the limbs.
If you’re anything like me, you hear these warnings and think, “OK, I’ll be sure to look for little bugs crawling on me when I come in from outside.” Because surely you’ll know if a creepy crawly tick is making a playground out of your body.
But as one mother wants everyone to know this week, it just isn’t that simple.
Beka Setzer wrote in a harrowing Facebook post about how her daughter Emmalee had been playing outside in the sprinkler—soaking up the summer day.
“After coming inside and laying down for a nap, I just happened to notice tiny (and I mean TINY) little black dots all over her legs, abdomen, arms and armpit area. Thinking they may have just been seeds, I tried to wipe them or scrape one off and it was a TICK!”
Beka suspects her daughter must have been rolling around in the grass near a nest of tick larvae, because she was COVERED in them.
In order to show others just how easy it is to overlook these little stinkers, Beka posted videos with her warning. One shows a tick crawling in Emmalee’s skin, and the other shows one of the ticks under her finger nail as she pulled them off of her daughter.