Ticks & Lyme Disease

How to avoid, recognize and treat this invisible threat to your running health

We've compiled the below information from Lyme Disease UK and Cauldwell LymeCo Charity 

What is Lyme Disease?

Lyme disease can strike anyone at any time. It is an infection spread by tick bites.

It attacks the nerves, brain, heart, joints, and eyes, and can also cause skin rashes and fevers.

Research suggests 1/3 or more of Lyme patients still have symptoms after antibiotic treatment.

Sometimes symptoms last weeks or months, but in some cases they are permanent.

Lyme disease is spreading at 14% a year throughout Europe.

Lyme is the commonest and fastest-spreading disease in Europe that is caught from biting creatures.

Avoiding tick bites

Tick bites are the main source of Lyme disease infection. In the UK they can also spread Anaplasma and Q-fever.

When and where are ticks found?

Ticks are active from May to September, but the symptoms of Lyme disease can take up to 3 months to develop after being bitten.

Ticks are found all over the UK, in gardens and parks as well as forests and the countryside.

How do I prevent tick bites?

1. Wear clothes that cover your skin, especially your legs.

2. Tuck clothes in. Tuck trousers tightly into socks or boots.

3. Spray permethrin on your clothes (NOT your skin).

4. After a walk in the countryside, throw your clothes into the tumble dryer for 30 minutes to kill any ticks that may be on them. If a tick drops off in your house it can hide for weeks, waiting to crawl onto its next meal.

5. After working out, runners should shower as soon as possible. Ticks generally prefer warm, moist areas, so conduct a full-body tick check in a large mirror (checking under the arms, in and around ears, hair, inside the belly button, behind knees, between legs, and around the waist). You could also tumble dry workout clothes to kill any ticks that may have smuggled their way into your shorts.

6. Use a picnic cloth. Don’t sit directly on grass.
It is not practical to spray insect repellent on your children every time they play outside, but you can give them a picnic blanket. Some British parks and gardens are infested with ticks.

7. Spray repellent containing DEET onto the skin.
Be thorough. Ticks crawl over skin coated in deet and bite the one spot you missed. For children who may roll on grass, cover the back of the neck as well. Deet can be used safely on any part of the body except the face.

Tick bite first aid

If you find an attached tick ...

1. Do NOT DELAY removing the tick. Prompt removal reduces the risk of Lyme disease.
The longer ticks are attached, the higher the risk of catching Lyme disease
2. Use a tick remover tool or narrow, pointed tweezers if possible. If you have no alternative, use long fingernails or scrape the tick off sideways using a credit card.
Never use blunt eyebrow tweezers.
Never delay removing a tick while trying to obtain a tick remover tool.
Scraping a tick off with nails or a credit card will leave the feeding parts embedded, and the bite could go septic. This is LESS risky than leaving the body of the tick attached for longer, and risking Lyme disease. 
3. Lift straight upwards, pulling firmly and steadily. Do not squeeze the tick’s body.
If you don’t manage to get the feeding parts out, the bite could go septic but this is not Lyme disease.
4. Disinfect the bite area and wash your hands with soap.
5.  Don’t put substances on the tick.
Putting vaseline, nail varnish or any other substance on a tick, or distressing it in any way while feeding, will make it more likely to regurgitate Lyme disease bacteria into your body.

BEWARE of misinformation about tick removal online!

DO NOT do any of the following: burn the tick, smother the tick in Vaseline, rub around it with a cotton bud, squeeze the tick, stick tape over it, try to pull it out with ordinary eyebrow tweezers, or do anything to it while it is attached and feeding other than removing it as described above. Distressing a feeding tick will make it more likely to regurgitate Lyme disease bacteria into your body.

Click here to read more about tick removal

Look out for the symptoms from 3 days to 3 months after the bite. People usually get several symptoms but not all of them.

Click here to read more about the symptoms in detail

lyme-dsiease-symptoms.png

Saddleworth Runners Presentation Dinner

25th February 2017 18:30 – 23:00

Saddleworth Golf Club
Ladcastle Road, Oldham, OL3 6LT

The Presentation do is nearly upon us, this year, probably due to Brexit, there is a slight price increase, to £28.00 per person, for this you’ll get dinner, dancing, booze, wit & marvellous memories

Please can you let me know that you are attending either by clicking that you are attending on the Facebook event or email me at jen.urlwin@gmail.com

The evening will start at 18:30 and dinner will be served at 19:00, so can you please be prompt, I will once again do a table plan so there no need to panic, but there is a need to turn up on time.

I am looking to finalising the event by the 1st February 2017, so can you please make payment by then, there are three ways to pay:

  • Cash or Cheque (made payable to Saddleworth Runners) please give to Sharon Lever
  • Paypalsend payment to: treasurer@saddleworth-runners.co.uk. Please say PRES DO in the message.
  • Bank Transfer (this is our preferred method) please use PresDoXXX (where xxx is your name) as the reference and DO NOT PAY YOUR SUBS & PRESENTATION DO MONEY TOGETHER, IT CONFUSES US)

Account No: 00733332

Sort Code: 12 08 83

 

Food

As normal we will be having a three course dinner, if you require vegetarian, vegan or have any allergies please let me know ASAP

Music

We will be having a DJ this year – and due to our eclectic/crap taste in music, we are going to need a play list – can you put your suggestions onto FB, so they can be given to the DJ/dismissed Y your taste judged

Raffle

I’m looking for a different way to fund raise on the night, that doesn’t involve my back bedroom being full of unwanted tat & cheating (yes Howard Chambers) on last year tombola style prizearama