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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It is the time of year to spend time outside but we need to take extra care to protect against tick bites and the potential of contracting Lyme disease. How best to prevent getting bites and what should you do if you get one? Dr Maura Finn is here with everything you need to know. Morning Maura.
Good morning.
How are you? I'm very well, thanks. Now, if you have any questions for Maura, get them in now. We'll try to address them on air.
Chapter 2: What precautions should you take to avoid tick bites?
You can WhatsApp us on 0870 32 32 32, text 51551 or email todaydmc at rte.ie. Now, Maura, the HSE issued a warning about the presence of ticks in Ireland just a few weeks ago and saying they are everywhere in Ireland. We're in peak tick season now, aren't we?
Yeah, and they are everywhere and people probably don't realise that. Now, they are primarily in areas where there's long grass, woodland areas, even sand dunes, but they can be in urban and rural situations. So they are everywhere, but they become more active in the summer season, spring and summer.
So it's really important you go looking for them because you won't be aware often that you have a tick bite.
OK, what do they look like?
Well, they're small, little hard creatures, like spider-like creatures, but they're teeny. Most of them are very small, like three millimetres. They get bigger when they feed. And they're feeding on you, presumably. Yeah, unfortunately. They're called external parasites. They feed on animals and they feed on blood. And they don't jump or fly. You brush off them.
So if you're in long grass or something... They'll be on the grass and it will hit it kind of come against you and they sense movement. They sense heat and they sense carbon dioxide. And that's why how they move from animal to animal.
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Chapter 3: Where are ticks commonly found during peak season?
But they are pretty gross little creatures. And I shouldn't say that maybe, but they have these barbed mouth parts that kind of connect into you. And they inject a tiny bit of very mild painkiller and blood clotting substance that actually anti blood clotting substance that actually allows them to feed without you feeling it at all.
And as they feed, the warmth of the blood that they're taking from you can actually trigger kind of any dormant bacteria that they may have in their system to kind of go into you. And they carry a lot of diseases, not just Lyme disease, but Lyme disease is the one that will be most prevalent in Ireland.
yeah so I mean am I going to know I've been bitten?
No, because they have this little painkiller, you don't actually feel it. So you have to really go looking for it. And this would be, you know, I suppose the advice of what the HSE was trying to alert people to. You need to look.
So if you've been in a woodland area, if you've been out and about, and this is for your children and pets as well, look in areas that are kind of the warmer areas usually. So sometimes behind the ears, around your neck, in your head.
And between your toes, it's going to freak people out a little bit if you're walking barefoot and you're growing under your arms and you need to look for them and you will see them. They're tiny, but they're little black things and they're hard. And as they feed, they get bigger. And if you find them, it's very important that you remove them carefully. You don't squash them.
You don't twist them. You don't want to kind of push what they've been feeding into your body. So you use tweezers and take it from the kind of as close to the skin as possible and just pull them gently out and just get rid of them then. And if you have been bitten by them, if you find them, If it's within a couple of hours, you really don't have any risk. Okay.
The risk of disease is if there has been sustained feeding. So really not until 24, 48 hours of attachment. But people do get freaked out. They find them, they get freaked out. And if you are and you're worried at all, contact your doctor because we will give you the right advice then.
Okay. Some experts say keep the tick after you remove it. What's the point of that?
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Chapter 4: How can you identify a tick and what do they look like?
If you've had exposure, you've been in an area, even if you're not certain that you have had a tick bite that you've seen, it may have fallen off before you realised it. If you have a certain kind of rash or you have symptoms that are like a flu like symptoms or a fever within a certain number of days, we would treat you empirically. So we would actually give you antibiotic cover.
just in case you are exposed to Lyme disease. But only 5% of tick bites will actually carry Lyme disease. So it's important not to freak people out as well as being informed, you know.
Okay. Lyme disease, I mean, if only 5% of the ticks carry it, it's presumably not that prevalent, but it can be pretty serious.
It can. Well, I think they kind of estimate about 400 people in Ireland would be affected every year. So that's quite a lot, really. Now, the majority of those will have very minor symptoms. You know, they'll have kind of maybe flu-like symptoms. They may have this particular rash. It's called erythema migrans. It's like a bullseye rash, which expands from a centre point and expands out.
And it can last for days or weeks even. The symptoms may not present up until maybe even 30 days after they have the tick bite has bitten. But some people can have very debilitating symptoms from it and long lasting symptoms. It's unusual. It's rare, but it can happen. These long symptoms from Lyme disease and they're
There can be neurological symptoms, there can be arthritic symptoms, it can even affect your heart, fatigue, lots and lots of kind of like vague symptoms that are quite debilitating for the people involved. But thankfully, that's quite rare.
OK, good. Now, after hearing all this, I do not want to get Lyme disease. I do not want to get bitten by one of these yolks, but I do want to go out into the great outdoors. What's the best way of protecting myself against getting bitten in the first place?
Well, I suppose the sensible thing is to kind of cover up as much as you can. You know, I said about in between your toes, you know, footwear. And we all like to kind of go barefoot in the sand dunes and stuff like that. But just be careful and go looking for them. That's probably the most important thing is always check yourself. But kind of footwear, tuck your trousers into your socks.
And for children, like so you can imagine for adults, it'll be legs and arms. That'll probably be more likely to have a bite. For children, because they're smaller, it could be around their head and neck.
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