alansykes
Veteran Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- Except the Francés
A forum member recently got bitten by ticks and inquired about the danger of getting Lyme's Disease, a particularly debilitating largely incurable chronic illness not unlike glandular fever.
The disease is transmitted by ticks which attack deer, sheep, dogs, humans etc, often jumping onto bare legs from grass and bracken. It is endemic in Northern Spain and much of France (and the Scottish border where I live).
If you find a tick biting you, try to twist it off anti-clockwise, rather than just pulling it out (which risks leaving the mandibles, which carry the infection, in you). They like to gorge themselves full of your blood (carrying a sac which can be up to a cm long when full), so if they are attached to you, they're quite easy to spot (and kill).
If you catch them quickly enough, they are unlikely to infect you, but the NHS helpline advised me to take an antihistemine just in case (ask the farmacia for an antihistamínico). If the resulting bite mark looks much like a mosquito bite, there's nothing to worry about. If it looks like the "bullseye" of a target, then get yourself to a doctor as fast as possible.
I don't want to sound scare-mongering, but the shepherd on the next farm to mine got the disease a couple of years ago and he has had to take disability retirement and lost all his energy and general get up and go.
The disease is transmitted by ticks which attack deer, sheep, dogs, humans etc, often jumping onto bare legs from grass and bracken. It is endemic in Northern Spain and much of France (and the Scottish border where I live).
If you find a tick biting you, try to twist it off anti-clockwise, rather than just pulling it out (which risks leaving the mandibles, which carry the infection, in you). They like to gorge themselves full of your blood (carrying a sac which can be up to a cm long when full), so if they are attached to you, they're quite easy to spot (and kill).
If you catch them quickly enough, they are unlikely to infect you, but the NHS helpline advised me to take an antihistemine just in case (ask the farmacia for an antihistamínico). If the resulting bite mark looks much like a mosquito bite, there's nothing to worry about. If it looks like the "bullseye" of a target, then get yourself to a doctor as fast as possible.
I don't want to sound scare-mongering, but the shepherd on the next farm to mine got the disease a couple of years ago and he has had to take disability retirement and lost all his energy and general get up and go.