|
medpundit |
||
 |
 |
|
Wednesday, May 21, 2003Pulling them off isn’t as easy as it seems. They use fish-hook barbs to hang on tight. Turns out there are all sorts of instruments out there for pulling off a tick. There’s a tick lasso (neat), "German-engineered" tick tweezers, and the amazing tick-twister. But plain old tweezers work just as well. What I’m worried about is all of those bacteria that live in tick guts and get regurgitated into their victim’s blood stream, causing all manner of tick-borne diseases. Our tick was nice and flat, not bloated with blood, so my son’s exposure and disease risk is probably low. It wasn’t a deer tick, so we don’t have to worry about Lyme Disease. It wasn’t a black-legged tick, so we don’t have to worry about any of the Ehrlichioses. And it wasn’t a lone-star tick, so we don’t have to worry about STARI (Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness). And unfortunately it wasn’t a blue tick. It was, however, a dog tick, which can carry Rickettsia rickettsii the organism that causes Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, (aka “black measles”). It’s a much more serious disease than Lyme, especially in children, but fortunately, the incidence is low: Rickettsiae are transmitted to a vertebrate host through saliva while a tick is feeding. It usually takes several hours of attachment and feeding before the rickettsiae are transmitted to the host. The risk of exposure to a tick carrying R. rickettsii is low. In general, about 1%-3% of the tick population carries R. rickettsii, even in areas where the majority of human cases are reported. The incidence of all the other diseases is low, too, so there's no need to start antibiotics immediately after a tick bite. Just watch for signs and symptoms of an infection - a rash, fever, muscle aches, or any of the other symptoms listed in the links for the specific disease, and seek treatment if they develop. Ticks. Yuk. posted by Sydney on 5/21/2003 07:52:00 AM 1 comments 1 Comments:Thanks for this info! I just picked a tick out of my 17-month-old son's head for the first time---I was freaking! It was a dog tick, too---which I have removed from my dog before. But my son? Ick! We were just on a walk, then he got a bath, and there it was. You made me feel much better!
By |
|
