Caution, ticks: what to do if a tick is found on the body

Among all the creeping and flying reptiles that can ruin your picnic in nature, ticks are considered the most dangerous. They are very small and therefore almost invisible in the grass. Tick ​​saliva contains a powerful pain reliever, so the bite of this parasite is painless. Often people find a tick after they have returned from a walk, and one can only guess how long it has stuck to the body of its victim. Meanwhile, the diseases that ticks can carry are very unpleasant and even life-threatening. And the longer the tick is on the body, the more saliva enters the bloodstream and the higher the risk of infection.

Every year the activity of ticks becomes higher, and they wake up earlier. Acarologists (people who study ticks) associate this with warm winters and early spring. The fact is that the hunting season for ticks begins already when the temperature rises to +5 degrees. But they show maximum activity at temperatures from +10 to +20 degrees. Taking into account the fact that from next week April promises to delight us with warm days - be extremely ready to meet with parasites hungry after hibernation.

Ticks are very small and difficult to spot / istockphoto.com

Where can you find a tick?

Without going deep into biology, we should nevertheless note: a tick is not an insect, but an arachnid creature. Several varieties of these parasites live in Ukraine, but ixodid forest and meadow ticks are dangerous in relation to the transmission of diseases. Therefore, do not be mistaken that a tick can only bite you in a forest or in a wooded park. They feel great in the grass and on the bushes, attacking the victim, as a rule, at a height of 40-50 cm from the ground. So you can meet this harmful relative of the spider in the yard, on the street, in the park - in general, in any place where grass and bushes grow.

You can meet ticks not only in the forest, but also in open meadows / istockphoto.com

Remember that ticks do not fall from trees and cannot jump. From this point of view, dry coniferous forests are much safer for walking than meadows overgrown with dense grass. Once on the body mite does not stick immediately, but crawls for about 20-30 minutes in search of a place with softer skin. Therefore, try to examine yourself and children immediately after walking in potentially dangerous areas. Pay attention to the smallest boogers: in a hungry state, the tick's body length is no more than 3 mm, but after sucking and drinking blood, it can increase up to 1.5 cm.

What diseases do ticks carry?

Ticks can carry about 30 different diseases. One of the most dangerous for humans is Lyme borreliosis (Lyme disease or erythema migrans). This is the most common tick-borne infection in Ukraine. Lyme disease is very insidious and can be mild at first. But if it is not determined in time and the person is not given timely treatment, after 2 months serious complications arise: lesions of the skin, the central nervous system, the musculoskeletal system. Sometimes up to disability.

Ticks can carry dangerous diseases such as borreliosis and encephalitis / istockphoto.com

The second, without exaggeration, deadly disease is tick-borne encephalitis. The causative agent of this disease affects the human brain or spinal cord. The prognosis of recovery varies depending on the form of the disease. In severe cases, it can reach paralysis and failure of many organs. According to statistics of past years, there are very few encephalitis ticks in Ukraine. For a year, infectious disease specialists record no more than 10 cases of tick-borne encephalitis infection. However, the problem, as they say, does exist.

In the list of other diseases transmitted by ticks, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, babesiosis (piroplasmosis), bartonellosis. These are also unpleasant infections that can create serious health problems and even lead to death. However, they tend to threaten people with weak immune systems.

What to do if you find a tick on the body

The most favorite places for ticks on the human body are places with delicate and thin skin, where blood vessels are closest. Therefore, when examining, start with the armpits, neck, skin behind the ears, groin area. However, hungry ticks do not always crawl far and long: they can "snugly" suck on the hands - on the bend of the elbow from the inside, and also on the legs - on the back of the knee. If you find a tick in these or other places, the most important thing is not to panic and start jerking or squeezing it out. Remove the tick it is imperative to completely, without damaging the body and without tearing off the head.

You can get the tick out of the body yourself, but it is better if a specialist does it / istockphoto.com

When a tick is found, doctors recommend acting according to this algorithm:

• Estimate how long the tick could have sucked, and how quickly you can get to the nearest emergency room. Objectively, it is better if the parasite is removed by a specialist who knows how to do this and who has a device for this. If the question is half an hour or an hour, go to the doctor immediately.
• If, according to your estimates, the tick has stuck to the body for a long time, you can remove it yourself. But here you need to be extremely careful: if you remove it incorrectly, there is a risk of tearing off the tick's head, and it will remain in the skin, or you can squeeze its abdomen and squeeze the contents into the blood. Therefore, do not try to remove the tick with your hands, no matter how musical your fingers are. It is better to use a thread, tweezers or a pierced needle for this.

We remove the tick with a thread.

Tie the thread into a knot as close to the proboscis as possible. Twisting the ends of the thread in a circular motion, remove the tick by pulling it up and swinging it to the sides. Everything needs to be done smoothly and carefully, sudden movements are unacceptable here.

Removing the tick with tweezers

Grab the tick as close to the proboscis as possible. Gently rotate it around its axis in a comfortable direction. Usually the tick comes out in its entirety after 2-3 turns. Again, you cannot make sudden movements, and even more so, try to pull the tick out of the body.

Removing the tick with a needle

Heat the needle over an open fire and proceed as if removing a splinter. Try not to touch the parasite's torso. This method is not suitable for children and people with a low pain threshold, since sometimes you have to "pick out" a rather large area.

It is very convenient to remove the tick using special devices - the so-called pliers (pliers extractor or pliers removal kit). They are sold in many pharmacies and pet supplies, cost from 50 to 100 UAH, and can be very useful in the field.

After removing the tick, treat the bite site with an antiseptic, iodine, or an alcohol-based liquid. If you suddenly panicked, twitched and tore the tick away from the body so that the proboscis remained in the skin, pull it out with a calcined pin or a game like a splinter. Be sure to treat the resulting wound.

Do I need to take a tick for analysis?

The tick removed from the body must be taken to the laboratory for analysis / istockphoto.com

It is necessary to donate a tick for research. This is the only way you can find out in a timely manner whether he was infected with Borrelia, and whether you have a risk of contracting this infection. The fact is that emergency therapy to prevent Lyme disease is carried out no later than 72 hours after the bite. And in human blood, this disease can be detected with the help of tests not earlier than after 20-25 days. You can carry out therapy "just in case" (by the way, this is a course of potent antibiotics), you can rely on luck, but it is better to take the tick to the laboratory and get the result the next day research.

Previously, a tick for research had to be delivered alive. Now laboratories use PCR analysis, for which a dead parasite is also suitable. The main thing is that it is as intact as possible - this increases the amount of the material under study and helps the test systems to find the causative agent of borreliosis. If the tick is infected, go directly to the doctor with the test results. He will prescribe a course of preventive treatment and take you under supervision until you pass control tests.

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