Don't forget that ticks lurk in the grass and on deciduous trees! These small, inconspicuous arachnids can cause quite a mess in your life.
The castor bean tick is a small creature from the arachnid family. When unfed, it reaches just 4 mm in length and is easy to miss. Once it fills with blood, it can increase its volume by as much as 200 times. It attacks both people and animals, so after returning from a walk in the forest, you should not only carefully examine your body, but also take care of your four-legged pet.
What should you do when you find a tick on your body? The simplest way is to grasp it with tweezers and pull it straight out toward you without twisting it. Disinfect the site where the tick was attached as you would any wound. If the tick was on a person's body for less than 24 hours, it did not have time to cause any harm. This is why checking your body carefully for ticks is so important.
Is every tick a source of dangerous diseases? Contrary to popular belief, not every encounter with a tick must end in Lyme disease or tick-borne encephalitis. Around 30% of all ticks carry diseases. On the one hand, this is positive news—it significantly reduces the risk of falling ill; on the other, we face several weeks of uncertainty. A standard test for Lyme disease in the human body is performed no earlier than four weeks after a tick bite. This is not a comfortable solution, as while the disease remains latent, it slowly begins to take its toll.
Can Lyme disease be detected earlier? It is not possible to check sooner whether you are infected, but specialist testing can determine whether the tick carried a dangerous pathogen. A professional tick test provides an answer relatively quickly as to whether it was a carrier and whether we need to begin treatment, or whether we can sleep soundly. This service is provided by Blumed Lab. Orders for tick testing can be placed via https://zbadajkleszcza.pl. Testing prices start at PLN 149.
Ticks can be submitted for testing at four tick drop-off points in Poland: Warsaw, Gdańsk, Wrocław and Kraków. If we cannot deliver the tick in person, we can send it to the laboratory in Wrocław by courier or post. For this purpose, the tick removed from the body should be secured for transport, preferably by placing it in a urine container on a damp cotton pad, which will prevent it from drying out. The package must include your contact details, including your telephone number and email address. On the day the test is performed, the sender will be notified of the result by email.
A tick can be tested for four diseases it may potentially transmit: Lyme disease, tick-borne encephalitis, anaplasmosis and babesiosis. The first two of these diseases are the most common and most frequently transmitted by ticks.
Is it worth paying for such a test? Yes, definitely. Early detection of the risk of infection makes it possible to begin immediate and effective treatment, whereas standard procedures that detect the disease after four weeks involve long-term treatment that is not always effective.
Of course, prevention is better than cure, so preventive measures should not be forgotten. Before hiking in the forest or meadow, it is worth spraying yourself with tick repellent; do not forget headwear (ticks like to attack the scalp, especially in children), long sleeves and trouser legs. After returning home, carefully check your body. Ticks prefer soft areas of skin; the most suspicious locations are under the arms, in the bends of the knees, the groin and the areas around the intimate parts.
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