You got a tick? Lifeguard: Hospital is the shortest path to Lyme disease

Ticks can spoil the most pleasant trip to the open air. They lurk in bushes and grass, cling to the skin imperceptibly and rarely reveal their presence. Meanwhile, removing the tick is very important in the context of protection against diseases that this parasite transmits. How to do it? The task is not the most difficult, but most of us get lost by not following one rule. The consequences can be dire for us.

1. In the case of tick removal, time is of the essence. The sooner we get rid of the parasite, the greater the chance that we will protect ourselves from the disease that it can transmit to us.
2. The rescuer admits that he made this mistake himself and, as a consequence, fell ill with Lyme disease. – My first mistake: I didn’t use any protective preparations. (…) Mistake number two: I did not look back carefully after returning home
3. The expert advises against going to the hospital with the tick. The long waiting time for admission is, in his opinion, a simple recipe for getting sick. It is best to remove the tick yourself, using your own hand or tweezers
4. After a tick bite, your body should be monitored for signs of Lyme disease or tick-borne encephalitis
5. More information can be found on the Onet homepage

Time is of the essence

Ticks like warmth and humidity, so they are active in those seasons when the temperature is relatively high and the air is humid, e.g. due to rainfall. The “tick season” began at the turn of March and April and will last until autumn. Since this is a time when we spend a lot of time outdoors, it is worth being vigilant and knowing not only how to protect yourself from ticks, but also what to do when you spot ticks on your skin.

We asked Mateusz Wawryszuk *, a paramedic, owner of the Aesculapian company, offering first aid training, for tips on how to deal with a tick bite.

Mateusz Wawryszuk

The most important rule when removing a tick is: time is of the essence. The sooner we spot it on the skin and pull it out, the less chance that we will contract Lyme disease from it if we come across an infected individual. Unfortunately, most of us don’t look carefully when we come home from a walk, and it gets us lost

The rescuer experienced this the hard way when he went for a morning bike ride into the woods. – My first mistake: I didn’t use any protective preparations. It was a short trip, I didn’t think about it. Mistake number two: I didn’t look back carefully when I got home. Lyme disease spirochetes, located in the tick’s intestines, are usually released several hours after the bite. Mine was very small and I didn’t see him until two days later, and then it was too late. If I had pulled out the parasite within an hour of being bitten, I wouldn’t have had a chance of getting Lyme disease, he explains.

Hospital is the shortest path to Lyme disease

How to get a tick stuck in the skin? Is it safe to do it yourself or is it better to go to the hospital for help? The decision is always ours, but if we choose the second option, we have to take into account its consequences.

– If we go to the doctor or the HED with the tick, we increase the risk of contracting Lyme disease. Why? Because during the triage at the hospital emergency department at the HED we will get a low priority; if there are a lot of people with higher priority in front of us, we will spend long hours in the waiting room. Ultimately, we can still be referred to the GP or NPL (night and holiday health care – ed.). And the tick will do its job during this time. If we come across a sick arachnid, the longer we “walk” with him, the more we increase the chances of contracting Lyme disease – explains Mateusz Wawryszuk.

The rest of the article is available under the video.

Self-extraction of the tick – what is worth remembering?

So how do you go about removing the tick yourself? Do you need to invest in special tools or kits?

– You can, but you don’t really need to. The best techniques are simple and what we have at hand, that is … our own hand. We can use it to pull out both a large and a small tick, although the second one may be helpful with tweezers. Such a method, in addition to being available everywhere, has one more advantage: it saves time that we lose by going to a pharmacy, for example, explains the paramedic, adding that it is good to pull out the tick with a glove or a gauze pad to keep the basics hygiene.

There is one situation that potentially requires a medical consultation: when part of the parasite remains under the skin. – If it is only a small black dot, i.e. the jaw of a tick, we do not worry, we leave it as it is. However, if we managed to pull out only part of the arachnid and we do not feel confident enough to extract the residue with a sterile needle, it is worth visiting a primary care physician who will clean the injection site – the expert suggests.

One more thing should be remembered. – Under no circumstances should we burn the tick, apply nail polish, alcohol, butter, creams or ointments to it. This can only cause the parasite to penetrate deeper under the skin, and even return its food contents – explains Mateusz Wawryszuk.

Vigilance is essential

The first aid instructor is allergic to one more issue. – The fact that we pull out the tick does not relieve us of vigilance. We must observe the injection site, not a day or two, but even several weeks. Migratory erythema, which is the most popular symptom of Lyme disease, may appear even 5-12 weeks after contact with the tick, he points out, adding not to self-diagnose and interpret the results of the test for Lyme antibodies on your own.

– Mine were negative, as it turned out – false. This gave me a false sense of security and lowered my vigilance. Were it not for the fact that the erythema returned and other symptoms of Lyme disease appeared, such as fatigue and joint pain, I would not associate my malaise with the tick bite. It should also be remembered that erythema does not always occur. That is why I recommend observing the body and consulting with a doctor everything that worries us, even if weeks or even months have passed since contact with the parasite – he advises.

And he adds: – You do not have to be afraid of ticks, but Lyme disease – yes. Therefore, when going to green areas, you need to use protective preparations, and after returning home, look carefully and remove a tick as soon as possible.

* Mateusz Wawryszuk is a medical and water rescuer. He works in the ambulance service and deals with education in the field of first aid. He is the owner of the Aesculapa company that organizes first aid training, breaking the stereotype that first aid is boring and difficult.

We encourage you to listen to the latest episode of the RESET podcast. This time we devote it to ecology. How to be eco and not go crazy? How can we care for our planet on a daily basis? What and how to eat? You will hear about this and many other topics related to ecology in the new episode of our podcast.