It may be autumn, and with temperatures in single figures, but yesterday I picked up another tick. I wasn't running yesterday, but cross-training with a cycle ride. I stopped off to walk in a wood, to look for geocaches and explore some old WW2 buildings, and I presume this is when I picked up the hitch-hiker. I was wearing capri pants and didn't have any insect repellent on my legs. In the summer I never went out hiking in the hills or the local woods without Mosi-guard on my legs even when wearing trousers, but thought we'd be safe now.
I didn't spot the tick until this morning and had to perform contortions to remove it from my lower leg. Each time I stretched and twisted my leg to get at it, my muscle started to cramp and I had to straighten my leg again! Finally I got the beggar.
Having contracted Lyme disease from an infected tick this time last year, I'm very wary of the things and will go back to using the insect repellent for now.
Written by
swanscot
Graduate
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Yup, I had the joy of a bulls-eye rash a few years back after picking a tick up on a cycle ride. My normal doctor was on holiday, so I saw someone else in the practice who firmly told me we didn't have lyme disease in the Uk. So I told him to have a look at the NHS website, which was actually having warnings about Lyme all over it at the time as quite a few people were in hospital seriously ill with it. He google it and then agreed that maybe it DID exist. Then told me he didn't know what the treatment was, so (as I had done the research) I told him antibiotics and which one, but didn't know the dosage. So he told me to go home, find out the dosage and then come back to let him know and he'd write a prescription for me. The whole thing was a complete farce. Fortunately, I knew about the symptoms of Lyme as my dad had contracted it in the past and is still having problems, so I knew what I was dealing it, but a lot of people wouldn't have done or don't have access to the internet, so would have been reassured by a GP telling them there was nothing to worry about and to just put some moisturiser on their rash! It really made me mad at the time - the long term complications can be really serious if not treated and you would expect a GP of all people to be aware of stuff, not to send their patients home to google the appropriate medication!
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