{"id":2443,"date":"2014-11-02T20:39:43","date_gmt":"2014-11-02T20:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/?p=2443"},"modified":"2024-01-17T21:18:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T21:18:44","slug":"woodland-walks-ticks-and-recognising-lyme-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparentsocial.com\/woodland-walks-ticks-and-recognising-lyme-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Symptoms of Lyme Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"
We visited the Vyne, a National Trust<\/a> venue near Basingstoke in Hampshire, which was stunning and had so much for the children to do. Tick bites and Lyme disease were the last things on my mind.<\/p>\n We had a great time exploring the very extensive woodland (where we found our first geocache<\/a>), the walled garden, house and chapel. Then we had a nice long walk around the ornamental lake.<\/p>\n 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!!<\/p>\n I immediately took a photo. I wasn’t sure what it was and whether it was something I needed to be concerned about, \u00a0so 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n Not the best pic, but you get the idea<\/p><\/div>\n 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.<\/p>\n The doctor said I needed to be very vigilant. I had to look out for\u00a0a ‘target\/bullseye<\/span>\u00a0rash’ which expands radially from the site of the tick bite. This can occur from two\u00a0to 30 days after the initial bite. This is a symptom of Lyme disease. <\/span><\/p>\n Other early symptoms could include: <\/span><\/p>\n 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?<\/span><\/p>\n An example of the ‘target\/bullseye rash’<\/p><\/div>\n A more comprehensive symptom checklist can be found at the\u00a0Children’s Lyme Disease Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In many countries antibiotics are given as standard following a tick bite and the UK is renowned for being bad at diagnosing Lyme disease.<\/p>\n Public Health England: Enjoy the outdoors but ‘be tick aware’<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
<\/a><\/p>\n
Lyme Disease<\/h2>\n
<\/a>
Symptoms of Lyme Disease<\/h2>\n
\n
<\/a>
Tick removal<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n