“A tick bite almost killed me”

Javier Mena from Vitoria will never forget the summer of three years ago. A tick bite almost caused multiple organ failure. “It took them weeks to figure out what it was,” he says.

It all started the day before my vacation,” it started to bother me. backache, for the kidneys. It was as if she was putting him to sleep,” he recalls. After a few such days, he went to his family doctor, who diagnosed him with lumbosciatica. Mena went on vacation to Laredo, but things got worse. “I couldn’t lie. down, I had to sleep sitting up.” In the armchair”. In Cantabria he returned to the doctor, and the diagnosis was the same.

“When I had not slept for two weeks and saw that things were getting worse every day, I went to Chagorritsa, but they sent me home because they had not seen anything about me,” he says. Javier then he started to see blurry

, could neither read nor drive a car. “I returned to Chagorritsa and was accepted. They did a thousand tests, scans, MRIs, etc., but everything was fine,” he explains. After more than a week in the hospital, the doctor decided to discharge him, but he refused to leave the hospital without a diagnosis.

That same night things went from bad to worse.”My eyelid closed and my lip fell out. That’s when they were diagnosed with Lyme disease. “Come on, I got bitten by a tick,” he says. By then the infection had already reached the liver and heart valve, “a couple more days pass and I won’t count,” he says.

Javier spent 20 days on antibiotics to end the infection. Fortunately, there were no consequences, and during this time he was able to help a couple of friends who began to have the same symptoms. In many cases, the disease becomes chronic after late diagnosis.

How to act

ticks They are especially found in areas with high vegetation. Here are some recommendations on how to avoid and remove them.

It is important to know that tick saliva contains an anesthetic substance, so it is normal we usually don’t notice that we’ve been stung which means it often takes us a while to discover that it is attached to our skin. Extreme measures are recommended preventive action If you are traveling through areas with long grass or fields:

• Use repulsive Suitable for leather and clothing
• Use Lightweight clothingcap and put socks on over my pants
• Walk the paths and avoid doing it between tall bushes or other types of vegetation.
• Returning home, check your body and in children (head, armpits, ears, navel, legs, etc.)
• Wash at high temperature clothes used

In the case of animals, and especially dogs, extreme precautions must be taken when walking outside the city, and it is recommended conduct a thorough inspection after a walk. The best thing you can do to avoid ticks is a good thing. antiparasitic prevention plan.

If the presence of a tick is finally detected in both humans and animals, it must be removed from the skin quickly, carefully and with appropriate technique.

• You don’t have to tear them off
  sharply because it increases the risk of disease transmission.
• Go to health Center for tick removal
• If you can’t go to the center, hold the tick with narrow-jawed tweezers, grabbing him by the head, since if you squeeze the body, you can inject your fluids into the wound. Pull gently and firmly until it comes off. Disinfect the wound.
• Do not use oil, fire, acetone or alcohol. to remove it as it may feel attacked and secrete fluids.

The article was first published in 2020.