Ticks on the run

Ticks may generally be found in brushwood (brushes), weeds, ferns and tall grass up to approx. 1.5 m in height. Ticks are parasitic, spider-like arthropods. Approximately 650 tick species exist worldwide and they are often found to serve as disease vectors for such infections as Lyme disease. The medicalpicture Feature with new information und Images about ticks. They generally do not exceed 4 mm in size, can however swell to up to 3 cm after feeding. They feed by attaching themselves to the host’s skin and the subsequent intake of their blood.

Lyme disease, Lyme borreliosis:

The cause of Borreliosis is a bacterial infection which may be acquired from a bite of an infected tick. Symptoms of LD may include rashes and flu-like symptoms in its initial stage, followed by the possibility of musculoskeletal, arthritic, neurologic, psychiatric and cardiac manifestations

Tick typhus: Is an infection with a rickettsia (bacteria-like organism) transmitted from native animals by ixodid ticks and is confined to the eastern coast line of Australia and Bass Strait Islands. Clinical symptoms include headaches, multiple rashes, swollen glands, fever and flu like symptoms. The disease is rarely fatal and is commonly treated with antibiotics.

Tick-extraction: Correct technique - Tick removal may simply be accomplished by using a pair of tweezers and gripping the tick’s body close to the skin surface. Then, without twisting, the tick may be pulled out of the skin. The bite location should be cleaned and disinfected with alcohol or some other type of topical disinfectant. As an alternative, the body of the tick may simply be cut at the surface, leaving some of the head in the wound. This is generally not a problem. IMPORTANT NOTE: Care should be taken not to squeeze the body of the tick during extraction as this may increase the chance of Borrelia transmission.

Wrong approach - Many household cures exist regarding the treatment of tick bites. Generally, they should not be attempted. For example, killing the tick by suffocation (dripping some oil on them for example) is not at all useful because although the tick dies of suffocation, this type of death may cause Borrelia expulsion form the tick’s GI tract. Tick remains - The possible remainders of the tick’s head within the wound generally do not cause a problem. The infection risk for Lyme disease does NOT increase in case the tick has not been fully removed.