Pictures of tick bites

What is this great red bullseye on a flesh-coloured background, you might wonder?  What is this art work of concentric circles fading in colour as they move outwards?  Are these the new exhibitions in the modern gallery?  Or are these examples of computer art?  Are they simply the work of a child with a colour crayon fixed in a set of compasses, drawing round and round and round in ever larger circles?

No, none of these, nothing of the sort.  These are pages from a medical journal with pictures of tick bites.  The tick is a tiny parasite that attaches itself to warm blooded animals and sucks their blood.  There are several different varieties of tick.  They are common pests of dogs and cats and of many herbivores, particularly cattle.  In cattle they can cause a serious degenerative illness which is often fatal.

For humans, however, it is the deer tick that can cause the extraordinary circles shown in the medical pictures of tick bites. The circular lesion is caused by a tick-borne bacterium, Borrelia burgdorfere, which is carried by the black-legged, or deer tick, Ixodes scapularis. Although it is known as the deer tick, the black-legged tick also feeds on rodents and humans.  They are much smaller than cattle or dog ticks and can go undetected unless the skin is checked very carefully.

 The circle on the infected area, the lesion, expands slowly and can become very large.  One of the pictures of tick bites showed a lesion which had expanded to cover the entire back from the buttocks to the shoulders, with the centre point, the site of the original bite, just above the waist.

The infection caused by a tick bite can lead to Lyme's disease in humans.  Normally a tick bite will simply lead to an itchy lump on the skin and sometimes to no reaction at all.  But if the skin shows the circular lesions, as shown in the pictures of tick bites, it is important to have antibiotic treatment quickly.  If the infection is left unchecked, smaller lesions will appear on other parts of the body.  This indicates that the infection is being carried in the blood stream.  The infected person is now at serious risk of contracting Lyme's disease.

Lyme's disease is a debilitating illness which can cause arthritis, myocarditis and meningitis.  It can also cause serious neurological breakdown.  It can be treated successfully in the early stages by antibiotics.

It is better, however, to take every possible precautioin against contracting the disease in the first place.  In an area known to contain deer, wear long trousers, tucked into socks, and boots.  The ticks wait on the ends of grass or bracken to attach themselves to a host. Above all, if the red bullseye patterns, as illustrated in the pictures of tick bites, appear, it is important to start a course of antibiotic treatment immediately.