Don't ignore it! Poisonous insects are more terrible than mosquitoes. They take advantage of people's unpreparedness to launch a "killer weapon"?

At this time of year every year, Uncle Wang would return to his hometown, walk through the tall weeds, and come to the remote mountains to sweep the graves of his deceased elders.

A week after visiting the grave, Uncle Wang began to suspect that he had done something wrong when offering sacrifices, because he felt that his ancestor was angry.

For no apparent reason, Uncle Wang felt weak all over, couldn't eat, had pain all over his body, and had a high fever . After a few days of not feeling better, he staggered to the hospital and had the doctor draw blood for a checkup.

Looking at the strange " fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome " on the diagnosis, Uncle Wang's fever-confused brain was unable to react. His hand holding the list loosened and he fainted again.

After a long and difficult treatment, Uncle Wang was rescued from the King of Hell by the medical staff and his family. He kept muttering about his ancestors and the punishment they had bestowed on him, but the doctor smiled:

" You, old man, just encountered a poisonous insect !"

Schrodinger's tick bite

The "poisonous insects" that the doctor refers to are ticks.

Ticks look a bit like spiders, only 2 to 10 mm in size. Their most iconic appearance is the pair of sharp mouthparts on their heads, which are used to bleed their prey.

Ticks at different life stages | CDC

Being sucked blood by animals is actually not a big deal . You must have encountered mosquitoes and leeches. How much blood can they suck?

The real “big deal” is that it may just suck a few milliliters of your blood and leave, or it may inject you with a deadly poison .

Mr. Wang, mentioned above, was infected with a tick carrying the Dabiebanda virus . The tick sucked Mr. Wang’s blood and, as a “return gift,” gave Mr. Wang the Dabiebanda virus on its body. Since the virus was discovered in China in 2009, as of 2021, 18,902 people have fallen ill [2].

After being infected with the Dabiebanda virus, patients experience symptoms that resemble a mixture of influenza and acute gastroenteritis. They also experience a significant decrease in platelets and severe bleeding tendency, which may lead to shock and death. The mortality rate of this disease in China used to be over 30%, but it dropped to around 8% after 2016, which is still a high proportion [3].

In addition to the Dabebanda virus, ticks can also carry more than 100 pathogenic microorganisms , the main diseases caused by which include fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, spotted fever, Lyme disease, forest encephalitis, hemorrhagic fever, Q fever, relapsing fever, babesiosis... In terms of the ability to spread diseases, ticks are second only to mosquitoes!

Netizens share their father's experience of falling ill from tick bites丨Xiaohongshu

These are the most annoying things about ticks: a bite from it could be completely harmless, or it could be a serious problem; but when it comes to preventing ticks, people's awareness is not as high as that of preventing mosquitoes .

Its ultimate killer weapon is actually to take advantage of people when they are least prepared!

Ask this question more often to help doctors diagnose quickly

Tick-borne disease is a headache for doctors. The main reason is that most patients do not know or have forgotten that they have been bitten by ticks, thus delaying the doctor's diagnosis and treatment .

But we can't blame the patients, because tick bites are really not easy to detect.

When a mosquito wants to bite you, it will first buzz loudly to make its presence known. It will hurt you when it bites you, and after sucking your blood, it will leave you with an itchy and red bump.

Although mosquito bites also have the risk of spreading diseases, they are still relatively easy to detect丨giphy

But ticks are different.

⚠️It jumps onto you and leaves you silently;

⚠️When it bites, it releases an anesthetic so you don’t feel pain;

⚠️The scars left vary from person to person. They may be black scabs resembling charcoal, or they may be shallow injuries that are difficult to detect.

⚠️The bites are mostly in hidden places such as the scalp, armpits, groin, and thighs.

Tick ​​bite scars can be large and obvious, and in easily visible areas | Dr B Miller

Tick ​​bites can also be small and hidden in the hair (the little girl in the photo was paralyzed by the bite)丨Facebook/Jessica Griffin

Tick ​​bites are dangerous and hidden. I'm panicking. After a hike in the wild, should I go to the hospital, strip naked and let the doctor check me out?

That's not necessary. The incubation period of diseases caused by tick bites is generally no more than one month. If you have been back from the wild for a month and have no discomfort, you really don't need to bother going to the hospital .

However, if you experience unpleasant symptoms that are difficult to trace within one month after returning from the wild - including but not limited to the various symptoms mentioned above - do not take cold medicine, fever-reducing medicine, or gastrointestinal medicine on your own . You must go to the hospital in time and make an appointment with the infectious disease department . And be sure to ask the doctor one more question during the consultation :

"I went outdoors a few days ago. Could it be that I was bitten by a tick?"

Don’t be afraid that this may make you seem crazy and suspicious. If the disease is really caused by a tick bite, you and the doctor will be grateful for asking this question!

If the hospital you go to does not have an infectious disease department, you can also make an appointment with the hematology or gastroenterology department according to your symptoms, and tell the doctor that you suspect you may have been bitten by a tick .

But from my own experience, many patients with tick-borne disease are already in a very serious condition when they come to the hospital, and are directly admitted to the ICU through the emergency department...

Can you avoid ticks?

We cannot say that we can avoid ticks 100%, but these methods can help us greatly reduce the probability of encountering ticks.

First, we need to understand where ticks are most likely to appear. Hills, mountains, and forests with dense grass and bushes are the nests of ticks . They also have requirements for the environmental temperature, too cold or too hot, so patients with tick disease in China are mainly distributed in places with warm climates , such as Henan, Hubei, Shandong, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, etc., and are most likely to appear in summer.

But we can't just not go to these places, right? We can go, but we need to be well-dressed: wear a hat, long sleeves and long pants, tuck the pants into socks, and tuck the socks into tight shoes (sandals). Don't say it doesn't look good, isn't the outdoor style very popular now?

Mosquito repellents containing DEET are also effective against ticks. The physical defense of clothing plus the magical defense of mosquito repellents add up to a very high buff.

If you find a tick on your body, the online advice on pulling it out by force or burning it with fire is not reliable. The professional way is to use tweezers to remove it, but it really requires too much skill. Besides, who would bring tweezers when hiking? Go back to the hospital immediately to get it removed!

The standard action of completely removing a tick still looks difficult丨giphy

Author: Li Meng

Editor: Li Xiaokui

Special thanks to: Wensai, attending physician of the infectious diseases department of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University