How to prevent tick-borne borreliosis from ruining your life

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A tick bite can result in disability and even death if you do not see a doctor in time.

Ticks are most active in late spring and early summer. It is during this period that it is easiest to pick up borreliosis (aka Lyme disease). In 2017, almost 7 thousand cases of the disease were registered in Russia.

What is tick-borne borreliosis and how is it dangerous

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection. Bacteria - Borrelia - enter the human body from the salivary glands of a tick that has stuck into the skin. Fortunately, not everyone, but only the ixod one.

This family of bloodsuckers is generally extremely unpleasant. In addition to Lyme disease, tick-borne encephalitis and some other diseases, such as babesiosis, tick-borne fever, are transmitted by ixodids. Therefore, it is advisable to take the tick pulled out of the body to the laboratory in order to find out if it belongs to a dangerous family.

But even if it belongs, the chance to stay healthy remains.

Not every ixodid tick is contagious.

But if it is contagious, the prospects are unpleasant. Tick-borne borreliosis is dangerous with complications that appear several weeks, or even months after the bite. These include:

• Joint problems. Bacteria that enter the body cause joint inflammation. At first, this is manifested by pain and swelling. Over time, the situation worsens up to the development of arthritis and forced limitation of mobility.
• Neurological problems. Numbness and weakness in the limbs, movement disorders, temporary paralysis of one side of the face, inflammation of the meninges (meningitis) are just a short list of complications associated with neurology.
• Cardiovascular problems, in particular severe arrhythmia.
• Inflammation of the liver (hepatitis).
• Inflammation of the eyes.
• Great fatigue.

These complications can be fatal. Therefore, it is very important not to overlook Lyme disease and not refuse treatment.

How to understand that you have tick-borne borreliosis

The first sign of a possible infection is the tick bite itself. If you are lucky enough to remove the arthropod and take it to the laboratory, great: it will dispel or, on the contrary, strengthen your suspicions. But if the laboratory failed to dissect the bloodsucker, begin to closely monitor the skin and well-being.

1. Watch the bite site

A red bump and swelling like a mosquito bite is normal. Such a skin reaction, even if the edema is large, disappears in a few days and is not a sign of borreliosis.

An obvious symptom appears at the site of the bite after 3–30 days.

This so-called erythema is a red spot surrounded by white and red rims. If you find it on the skin, urgently contact a therapist: you have tick-borne borreliosis.

However, not everyone infected with Lyme disease is tagged with such a target. So other signs are also important.

2. Monitor your well-being

With Lyme disease, a few days after the bite appear:

• fever and chills, seemingly unreasonable, because there are no traditional signs of ARVI like a runny nose, cough, sore throat;
• weakness, increased fatigue;
• headache;
• pain, body aches;
• slight difficulty with neck movements;
• swollen lymph nodes

The presence of these symptoms does not speak for sure about borreliosis. Fever and aches may be due to other causes. But if you observe in yourself two or more signs and at the same time remember that you have recently been bitten by a tick, be sure to consult a doctor.

See your doctor even if symptoms come and go.

This also happens with borreliosis. The disease continues to spread quietly, only to seriously ruin your life one day.

How to treat tick-borne borreliosis

To begin with, you need a doctor to make a diagnosis. Unfortunately, this can take time. If there is no obvious sign of erythema, Lyme disease is confirmed with a blood test. But you will have to wait with him, because antibodies to the disease are produced only a few weeks after the bite.

If the diagnosis is confirmed, your doctor will prescribe antibiotics. Which one depends on your age and the duration of the bite, as well as on the severity of the symptoms. Typically, doxycycline, amoxicillin, cefuroxime are used, but other options are possible. In difficult cases, when the disease has already affected the nervous system, antibiotics are prescribed intravenously.

Most often, borreliosis is completely curable. To do this, you just need to start treatment on time.

But even after successful therapy, the so-called post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome can develop. It includes weakness, increased fatigue, and regular muscle and joint pain. Scientists don't know why this is happening.

Why it is impossible not to treat tick-borne borreliosis

At first glance, the question sounds strange. This is if you do not know how insidious Lyme disease is.

It happens that after the detection of erythema, a person cannot immediately get to a therapist. In the meantime, the erythema disappears, and the remaining symptoms appear so implicitly that the bitten one decides: "I recovered myself!" And already consciously does not go to the doctor. This is a huge mistake.

Borrelia, without even making themselves felt, continue to multiply in the body, slowly affecting various organs and systems.

Problems with joints, heart, nervous system are gradually increasing. A patient who has already forgotten about the bite is running around uselessly between a therapist, a cardiologist, a neurologist, a rheumatologist, who also do not understand what is happening. And if one day some particularly attentive doctor nevertheless establishes the main cause of the disease, it may be too late: Borrelia will corrode the body so much that it will be impossible to cure a person.

Hence an important rule: if there is the slightest suspicion of borreliosis, a check is necessary. And if the fears are confirmed, treatment is required.

How to protect yourself from tick-borne borreliosis

Lyme disease is easier to prevent than to cure. Therefore, remember the important safety rules.

1. Dress appropriately when going outdoors. You should be wearing a long-sleeved jacket, loose pants and high shoes. Tuck your legs into shoes or socks if you are wearing sneakers. T-shirts and shirts into trousers. It is good if the clothes are light and monochromatic: it is easier to notice a tick against such a background. A headdress is required.
2. Use repellents. Those that contain permethrin and the chemical compound diethyltoluamide (DEET) are most effective against ticks. Just spray them on your clothing, not your skin.
3. Get in the habit of looking at yourself and those around you. At least once every half hour, carefully examine clothes and exposed areas of the body for ticks.
4. Stay out of bushes and tall grass. These are the places that ticks prefer.
5. Back home, wash your clothes at a temperature not lower than 60 ° C. Tick larvae can remain on it, which are difficult to notice.
6. Immediately after your visit to nature, take a shower and bathe the children. During the procedure, carefully examine and feel the body, especially the scalp under the hair and the area under the knees. If the tick has sucked in, you need to remove it as soon as possible. The longer it stays on the skin, the higher the risk of getting sick. Lyme infection is unlikely if the tick is attached for less than 36 to 48 hours.