People

Tick season has started and that does cause some extra concern for parents when their offspring show some redness somewhere after a day of outdoor play. Because one in five ticks is infected with a bacterium that can cause Lyme disease.

Where?
Ticks are everywhere: in forests, dunes, moors, meadows, parks and gardens. If you work or play in greenery or nature, you run an increased risk of a tick bite.

How do I recognise a tick?
A tick is very small, from 1 to 3 millimetres. A tick that has just bitten looks like a black dot.
By sucking blood, ticks swell to a brown or grey ball the size of a pea after a few days.

When are ticks active?
Ticks exist all year round. They can become active once the temperature rises above 7 degree celsius. Most people are bitten from April to October. You can take precautions by wearing skin-covering clothes and keep checking! Look especially in warm (often invisible) areas such as the armpits, groin, buttock, hollows of the knees, behind the hairline and ears.

I've been bitten. What now?
Remove the tick as quickly as possible. Grasp the tick by its head with tick forceps or tweezers as close to the skin as possible and pull it out in a powerful upward motion. Be careful not to squeeze its body as the tick may spit its stomach contents into your blood, putting you at greater risk of infection.
Clean the wound with soap and water and disinfect. Make a note of the date of the tick bite or take a photo if necessary as any symptoms may appear quite some time later.
See a doctor if you notice the following symptoms: an increasing discolouration (rings), fever, muscle and joint pain, skin, nerve or heart complaints.

Don't!
-do not use alcohol, iodine, oil, ointment or other agents
-Do not twist the tick
-Do not crush the tick

(FVDV for Tagtik/Illustration picture: Erik Karits via Unsplash)