Tick ​​bite in humans
In the warm season, everyone strives to escape into nature, forgetting that it is fraught with many threats. One of them is ticks. A tick bite in humans can cause the most unpleasant consequences.

Causes of a tick bite in humans

Ticks are bloodsuckers, so they are just waiting to crawl onto someone and eat well. And let him eat for himself, but that’s bad luck – ticks carry dangerous diseases. If you are bitten by a sick bloodsucker, he can pass the disease on to you.

Experienced tourists know where the danger lies, and we will try to remember.

A tick bite can be earned in several ways:

  • if you visit tick-endemic regions, forests and parks (the most infectious ticks are in Siberia, the Volga region and the Urals);
  • if you walk around in such regions in open clothes. The tick will easily crawl into a secluded place on your body and stick for several hours;
  • if you closely communicate with animals (dogs, cats), which often carry ticks, or people: they can bring a bloodsucker on clothes, in a bouquet of flowers or on branches.

Let’s say you are going to the forests in the Urals. Be sure to dress in a way that covers your skin as much as possible, such as tucking your pants into socks and sleeves into gloves. This will make it difficult for the tick to get on the skin. These bloodsuckers usually sit in the grass and cling to their legs.

Once on a person, ticks look for places with thin skin, so they are often found in the groin, on the lower back, in the armpits, behind the ears and on the neck, as well as in the hair on the head.

What does a tick bite look like on a human?

After a hike in nature, examine your skin, and where you can not, have your friends check. Finding a tick bite is especially easy if the bloodsucker is still in place. As it saturates, it gets fatter, so it is difficult to see it. And if he has already eaten and dropped off, what other signs of a tick bite are there in a person?

– The fact that you were bitten by a tick can be understood by a red rounded spot on the surface of the skin. Rarely, the shape is oval or with jagged edges, explains therapist Olga Fedorenko. – Additional signs of a tick bite in humans can be swelling, rash and itching. In this case, pain usually does not occur.

Itching and other signs of a tick bite in humans occur in response to the saliva of a bloodsucker getting into the wound. Often such symptoms are observed in allergy sufferers, children, the elderly and those whose immunity is weakened. In this case, the allergic reaction to the bite can be quite strong, but its symptoms can be relieved with the help of antihistamines.

First aid after a tick bite

If you find a tick stuck on your body, the first thing to do is to remove it. It is best to entrust this matter to specialists: contact the emergency room at the clinic. If this is not possible, we pull out the tick ourselves, the main thing is not to let its head come off and stay in the wound. This is not so easy, because the tick holds on very tightly. In no case should you crush it either – the risk of contracting some kind of disease will only increase from this.

Before removing a tick, arm yourself with alcohol or chlorhexidine to treat the site of a tick bite on a person. It’s not bad if you have special medical tweezers on hand to extract the arachnid, but it will fit with a self-made loop or a “vacuum” syringe.

How to pull out

We figured out the signs of a tick bite in a person, the bite itself was found, now the bloodsucker needs to be pulled out.

  1. We treat hands, tweezers and the bite site with alcohol or chlorhexidine.
  2. We capture the insect with tweezers as close as possible to its head and to your skin, respectively.
  3. Slowly turn the tick about 180 degrees, perpendicular to the skin, making unscrewing movements. More turns may be required to remove the bloodsucker, the main thing is not to rush and do not pull.
  4. When the tick is removed, treat the bite with alcohol or any other equivalent again.
  5. Place the removed tick in a small glass container and close tightly.
  6. Take the tick to the lab to find out if it has carried any diseases.

“If there are no tweezers, use a woolen thread or a lasso pen,” advises therapist Olga Fedorenko. – You can also cut off the top of the syringe evenly, attach it to the bite site and pull the tick out under pressure.

How to process

First of all, remember that the tick should not be lubricated with oil or cream in the hope that it will come out on its own. Rely on yourself better.

You can treat a tick bite in a person with soap and water, and then it will not be superfluous to walk on it with an antiseptic. You can use alcohol or chlorhexidine, which is sold at any pharmacy. As an option, 5% iodine is suitable, cologne – any disinfectant that is at hand.

If the proboscis of the tick is broken and remains in the skin, do not try to pick it out, it will come out on its own after a while.

Where to go

If the goal is to remove the bloodsucker, you can go to the nearest emergency room. Specialists will carefully take out the tick, and you will only have to show the “pet” to the laboratory workers. For this remote tick, we put it in a clean dish; test tubes, jars, vials will fit. It is better if this container is moist. To create comfortable conditions for the tick, place there, for example, a napkin moistened with water. In this form, the tick must be delivered to the laboratory within two days.

Each region has its own organizations responsible for this kind of research. Addresses of laboratories can be found in Rospotrebnadzor. Usually, studies are carried out by specialists from the regional “Centers for Hygiene and Epidemiology”. They will check your tick and give the results – sick / not sick and what is sick. It usually takes one or two days.

If you are unwilling or unable to test a tick for a particular disease, you can test yourself. Most often, ticks carry encephalitis and borreliosis. You can get tested for these diseases in infectious diseases hospitals, virological and commercial laboratories.

It will be more convenient for you if the chosen clinic checks for both diseases at once.

Popular questions and answers

In which regions is there a high risk of contracting encephalitis or borreliosis from a tick?

