Essential Tips to Protect Yourself from Ticks

How to Protect Yourself from Ticks

As the weather warms up, people flock to forests to relax, gather flowers, berries, and mushrooms. These wooded areas, along with urban parks and gardens, are prime habitats for ticks. Understanding how to protect yourself from these pests is crucial for enjoying the outdoors safely.

What Does a Tick Look Like?

Ticks have a flat body with a reddish-brown abdomen. They possess a proboscis that pierces the skin to feed on blood. When hungry, ticks are tiny, just a few millimeters in size. However, after feeding, they can swell to the size of a small grape and turn a bluish color. Ticks do not jump from trees or bushes onto their hosts. Instead, they climb up grass stems or shrubs (about 30-70 cm high) and wait for a host to pass by. Once on a host, they search for exposed skin to begin feeding, preferring areas where the skin is thin and rich in blood vessels, such as the neck, chest, armpits, groin, and behind the ears.

A tick bite is painless due to the anesthetic substances they secrete. It’s essential to seek medical attention as soon as possible, ideally within the first few hours and no later than three days after the bite. Medical professionals can safely remove the tick and provide necessary treatment. If medical help is unavailable, you can remove the tick yourself using one of the following methods:

• Apply an alcohol solution to the tick and the surrounding skin. Use a cotton thread to tie a knot around the tick’s body and gently rock it left and right to remove it. Disinfect the bite area with alcohol and consult a healthcare provider if needed.
• Use a heated needle to carefully extract the tick, similar to removing a splinter.
• Gently pull the tick out with tweezers, avoiding sudden movements.

After removing the tick, clean the bite area with iodine or alcohol. It’s important to preserve the tick for laboratory testing to check for infections.

Note: Avoid using vegetable oil on the tick, as it can make removal easier but may kill the tick, making it difficult to test for infections.

In addition to tick bites, there is another way dangerous viruses can enter the human body: through food, specifically unpasteurized goat milk. Always boil or pasteurize goat milk before consumption, as the virus can survive in it for up to seven days.

Preventive Measures and Protection

Vaccination can protect against tick-borne encephalitis for up to three years. However, there is no vaccine for Lyme disease. When spending time in the woods, remember to:

• Wear light-colored clothing with long sleeves and a hood, tucking your pants into your socks.
• Use tick repellents.
• Inspect your clothing and skin every two to three hours.
• Check your clothing, skin, pets, and belongings thoroughly after returning from the woods.

Following these simple rules can effectively protect you from tick bites and the diseases they carry.

If a tick is not infected, it is harmless. However, if it carries a virus, it poses a serious threat. In Belarus, tick-borne diseases such as Lyme borreliosis and tick-borne encephalitis are registered.

Lyme Disease

Lyme disease, or Lyme borreliosis, is more common in Belarus than tick-borne encephalitis. It is caused by the bacterium Borrelia. The incubation period can be up to 30 days. In 60-90% of cases, the disease begins with a characteristic rash called erythema migrans, which is a red spot around the tick bite that expands over time. The spot is warm and smooth, rarely scaling. It gradually fades and usually disappears within 4-10 weeks, though it can persist for up to two years.

Symptoms include general malaise, headaches, muscle and joint pain, and fever. In severe cases, hospitalization may be required. If left untreated, chronic symptoms affecting the joints, heart, skin, and nervous system can develop months or years later.

About 15-20% of untreated patients may develop serious complications such as serous meningitis or polyradiculoneuritis within one to six months after the bite. The second stage of the disease may involve myocarditis, non-icteric hepatitis, or benign skin lesions. The third stage can include symptoms of cognitive impairment, memory loss, increased sleepiness, fatigue, difficulty swallowing, and slowly developing encephalopathy.

Tick-Borne Encephalitis

Tick-borne encephalitis is rare in Belarus but more common in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and European countries. The disease begins with chills, fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and limb pain. After an apparent recovery, a second wave of symptoms can occur, including a sharp rise in temperature, headache, nausea, vomiting, and sleep disturbances, followed by neurological disorders.

For more information, you can visit the CDC website.