Caution, Ticks! How To Prepare For The Season?

2023 Author: Ava Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 07:13

Warm winter this year led to unexpected consequences - increased activity of ticks - carriers of many serious and dangerous diseases for humans. Due to the early season, ticks are increasingly moving from forests and wooded areas to our well-groomed suburban areas. Ticks can live both in the grass in the meadow, and in the beds with greenery that you grow in the country.

What you need to know about ticks to protect against ubiquitous pests and prevent bites? What to do for those who have not been helped by prevention? What should be feared, and what fears should you sweep as excessive? Is there a cure, tick bite insurance? How to protect yourself and loved ones and reduce the risks of unpleasant complications to zero, we will tell in the article.

What ticks and when do they bite us?

The most dangerous in Russia are ixodid ticks that live throughout the territory of our country, with the exception of the northern regions. This family is numerous, includes more than 240 species. Diseases caused by ticks are dangerous, require long-term recovery, and in some cases can be fatal.

Ixodid ticks live in grass and trees, but not higher than one meter above the ground. Without eyes, they are nevertheless highly sensitive to the heat of the human body and odors, which they catch at a distance of 10 m.

Increased activity in insidious parasites begins in the spring, as soon as the air temperature goes over the +10 ° C mark. But they become especially aggressive during the breeding season, which falls in April-June, as well as in late summer and early autumn. Isolated cases of ixodid tick bites occur in July and October-November.

What diseases can ticks give us?

It's a shame, but by eye, neither you nor even an experienced doctor will ever determine whether a tick that has bitten you is infected or not, and even more so - with what viruses and infections. By the way, one tick is able to give its victim not one, but immediately a bunch of diseases. You can, of course, rely on "maybe it will blow." But if it does not carry, then after a bite the person is threatened:

Ixodic tick-borne borreliosis, or Lyme disease, is carried by one in five ticks. The central nervous system, heart, joints and eyes are affected. The danger also lies in the fact that it is possible to detect antibodies to borreliosis in the blood only two to three weeks after the bite, and the disease at first (even up to six months or more) can be completely asymptomatic.

The tick-borne encephalitis virus is characterized by a febrile condition, severe damage to the spinal cord and brain. If it goes into a chronic condition, then the sick person is clearly threatened with disability. And in 25% of cases, encephalitis is fatal.

Borreliosis and encephalitis are the most common and serious infections that can occur with a tick bite. But there is still, at least, monocytic ehrlichiosis, human granulocytic anaplasmosis and hemorrhagic fever, which also do not bring anything good to the bitten, although they are much less common.

In addition to the listed and other diseases, a tick bite can also provoke an allergic reaction. It occurs under the influence of the saliva of the parasite, which has a protein structure. It manifests itself as severe itching, redness, swelling at the site of the bite, and allergy sufferers can significantly spoil their lives.

What if the tick had time to suck?

Of course, you should always try to keep the risk of a tick bite to a minimum. But all the repellents in the world will not give you a guarantee that some one (the most arrogant) parasite will not covet you. Any preventive measures only minimize, but do not exclude the tick bite.

If a tick is found on you, the first thing is to remove it correctly. You can often hear advice that the part sticking out of the skin should be smeared with oil, but this opinion is wrong. According to some reports, in this case, the tick secretes back everything that it managed to draw into itself, thereby increasing the concentration of the pathogen in the victim's blood.

You can remove the parasite yourself by gently grabbing it with a special device (sold in a pharmacy) or tweezers, and turning it 2-3 times counterclockwise. The wound must be washed with soapy water and disinfected with iodine.

You can seek medical attention if there is an emergency room or other medical facility nearby. But, ideally, immediately contact an infectious disease specialist. Only if you have been bitten by a tick on Friday evening, making an appointment on Monday, you know, is pointless. Get the tick as quickly as possible!

Further, the tick must be placed in a damp cloth (cotton wool) or simply in a jar and taken to a laboratory for research. If the tick has not survived, donate blood for analysis. And for the first few months after the bite, listen to your condition. Seek medical attention at the first warning symptoms.

And this is where the questions begin. Which laboratory? Most often, private specialized, which are, as a rule, only in large cities. That is, the likelihood that such a laboratory is in your area or even region is small.

Often times, people bring the extracted tick to the emergency room with the hope that it will be taken for analysis. In the vast majority of cases, the tick is thrown away after you leave in the trash can, as the "ambulance" analysis is not done. It is not cheap in a private laboratory, and you cannot deliver it there, three hundred kilometers away.

Getting to a good infectious disease specialist is also not so easy, especially if you do not live in a large city, or a tick has bitten you during the holidays. You can get vaccinated just in case, but again - not everywhere, and only against encephalitis, and at your own expense.

There are no vaccinations against Lyme disease, and it is possible to confirm the presence of infection in a person only in the third week after the bite by passing a blood test for the presence of antibodies to borreliosis. But a competent infectious disease specialist could prescribe a prophylactic course of antibiotics. But where can one get him - a narrow-profile specialist, and even a competent one?

So what, what to do?

A modern way to prevent the consequences of a tick bite

A practical, correct way out of the situation is to buy tick insurance. How can she help us? First, it provides 24/7 support in the event of a bite. You will be immediately sent to the nearest specialized medical facility, where not only the tick will be removed, but all the necessary tests will be done to identify potential infection.

Secondly, the insurance policy includes professional advice and find out what symptoms to pay attention to, listening to your state of health in the future. And, thirdly, if an infection suddenly occurs, insurance is the possibility of free treatment. And after recovery, doctors will continue monitoring to ensure confidence in the restoration of health.

As you can see, anti-tick - insurance is good because in the event of a bite by a malicious tick it provides for all possible scenarios for the development of events. And most importantly, the policy provides moral protection - the understanding that you will not be left with a problem alone, that in case of danger you already have a ready-made solution! At the same time, it can be issued with a 10% discount for two program participants and 15% for three or more participants, which are also summed up with promotional discounts. And it operates throughout Russia, and has no age restrictions!

Dear Readers! The mites are waiting for the warm period of the year, which we all look forward to. And even though the danger they bring us is invisible, its consequences can be irreversible. At the same time, it is especially alarming for children and the elderly, whose immunity is often not strong enough to independently confront the problem. Thus, even if there is no 100% protection against tick bites today, you can protect yourself as much as possible from unpleasant consequences, for example, using the Stop. Mite program.

Be healthy! And a safe summer for you!