Most of the bites of infected ticks are recorded in the Urals, Siberia, the Far East and the regions of the Northwestern Federal District. When hiking in these regions, you need to be extremely careful, and it is even better to get vaccinated in advance. You need to understand that in other parts of Russia, infected ticks can be found, residents of all regions of the country annually seek medical help because of their bites.

Is it true that mites live on trees?

In fact, ticks are usually placed in tall grass, about 30 cm from the ground. So it is easier for them to cling to the legs of those who walk by. For the same reason, ticks especially like to be located near the paths, they smell where people and animals most often go. Sometimes ticks climb on shrubs and lower branches of trees.

Where do ticks usually bite?

A tick bite in a person is usually located in places where the skin is thin, it is easier for a tick to bite through it. They stick in the groin, on the abdomen and lower back, in the armpits, on the chest, behind the ears, on the neck and on the scalp. A tick bite in humans looks like a red round spot, and the tick itself, as a rule, is located on it, plunging its proboscis under the skin.

Is it possible to fill a tick with oil or alcohol?

A common misconception is that if a tick is poured with oil, gasoline, alcohol, or smeared with a greasy cream, it will suffocate and fall off on its own. Nothing of the kind, with your manipulations you can only spur the tick on so that it sticks harder. It is better to treat the tick bite with antiseptics, for example, alcohol or vodka, just water and soap will do, and then pull it out with tweezers.

What to do if it is not possible to take the tick for analysis?

Monitor the condition of the injured person. If the inflammation at the site of the tick bite has disappeared within 1-2 days, the likelihood of developing any disease is considered minimal. If the swelling remains or even worse increases – go to the doctor. It will not be superfluous to constantly change the temperature of the victim. If it rises within 10 days of being bitten, there is a serious risk of infection, so don’t put off seeing a doctor.

What if after a bite, just in case, start drinking antibiotics?

Such insurance is meaningless and dangerous. Firstly, not every tick is infected, secondly, not every sick tick will give you this or that disease, and thirdly, antibiotics are not randomly issued according to prescriptions, without proper knowledge you will not select the optimal drug and dosage.

But the worst thing is that procrastination due to antibiotics can lead to serious problems.

What are the consequences of a tick bite?

If the tick was not a carrier of any infection, this does not mean that its bite is not dangerous.

– If you do not seek medical help in time, you may encounter various consequences of such a bite. First, suppuration may occur at the site of the tick bite. Secondly, various kinds of allergies, edema (Quincke’s edema) are possible. The consequences can be very serious up to paralysis, respiratory arrest, cessation of brain activity and death, explains therapist Olga Fedorenko.

Another thing is when a tick transmits a particular virus to a person. There are a lot of diseases that they carry, but let’s focus on the main ones:

Tick-borne encephalitis. It is an infectious viral disease that usually affects the central nervous system.

The incubation (hidden) period of encephalitis lasts up to two weeks, but can stretch for two months. The disease always begins acutely. The first symptoms of encephalitis: chills, headache, a sharp rise in temperature to 39 degrees, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain.

Among the possible consequences of this disease are neurological and psychiatric complications, paralysis and even death.

Borreliosis, or Lyme disease. Another infectious disease that affects the nervous system, heart and joints. The incubation period is usually 1-2 weeks, but may be shorter or longer. The first symptoms of the disease, like those of encephalitis, resemble the flu: headache, muscle pain, fever. Lyme disease is characterized by stiff neck muscles. Further – worse, sleep and memory disorders, meningitis, facial paralysis, arthritis may begin.

If you do not treat borreliosis, you can become disabled, or even die. And if you start to treat on time, then the prognosis is very favorable.

erlichiosis – a bacterial infection that causes kidney and respiratory failure.

Symptoms of infection are noticeable 1-3 weeks after a tick bite. Ehrlichiosis is characterized by headache, fever and chills, abdominal pain. If left untreated, the abdominal organs and nervous system will suffer. In severe cases, death is possible.

Anaplasmosis – a disease of the blood. It develops 3-21 days after a tick bite. The disease is characterized by an acute onset – severe fever, weakness, headache and muscle pain. In addition, the pressure drops and the heart rate drops.

Typhoid fever – a disease that provokes a rash on the skin and affects the lymph nodes.

Tularemia – a bacterial disease that affects the internal organs.

What is the danger of a tick bite?

By itself, a tick bite in humans does not pose a serious danger, the main risk is infections that an arachnid can reward its victim with. Most of these infections respond well to treatment, but only in the early stages. That is why it is so important to diagnose them as soon as possible. It’s good if you still have the same tick, because if it is infected, the doctor will be able to take preventive measures. It will be possible to find out if you are infected only two weeks after the bite, only then antibodies to viruses appear in the blood, namely they serve as a marker of the disease.

– Ticks are examined by PCR for six infectious diseases. If an infection is found in it, emergency prophylaxis is carried out. From encephalitis – the introduction of immunoglobulin, from borreliosis – a course of antibiotics, – explains therapist Olga Fedorenko. – You also need to donate blood for tests: for encephalitis and borreliosis – no earlier than 10 days after the bite.

If you capture the disease at an early stage, there is every chance of a successful cure, but if you miss the moment, you can wait for serious complications, the worst of which is death.

What to do if not the whole tick was pulled out?

Imagine that you overestimated your abilities and could not pull out the whole tick. His head or proboscis remained in the wound. In this case, treat this place with an antiseptic and look for the nearest emergency room. Specialists will help you extract the remains of the bloodsucker and give recommendations on where to take it and what tests to take.

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