Ugh, my poor 6 year old is stuck on an antibiotic he's never had before. Saturday night he was running his fingers through his hair and discovered a bump. I took a look and it was a tick, full of blood. YUCK! He went for a walk in the woods that morning, so I'm hoping that is when he picked it up. It just seemed to be full of a lot of blood for having been picked up that soon. The tick must have been hungry! Apparently it takes at least 24 hours for a tick to transmit lyme disease. We are in upstate New York and a few years back my father had lyme disease, so it's definitely in this area and something to be concerned about.
I've successfully removed quite a few ticks using just tweezers, but this one was difficult. Being full of blood made it difficult to see where to grab. Being on my son also made me panicky and a bit shaky. I grabbed the tick as close to the skin as I could and pulled straight back. Unfortunately, it had a really good grip and the body ended up getting detached and squished. Not sure if it became squished after it was detached or before. Hopefully after, since squishing the sack causes the tick to vomit into the person, possibly passing diseases.
Anyways, I used the tweezers and grabbed close to the skin again and pulled. Got it out, except for one tiny piece. It was really dug into the skin, so I had to take him to the emergency room. Ticks must be running rampant this year because there was a 4 year old boy in the waiting room who also had a tick. His was in the back of his head. It looked like it was in pretty deep. His mother said she had a tick on her earlier in the day that a friend removed using a special tick removal
tool called a Tick Key. I ordered a couple from Amazon.com along with a liquid called Tick Release that you put on the tick to make it let go.
The emergency room doctor had to use a needle-like tool to dig the tick piece out.
Then of course I had to follow up with our pediatrician, who immediately put him on an antibiotic just to be safe.
I really hate antibiotics, especially after his allergic reactions to penicillin and cephalosporin. In this case though, I guess an antibiotic is the lesser of two evils. Lyme disease isn't something I want to take a chance on as it causes joint pain, arthritis, heart and nerve damage. Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria, and if caught early, can be successfully treated with a round of antibiotics. Unfortunately, symptoms don't appear for 3 days to a month, sometimes longer. It's symptoms mimic other illnesses too, so it's really hard to detect. A bulls eye rash around the bite area is a good indicator of lyme disease, but not everyone develops it and not everyone who gets bit by a tick gets or shows symptoms of lyme disease.
My father developed the classic bulls eye rash, but let it go. He finally got worried and went to the doctor. He was on powerful antibiotics for a good month or two. That was a few years ago and he still has a lot of joint pain today.
Besides antibiotics, apple cider vinegar is supposed to get rid of lyme disease. No idea if it really works, but that's what I've read, so I've started my son on 2 tsp per day of Bragg's apple cider vinegar. Vitamin C is good to help with boosting his immune system. I also put him on a probiotic. That should hopefully help the good bacteria fight the bad bacteria and help with replacing the good bacteria being killed by the antibiotic.
The antibiotic he was put on is erythromycin, 3 doses of 2 ml for 14 days. It's gonna be a long 14 days. That's for sure.
More Lyme Disease info
I've successfully removed quite a few ticks using just tweezers, but this one was difficult. Being full of blood made it difficult to see where to grab. Being on my son also made me panicky and a bit shaky. I grabbed the tick as close to the skin as I could and pulled straight back. Unfortunately, it had a really good grip and the body ended up getting detached and squished. Not sure if it became squished after it was detached or before. Hopefully after, since squishing the sack causes the tick to vomit into the person, possibly passing diseases.
Anyways, I used the tweezers and grabbed close to the skin again and pulled. Got it out, except for one tiny piece. It was really dug into the skin, so I had to take him to the emergency room. Ticks must be running rampant this year because there was a 4 year old boy in the waiting room who also had a tick. His was in the back of his head. It looked like it was in pretty deep. His mother said she had a tick on her earlier in the day that a friend removed using a special tick removal
tool called a Tick Key. I ordered a couple from Amazon.com along with a liquid called Tick Release that you put on the tick to make it let go.The emergency room doctor had to use a needle-like tool to dig the tick piece out.
Then of course I had to follow up with our pediatrician, who immediately put him on an antibiotic just to be safe.
I really hate antibiotics, especially after his allergic reactions to penicillin and cephalosporin. In this case though, I guess an antibiotic is the lesser of two evils. Lyme disease isn't something I want to take a chance on as it causes joint pain, arthritis, heart and nerve damage. Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria, and if caught early, can be successfully treated with a round of antibiotics. Unfortunately, symptoms don't appear for 3 days to a month, sometimes longer. It's symptoms mimic other illnesses too, so it's really hard to detect. A bulls eye rash around the bite area is a good indicator of lyme disease, but not everyone develops it and not everyone who gets bit by a tick gets or shows symptoms of lyme disease.
My father developed the classic bulls eye rash, but let it go. He finally got worried and went to the doctor. He was on powerful antibiotics for a good month or two. That was a few years ago and he still has a lot of joint pain today.
Besides antibiotics, apple cider vinegar is supposed to get rid of lyme disease. No idea if it really works, but that's what I've read, so I've started my son on 2 tsp per day of Bragg's apple cider vinegar
. Vitamin C is good to help with boosting his immune system. I also put him on a probiotic. That should hopefully help the good bacteria fight the bad bacteria and help with replacing the good bacteria being killed by the antibiotic.The antibiotic he was put on is erythromycin, 3 doses of 2 ml for 14 days. It's gonna be a long 14 days. That's for sure.
More Lyme Disease info
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