The most comprehensive first aid measures for tick bites are required in regions with a severe epidemiological situation for tick-borne encephalitis, that is, where the likelihood of infection with the tick-borne encephalitis virus is greatest. This is primarily Siberia - the Irkutsk, Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk regions, as well as Altai and the Far East. Also, constant foci of virus circulation and cases of infection are recorded in the Kaliningrad and Leningrad regions, the Baltic countries, in Belarus, the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine. Here, in addition to the simplest steps to remove the tick, you also need to go to the hospital for special tests.
Next, we will talk about how to start helping an injured person in general and what points you should pay special attention to ...
Why is it so important to provide first aid to the injured person when bitten by a tick?
When bitten by a tick, first aid is required to remove the parasite itself as quickly as possible and prevent a possible allergic reaction to its bite. The faster the tick is removed from the body, the less likely it will be to contract a dangerous infection, even if the tick is indeed infected.
There is even a chance that a tick that has already stuck into the skin can be torn off before it releases the first portion of its infected saliva. But even if the parasite has already managed to introduce saliva into the tissues, the probability of infection will be the higher, the more saliva has entered the human body. Simply put, the longer the tick sucks blood, the greater the risk that after such a bite, an infection will begin to develop in the human body.
The second reason why emergency care may be required for the victim is an allergy. In general, it rarely occurs on tick bites and almost never threatens with life-threatening conditions. However, there is a risk of severe leakage, and first aid is designed to minimize it.
Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to destroy infectious agents that have already entered the body when bitten by a tick (if they already got it), using first aid measures. With some probability, you can immediately eliminate borreliosis infection if you take an effective antibiotic, but in practice, borreliosis specifically is safer and easier to cure if it is diagnosed in the early stages at the first symptoms, rather than hedging against it with antibiotics, often capable of causing severe side effects.
Therefore, it is necessary to understand well that in a real situation it will not be possible to protect the victim from infection with 100% reliability, only by providing him with first aid.
The very same sequence in providing such assistance is relatively simple.
Step 1. Remove the tick
This is the main thing to do when you find a stuck tick. It is pointless to take any other measures if the tick continues to suck blood.
Moreover, the removal of the parasite itself is a rather specific procedure.The tick removal algorithm is as follows:
- Grab the head of the parasite as close to the skin as possible. Well, if a person or an assistant has long nails - they can grab it under the swollen body of the tick. Ideally, a special device is used for this - for example, Tick Twister, but it is difficult to find it on sale, and in cases where it is needed, it is usually not at hand. You can also use tweezers (it is also not always possible to find it in your pocket while walking in nature) or a simple thread. The latter is tied into a tightening knot, thrown over the tick so that the loop covers the head, and is tightened;
- Slowly and gently move the tick from side to side, gently pulling up from the skin. Sharp movements are unacceptable here, since in this case it is possible to accidentally tear off the body of the tick from the head, and then it will be much more difficult to remove the head from the skin. It is also useful to try to rotate the parasite, but this can only be done if it has already sucked blood and its body can be grabbed;
- As soon as the tick was removed from the wound, it must be put on a napkin (it no longer poses a danger), find a well-closing container (bottle, matchbox, bag) and put it there;
- If, when removing the tick, the head or mouth apparatus of the parasite remains in the wound, then (if it is not possible to quickly consult a doctor), you should take a needle, heat it over a fire and try to remove the remnants from the skin. If this is not done, then the wound will most likely fester in a few days.
On a note
In the same way, you need to remove ticks from the skin of a dog or cat.In veterinary practice, diseases carried by ticks are very relevant, although they differ from those in humans. In general, the rules for protecting animals are the same as for people.
The photo below shows the so-called forest mite, freshly removed from the skin:
If you do not panic and do not fuss, then even without special devices with nails of normal length it is quite possible to remove the tick from the skin so as not to tear off its head. However, it is even more effective and safer when walking in nature to stop every 20-30 minutes, raise the legs and inspect the legs under them. This way it will be possible to detect ticks that have just clung to the skin and remove them even before they begin to suck blood.
Step 2. Treat the bite
This step is required in order to somewhat mitigate the reaction of the skin to the bite and saliva components of the tick, as well as to partially disinfect the wound. However, the effectiveness and significance of such treatment should not be overestimated - local treatment of a tick bite is not a reliable prevention of infection. However, this can sometimes prevent blistering at the site of the bite and protect damaged tissue and exposure to additional infectious agents from the environment.
To disinfect the wound, after washing it with soap and water, it is treated with antiseptics (alcohol, alcohol solution of iodine, Miramistin) or natural preparations - celandine juice, for example. Due to the small diameter of the hole, the bite wound quickly heals, practically does not bleed and is protected from secondary infection.
