Ticks are on the up! Here's how I am always ready for a tick bite & what to do if you experience one...

Today I'm going to be chatting to you about ticks. Boy, do I hate them. They are horrible little things that, unfortunately, are on the up.

They're particularly prevalent between April and October, although they can be found all year round.

They like to hide in long grasses, brackens, ferns, along the side of riverbanks and deer parks in particular.  

Animals are big carriers of ticks, so please do be aware of them on your pets, particularly dogs. Unfortunately, they do bite humans as well and some (not all) carry Lyme disease.

Lyme disease is very difficult to diagnose if it’s not caught in time, so it really pays to be vigilant. 

Archie, our eldest son has had Lyme disease. Luckily we caught it really quickly and it was not an issue. Two-thirds of ticks that are carriers of Lyme disease leave a ‘bullseye’ mark around the tick bite, and that is a really obvious sign that the tick had Lyme disease and that you need to be treated. The other one-third of ticks that carry Lyme but do not leave a mark is the third that can lead to all sorts of problems if it’s not picked up on soon enough. 

We were on Cape Cod in the US, it was our last day and the children were playing in a friend’s garden. Now Archie is loved by animals, creepy crawlies and biting insects included! It’s obviously the pheromones that he carries bless him. He is bitten a lot, poor boy, and whereas my other two children have never had a tick bite he has had numerous.

We never saw the tick and I wasn't aware that he had been bitten at the time, but when we were back in the UK, I noticed a mark and red rash on his thigh on Friday evening. By the Saturday morning, it was a really obvious telltale bullseye mark. 

I've spent a lot of time up in Scotland, as has Simon, in particular up in the highlands. There are a lot of deer up there, as well as brackens and ferns, etc. Therefore, I've been aware of and around ticks all my life, so I do check the children regularly.

I also had heard about this bullseye mark, and that it is a sign of Lyme disease and you need to see a doctor as soon as possible. 

I contacted our doctor surgery immediately, and luckily we got an out of hours appointment. Unfortunately, because the tick wasn't present, the doctor didn't necessarily believe when I said that it was a tick bite, but I was fairly adamant that she was to put him on antibiotics immediately. 

I got in touch with our GP on Monday morning and we were referred up to a specialist at Great Ormond Street that specialises in tick bites.

Thankfully, we got Archie onto the right course of antibiotics. He was on them for quite a long time and had numerous blood tests to make sure that it was out of his system. 

Removing ticks.

I actually carry these Tick Removers in my handbag - what with four dogs and three children, and Archie being loved by ticks!

In the packet, there's a tiny remover and one that’s a slightly bigger size. When the tick first gets onto your skin and implants, they’re really tiny so the smaller one is needed. You literally just brush the tool up through its body, turn it anti-clockwise and then pull. 

Once it's been on your skin for a little while and has had an opportunity to feed off your blood, it will have a sack on his back that has gotten bigger and bigger - that's when you would use the larger of the removers.

If you want to keep the tick and get it tested, do that. If not, I actually squash it and flush it down the loo and it’s dealt with. 

If you don’t have the correct apparatus with you, you might find that you need some extra assistance. Archie got a tick in his belly button whilst we were down at our house in Devon! We were in South Molton market when he said "Mummy, look what I've got” and I ended up taking him to the vets where he had to queue up with the cats and dogs, hop onto the table in the vet’s room and have it removed there! 

You can remove the tick with tweezers. Use the pointy ones, not the straight edge ones and you need to make sure that you get it as close to the skin as possible and pull upwards, you don't want to twist with tweezers because you will leave its head in.

Clean the area with antiseptic, or a bit of alcohol to make sure that it's totally clean. 

One of the most important tips regarding ticks is that if you see one, don't panic and think “I've got to pull it off, get it off me, get it off me!”, you've got to get it out properly and you can only do that if you stay relatively calm. If you leave the head, it can cause an infection. Don’t panic, keep an eye out for the bullseye ring (remember not all ticks carry Lyme disease) and if you start to feel flu-like, severe headaches and any other of the related symptoms, get yourself to the doctor. 

Matt Dawson, the England Rugby player, contracted Lyme disease at Richmond Park and a few years ago and he was incredibly ill from it.  He had to have heart surgery and it massively affected his body.

Unfortunately, he just didn't know that he had Lyme disease, and if it's left untreated it can be really, really serious. If it's picked up on quickly within a few weeks and you're given the right treatment of antibiotics, it is not a problem at all. It reacts really well to antibiotics and you don't need to worry about it. 

Matt Dawson is involved in the Big Tick Project and they're doing a lot of research and raising awareness into ticks, and it's why I wanted to chat to you because having had Lyme disease in the family, it is scary. Let’s all be really vigilant and check our children, each other and ourselves if we've been out for a long walk or out in the countryside.

I hope that you have found this useful and helpful, do ask me any questions!

Love,