We had a great time exploring the very extensive woodland (where we found our first geocache), the walled garden, house and chapel. Then we had a nice long walk around the ornamental lake.

Lyme Disease

The day after our visit one of my daughters told me they had a spider on their arm. There was a weird black spot on the inside of her elbow. I tried to rub it off but it didn’t budge. I kept picking, but then was concerned that maybe I was actually scratching off a mole. Then the thing came off. We put it on some white paper and discovered it had legs!!

I immediately took a photo. I wasn’t sure what it was and whether it was something I needed to be concerned about,  so I consulted the Oracle that is Facebook, and my friends immediately responded. It was unanimous: it was a tick. Everyone said I should get it checked out, as without using a proper removal tool I may have left part of the tick in her skin and this would be bad. This site has some very useful information about proper removal and dos and don’ts.

Not the best pic, but you get the idea

The doctor took my call very seriously and we went the same day. He couldn’t ascertain whether I had removed the whole thing or not.

Symptoms of Lyme Disease

The doctor said I needed to be very vigilant. I had to look out for a ‘target/bullseye rash’ which expands radially from the site of the tick bite. This can occur from two to 30 days after the initial bite. This is a symptom of Lyme disease.

Other early symptoms could include:

• A fever
• Fatigue
• Flu like symptoms
• Erythema migrans or erythema chronicum migrans (the spreading circular red rash)
• Muscle and joint pain

The bullseye rash doesn’t always appear (in as many as one in three cases it doesn’t) and the fatigue in children isn’t constant i.e. they could be running around one minute, lying on the sofa the next and then back up and running around again. This would be pretty difficult to diagnose as would the other ‘symptom’ of tantrums. What child aged three doesn’t have tantrums?

An example of the ‘target/bullseye rash’

A more comprehensive symptom checklist can be found at the Children’s Lyme Disease Network.

The doctor didn’t want to give a course of antibiotics unnecessarily, but said that if she experienced any symptoms to go back immediately and then antibiotics would be administered. We applied Savlon and kept a very close eye. However, I kept reading up about it and got more and more concerned. I called the doctor again and asked for precautionary antibiotics as I didn’t want potentially 30 days of monitoring for symptoms (excluding the rash) that where – at best – rather vague.

In many countries antibiotics are given as standard following a tick bite and the UK is renowned for being bad at diagnosing Lyme disease.

Public Health England: Enjoy the outdoors but ‘be tick aware’

Tick removal

I bought a TickCard for quick, easy and correct removal. This nifty tick remover fits into your wallet just like a credit card, which means it comes everywhere with me. We’ve used it a number of times and each time I’ve been confident that I’ve removed the whole of the critter. I’d recommend.

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