Fluctuations in temperature have caused the insects that year after year give trouble to infectious disease specialists to appear and put patients on guard. The risk of Lyme disease is real, doctors warn, although it does not mean that every tick bite can end in such serious neurological complications.
Lyme disease, also known as Lyme disease, is an infection caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, transmitted through the bite of a tick. The main risk occurs in areas with abundant vegetation – forests, parks or tall grass – especially in the warm season when ticks are active. Warming weather has already activated them. In Olt County, for example, the Public Health Directorate reported 13 hospital admissions due to tick bites.
What happens after a tick bite
If not detected and treated in time, Lyme disease can affect the joints, nervous system and heart, leading to long-term complications. One of the first signs is erythema migrans (a circular, spreading redness), but the disease can develop without obvious symptoms at first.
Prevention is key and includes avoiding areas at risk, wearing protective clothing, using insect repellants, and checking the skin carefully after exposure. If the bite has occurred, it is particularly important to correctly extract the insect and institute preventive treatment.
Not all ticks can cause Lyme disease. Lyme disease is only transmitted by certain species of ticks, those infected with the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. In Europe, the main vectors are ticks of the genus Ixodes ricinus, or “forest tick”.
To transmit the disease, a tick must be infected. Not all ticks carry the bacteria, and in addition, an infected tick must remain attached to the skin, usually 24–48 hours, to transmit the infection. The longer the tick remains attached, the greater the risk. The risk also increases when the area is endemic (ie there are many infected ticks).
How do you protect yourself?
Avoiding areas with grass and shrubs is the most effective way to prevent tick bites. If we cannot do this, it is recommended that we wear light-colored clothing when going outdoors to make insects, including ticks, as easily visible as possible. Public health experts also recommend using bug sprays.
When returning from hiking, we must carefully check our clothes, luggage and exposed body parts.
Another important aspect, if we are animal owners, is to protect our animals against insects, using products recommended by the veterinarian.
“Many people take the tick home and something remains there. That’s the problem”
Primary infectious disease physician Oana Obretin explained, for “Adevărul”, why it is important that, if we discover an attached tick, we go to the Emergency Department to have it extracted. The medical staff will perform this operation with specialized instruments and, just as importantly, will also recommend preventive treatment.
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“We had a few cases this year as well, they started to approach us. The weather has warmed, people have gone out to green grass, puppies, carriers of ticks, are not dewormed properly. What I want to emphasize: it is very important that patients do not remove the tick. They shouldn’t do this on their own, they need to come to the ER. Many people remove the tick at home and something remains there. That’s the problem”the doctor warned.
Although a tick bite does not automatically mean that the patient will develop Lyme disease, the danger is there. A complication of this type occurs in approximately every 10-20 cases, the doctor mentioned, based on his own experience at the Slatina County Emergency Hospital.
The disease, on the other hand, begins to show neurological signs over time, more than three weeks after contact with the carrier insect. Such signs are: gait disturbances, headaches, signs at the site of the bite. That is why it is important for parents to check their children every time they return home from a place where such contact could have occurred, in order to identify the insect in time and intervene professionally for extraction.
“I say to the moms: Look, you go to the park, bring the little one home, go to the bathroom, undress him, check him. We’re not in full season yet, but there will be more and more cases as the weather warms up.”the doctor emphasized.
There were also situations where patients presented to the hospital after several days, and the insect had penetrated deeper into the skin, being more difficult to extract. It is important that it is completely removed and that the prophylactic treatment, established by the specialist doctor, is instituted. This treatment involves the administration of an antibiotic, the dose (it can even be a single dose) and the period for which it is administered being at the decision of the specialist in infectious diseases.
The recommended antibiotic is from a special class, and taking it without the doctor’s clear indication can have consequences.
What patients are doing wrong
Because trips to the green grass usually take place on weekends or holidays, when patients find that they have a tick attached, they often try to solve the problem themselves. There are even products that can be purchased to extract these insects, but the procedure itself requires preparation and, more importantly, we must ensure that the insect has been fully extracted. For this reason, the doctor recommends presenting to the Emergency Department, even if, especially on holidays, this may involve a wait of several hours, depending on the number of patients.
When trying to solve the problem themselves, patients usually use what they have at hand: alcohol, acetone, all sorts of other products that they “heard” kill the insect. “They use whatever they have at home or press/squeeze the area to get the tick out. Not like that!”draws the doctor’s attention. These are wrong behaviors, which can do much more harm than good, warns doctor Oana Obretin.