To alleviate unpleasant symptoms, the bite site is usually lubricated with ointments with anti-inflammatory components (hydrocortisone, Advantan, Pimafukort, Flucinar).
On a note
If a progressive and rapidly spreading rash appears on the skin near the wound or on any other part of the body after a tick attack, the victim must take some kind of antihistamine - Suprastin, Loratadin, Ebastin or others. This point is especially important, since immediately after a tick bite, it is hypersensitivity reactions that pose the greatest danger to the patient, despite their relative rarity.
If the rash is very profuse and becomes similar to hives, then you must immediately call an ambulance, without waiting for a further deterioration in the condition of the victim (this can happen quickly).
At this stage, in fact, the first first aid ends. All other means and methods are available only in specialized medical institutions and do not apply to emergency care - they can be carried out within the next 3-4 days after a tick bite. But it is also useful to know about them, since the victim must still take the initiative in their application.
Step 3. Carry out emergency prevention of tick-borne encephalitis
Emergency prevention of tick-borne encephalitis consists in the introduction of specific immunoglobulin preparations into the body of the affected person, which, by binding to viral particles, inactivates them, prevents spread in the body and most likely stops the development of the disease.
It is important that the injection of immunoglobulin is able to prevent the development of tick-borne encephalitis after a bite, which compares favorably with the anti-encephalitis vaccine. (the latter must be administered just before the pathogen enters the body). Emergency prevention performs its tasks within 4 days after the bite, but it is better to apply for it during the first two days.
It is interesting
The effectiveness of such prevention of tick-borne encephalitis (especially correctly and on time) is very high. Depending on the region, 93-95% of people who receive an injection of immunoglobulin from a tick bite do not develop encephalitis. This does not mean that the effectiveness of the agent has the same value - after all, not every tick is a carrier of the virus, and not even every bite of an infected tick leads to the development of the disease. Plus, the agent is often administered too late, and often in areas endemic for one strain of the virus, immunoglobulins are used against other strains (for example, an Austrian drug is used in Siberia). Nevertheless, the security indicator still remains quite high and allows us to consider this method as the most reliable protection for the victim from the development of a dangerous disease.
Such prophylaxis is carried out in most public clinics and hospitals located in areas with a high epidemiological risk of tick-borne encephalitis. However, in reality, its implementation may be associated with various difficulties: different institutions are supplied with drugs to a different extent, in some periods, due to the influx of victims, immunoglobulin reserves are quickly exhausted, and in some places, simply because of poor organization, it is very difficult to get to the doctor. In addition, today the production of immunoglobulins abroad is sharply reduced, where the frequency of tick-borne encephalitis has significantly decreased, and the drug itself is constantly becoming more expensive.
At the same time, it is impossible to buy immunoglobulin on your own and give yourself an injection - drugs of this effect are distributed only in medical institutions and are subject to strict accounting.
Therefore, at this step, you need to come to a state medical institution as soon as possible and try to inject immunoglobulin. It is not very cheap due to the high cost of the drug itself.
The introduction of immunoglobulin is required only once. After each subsequent bite, these injections should be repeated, although the immunoglobulins themselves remain active in the body for several months.
On a note
You can also find recommendations for taking iodantipyrin when bitten by a tick - as an antiviral and prophylactic agent, but the validity of its use is ambiguous. The tool has not passed full-fledged clinical trials, and its effectiveness has not been confirmed. In any case, it can only be taken in accordance with the instructions for use, taking into account all contraindications and possible side effects.
If there is a special laboratory in the city where the victim lives, in which it is possible to conduct a study of the tick, then it is more rational to first take the parasite removed from the body for analysis, and only if the study confirms the fact of its infection with the encephalitis virus, then carry out emergency prophylaxis. Such a study is carried out very quickly - if a tick is taken for analysis in the morning, then usually there will be results in the afternoon.
It is only important that the tick be alive - fragments of the body for the presence of antigens can not be examined in every laboratory, and such a study itself is longer and more complicated.
In some laboratories, the analysis of the tick is de jure free, but de facto it costs money - fortunately, relatively inexpensively, within 300 rubles. An analysis of the parasite on Borrelia costs around 500 rubles. In almost all clinics, ticks are taken for analysis around the clock.
Step 4. Carry out emergency prevention of borreliosis
Similar to the prevention of tick-borne encephalitis, emergency prevention of Lyme disease consists in the introduction into the body of the victim of drugs that can suppress the activity and spread of the causative agent of the disease. These are mainly antibiotics of the penicillin and tetracycline groups.
