The right tick protection: That really helps

the-right-tick-protection-that-really-helps

Walking in the forest, lying on a meadow – wonderful! With our tips against ticks you can enjoy the nature undisturbed – in the video you can see the main points in the summary.

How nice is it to enjoy nature in spring and summer! But unfortunately, one should think about ticks , as they can transmit serious illnesses such as TBE or Lyme disease.

Tick ​​protection: When should I pay attention to ticks?

Ticks become active in spring and usually live below 1000 meters. Therefore, if you are out in the forest to protect yourself from ticks and from stinging you, put on sturdy shoes, socks, and long pants. If possible also wear a shirt with long sleeves. The same goes for the picnic on the lawn and gardening – ticks also like to hide in the tall grass.

Check vaccination

As a protection, vaccination against ticks makes sense if you live in risky areas or want to go on vacation and stay there in the wild. It protects against ticks transmitted by TBE – the viruses can lead to meningitis. Particularly affected are Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg as well as parts of Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Thuringia and Saarland.

Tick ​​protection is also important after vaccination Anyone who has a vaccine, but must still protect against ticks, because they transmit not only TBE other pathogens, especially bacteria from the group of the so-called Borrelia. The problem: The infectious disease Lyme disease (Lyme borreliosis) has increased significantly in Germany. In the meantime one assumes from approximately 100,000 new illnesses per year.

Lyme disease can lead to chronic inflammation of the nervous system, the heart muscle and the joints and in very rare cases even fatal. Five to 35 percent of all ticks carry the pathogen, on average one of a hundred tick bites leads to a recognizable Lyme disease.

For flu-like complaints like

  • Fever,
  • A headache,
  • Muscle aches
  • or lymph node swelling

you should therefore sit up and take notice. These can occur only days or weeks after the tick bite.

Wandering Toad: Typical sign of infection after a sting of ticks

Typical of the infection is the so-called “Wanderröte”, an annular and at least four inches of redness around the sting site. Important: This occurs at the earliest seven days after the stab of the ticks. If you notice such signs, you should go directly to the family doctor, Lyme disease can be treated well with antibiotics. How to spot a tick bite is explained in this article.

When it comes to tick protection, do not rely solely on chemistry

In combination with appropriate clothing (light clothing avoids ticks, by the way), the use of anti-tick repellents (sprays and lotions) is useful, for example, coconut oil helps against ticks and black cumin oil against ticks . However, the remedies, also called repellents, do not always work as long as promised. This is especially true for children.

Investigate yourself for ticks

After a hike or a picnic on the lawn, you should carefully search your clothes and body. Ticks prefer areas with thin skin, such as the back of the knee, armpits, underarm and groin areas. As the ticks secrete a numbing secretion at the sting, one usually does not feel it. In the video above you can see exactly what a tick bite with borelliosis looks like and recognize the infection immediately.

Ticks should be removed quickly

The sooner you remove ticks, the lower the risk of borelliosis infection: usually the pathogens are transmitted after about 24 hours. Take a pair of tweezers on excursions in nature. Even with suitable tick protection, a sting can not always prevent.

Remove ticks correctly

If you want to remove a tick , pull it out with the tweezers – without squeezing it. Hold the animal with the tweezers as close to the skin as possible. If you stun ticks with icing spray, they are easier to remove. Never suffocate the tick with oil or glue! In the agony, but the animals salivate; this increases the risk of infection.

Special tick tweezers, which are similar to check cards, are less suitable: it does not always catch the smaller juvenile stages of the tick, the so-called nymphs. In addition, the card surface can not be applied to every part of the body, for example in the inguinal and genital region that is so popular with ticks. Tweezer-like plastic tweezers often have the disadvantage that they do not close properly and make it difficult to remove the animal.

Ticks – off to the lab?

Often one hears the advice to keep the removed tick and take to a closer examination with the doctor. In fact, it can be determined in the laboratory whether and which pathogens contain ticks. However, damaged or dried ticks, but also animals completely soaked in blood can falsify the laboratory result. Extensive examination of a tick that you have removed from your body is therefore not necessarily sensible.