Lymes disease

Lymes disease - not two words we were really looking forward to but the erythma migrans rash on Rowan was pretty unmistakable and centers on a tick bite so we were pretty sure what had happened, we got the tick out before it had started to swell up visibly and it came out clean; one week later a circular rash started slowly expanding around the bite site. Our van is off the road awaiting a new alternator so we had to ask Graham to run us to Ferrol this morning to the centro de saude urgencias who sent us straight on to the hospital urgencias. We were really impressed with the attitude and the systematic investigation, 'reassuring, relaxed but competent staff' was how I felt afterwards anyway after spending a few hours in hospital having some blood tests taken and a thorough examination today a very brave Rowan has now has started antibiotic so hopefully all will be well. Two weeks of amoxycillin then a revision and the results of the blood tests will decide what further treatment is needed.

I spent a lot of last night trawling the web and never have I met such a range of potential symptom and prognoses; as the possible infections enter the nervous system there are many many potential effects. One thing I did not find after two hours of searching was how urgent it was to get to hospital only many references to late diagnosis being difficult and early diagnosis being critical to the outcome of treatment. At 3 am worried about my son I wasn't sure what timescale early and late were operating...I wanted to find a sentence like "If you suspect Lyme's disease go to hospital immediately" or "....go to hospital as soon as is convenient but within a few days/12 hours" or whatever the recommendation is.

For every site that says carefully remove the tick with sharp tweezers there is one saying use clinical alcohol or petrol to anesthetize the tick for a few minute before puling it out so that if relaxes its grip and comes out clean. Others say don't use alcohol etc as it stresses the tick that then regurgitates some of the stuff it has sucked out back in again along with infective parasites so vastly increasing the risk as does disturbing or squeezing the body.

I found general alignment on:
80% of infected bites cause the radiating rash.
infection can occur with no rash symptoms - other symptoms may manifest after weeks or months and be difficult to relate back to the bite episode.
Within 18 hours of an infective bite the spirochetes are in the spinal fluid.
Early treatment is a definite advantage, late diagnosis / treatment can lead to a long drawn out affair and a fight against some potentially life changing / life threatening situations.
A significant proportion of infections go undiagnosed and it is possible that a worrying proportion of these are treated as attention deficiency disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome or a fair few other neurological disorders.
You can spray grass/woodland to control them but what with... I could not find out last night although I was concentrating on finding the diagnosis / prognosis info.
Primary hosts for the larval stages are small rodents ( our hectare of garden has hundreds of those maybe more than hundreds)
Deer and sheep are common primary hosts for the adult stage; reputedly 2500 ticks have been found on one deer. (We have deer wandering the woods all around our garden, although they can't get in the ticks and the rodents that carry the larval stages around will be able too. )
wellies sturdy trousers etc are recommended but it is so hot here that is unlikely to be manageable and they do manage to get through clothing so the only really effective approach to prevention, when in tick rich areas, is to do an all over body check every 2 -4 hours.
Guinea fowl are reputed to love ticks and be a fairly effective means of controlling then - looks like our hens will have some new friends I have always wanted to keep guinea fowl since trying to catch the tails of wild ones from the back of a landrover in Kenya in the 70s. They are great watchdogs er watchfowl shouting at intruders, they eat all sorts of bugs but unlike hens do virtually no damage to gardens, they produce eggs with large yolks that otherwise are very similar to hens eggs and a small flock of them will face up to and often scare off a fox, and they don't mind moving in with hens - done deal if I can find any.

So after a tough year at work and very recently surviving a redundancy situation here I am on the first proper day of my holidays tomorrow and instead of relaxing and de-stressing we have week of being fairly housebound while we wait for the new alternator to arrive and a month of trying to eliminate ticks and wondering what is going to happen with the boys. We have to keep a close eye on Callum too; although he has no symptoms at all I removed a tick from his ear on the same day - it seemed to only just have arrived and was easily removed so hopefully he will be fine and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

My Grandad Davy Pirnie used to regularly say "Ai ai ai life ey; it happens every day non stop." ...he wasn't wrong.