However, the need for such actions is not as clear-cut as in the case of tick-borne encephalitis. The fact is that even after the appearance of obvious diagnostic signs, borreliosis is relatively easy to treat, and the likelihood of infection with a tick bite is very small. But its specific prevention requires the use of antibiotics, which can sometimes cause unwanted side effects.
Simply put, both prevention and treatment of borreliosis are carried out by the same means and are approximately equally effective. At the same time, even without preventive measures, tick-borne borreliosis develops in only about 2% of bitten people - this casts some doubt on the need to prevent borreliosis with each tick bite.
On a note
It should be borne in mind that the likelihood of infection with borreliosis correlates with the duration of sucking blood by a tick.It is believed that the bacteria infect a person if bloodsucking lasts more than 36 hours. In most cases, the parasite is removed from the body much earlier.
The photo below shows a tick that has drunk blood:
The standard of protection against borreliosis in the UK and the US is the administration of a single dose of doxycycline or amoxicillin to the victim, on whose body the tick has been for more than a day. Adults are more likely to prescribe tetracyclines, children - penicillins. If the parasite was removed earlier, then emergency prophylaxis is not carried out, and treatment is prescribed only when symptoms of the disease appear.
In other words, it is not advisable to drink antibiotics immediately after a tick bite. It makes sense to do this if, after checking the parasite, the causative agents of Lyme disease were found in it, or when unambiguous symptoms of the disease have already appeared.
What not to do when providing first aid for a tick bite
For really effective help, it is important not only to know what measures to take when attacked by a tick, but also to understand what not to do so as not to harm the victim. Sometimes improper first aid can even increase the risk of contracting tick-borne diseases.
For example, you cannot:
- Try to remove the tick by dropping oil or alcohol on it. It is not always possible to force the parasite to detach itself by such methods. In any case, these measures are long enough, and if a tick bites, it is important to remove it as soon as possible in order to minimize the risk of transmitting a significant number of infectious agents;
- Burn the tick with a cigarette, match, cigarette lighter. Here there is a risk of killing the parasite before it unhooks itself;
- Tear off the tick by grabbing it by the torso with your fingers.This is fraught not only with the detachment of the head of the parasite, but also with crushing it with the release of a large amount of infected saliva into the wound. You need to remove the tick by gently grabbing it with your nails by the head, under the abdomen - at least crushing it in this case will not be so easy;
- Leave the tick in the skin (some plan to show it to the doctor the next day or even a few days later). The longer the parasite sucks blood, the greater the risk of infection from it, so you need to remove the tick as soon as possible.
In general, as in any situation, when a tick bites, one should not panic and do nothing, as mistakes can be made, which then will respond with undesirable consequences.
It is useful to keep in mind that in other areas, hunters and fishermen are bitten by dozens of ticks every day, and no serious consequences from this happen. The probability of infection after each specific bite is not so great, therefore, tick attacks should be treated calmly, but everything should be done to minimize the risk of infection.
What to do next?
When first aid has already been provided, you need to carefully monitor the condition of the victim for several months.
Lyme disease is characterized by the fact that with timely diagnosis and initiation of treatment, it can be cured quite quickly, and therefore it is important not to miss the onset of the manifestation of its first symptoms. Tick-borne encephalitis, as a viral disease, requires much more complex therapy, but here, too, timely diagnosis plays a crucial role in the success of treatment.
The incubation period for infection with tick-borne encephalitis lasts from 4 to 16 days, and for infection with Lyme borrelia - 1-2 weeks (but sometimes much longer, up to several months).In children, the duration of the incubation period of these diseases is somewhat shorter than in adults - the responsibility for monitoring the child's condition here lies with the parents.
Therefore, after a tick bite for at least 1-2 months, special attention should be paid to the following symptoms in the victim:
- Fever, fever - characteristic of both diseases;
- Pain in the head, impaired coordination of movements, frequent dizziness, clouding of consciousness are signs of encephalitis and, to a lesser extent, borreliosis;
- The appearance of migrating erythema is a characteristic redness at the site of the bite, around which a “ring” separated from it appears. This is the main and most obvious symptom of Lyme disease;
- Cough and runny nose, neck stiffness.
If any of these symptoms appear within a few days or weeks after a tick bite, you should immediately consult a doctor and inform him of the fact of the bite. Even if such signs appear several months after the bite, it is advisable to tell the doctor about the parasite attack, as this sometimes helps to correctly diagnose. Here it is extremely important to see a doctor as soon as possible, because these symptoms indicate the onset of the acute phase of the disease, and the safety of the victim largely depends on the promptness of therapeutic measures.
The nuances of first aid for a tick bite
A good example of removing a stuck tick with a thread
Wow, thanks for the instructions.