The danger of ticks and Lyme disease

IF there is one thing that will make your skin crawl it's discovering a tick either on yourself or your pets.

The BBC website highlights the experiences of one man who turned to the internet to find out why he was feeling unwell, and after asking for tests it turned out he had the tick borne Lyme disease.

For people living in the French countryside for the first time, learning how to stay clear of ticks and safely unhook them from your skin is an important skill to have.

Because not only can they pass on Lyme disease, which can see people suffer flu-like symptoms for a long period of time, tick bites can lead to the death of your pets if not treated.

And the danger posed by ticks is growing in the UK as well as numbers appear to be on the rise, Lyme Disease Association is trying to raise awareness of symptoms amongst doctors, while the US government backed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has an extensive section on Lyme disease.

The tick-victims.info website also offers advice and information, as well as these tips.

Tick Prevention Tips:
Wear light-coloured clothing that shows ticks easily and covers arms and legs. Wear long-sleeved shirts, tight at the wrists, long pants tight at the ankles and tucked into socks, and shoes covering the whole foot.

Apply diethyltoluamide (e.g., DEET) to skin and permethrin to clothing. But do not apply it to clothing while it is being worn, and allow the clothing to thoroughly dry before wearing.

Perform daily checks of skin for ticks. Check children two to three times a day. Check under waistbands, sock tops, under arms, and any other moist areas.

Remove ticks by using fine-tipped tweezers. Grasp the tick firmly and as closely to the skin as possible. Use a steady motion, pull the tick’s body away from the skin without rotation. If parts of the tick remain stuck in the skin, they should be removed as soon as possible.

Suffocating the tick with oil, cream etc. may induce injection of more infectious material into the body, so do not use petroleum jelly, burning matches or cigarette ends, nail polish or other products.

And if you have any advice to pass on to others please feel free to add a comment below.

Comments

[Paul & Anne Pledger]

Your information states no rotation to remove a tick. Why is it that the commercial bought tick removers say to hook under the tick and rotate until it comes off?

[Craig McGinty]

Hi Paul and Anne, the sites I link to highlight the use of tweezers as opposed to the hook type tool you get from pet stores.

But I think the most important thing is not to squeeze the body of the tick and to make sure any 'bits' are not left attached.
All the best, Craig

[Chris Comley]

Everything else I've seen says better to get prper "remover" tongs, which *do* rotate as they pull, than to try to use tweezers.

Also a good idea to emphasies

- do NOT grab, pull, prod, or especially squeeze them - this can cause them to "squirt" what they've sucked up back into your bloodstream, along with added extras you do not want.
- similarly do NOT try to "burn" them off with a cigarettte or similar - it's a popular tale but it also can have the effect of causing them to "squirt".
- likewise, "suffocating" them with vaseline or similar does work but can also have this side effect.

Actually better to leave it alone until you can visit a pharmacist or doctor than to "tinker" if you're not sure what you're doing.

As ever, prevention is a better route...