What is the difference between them

Ticks are dangerous parasites and there are more and more of them. They are far from being a threat only in tall grass or forest cover, you can come across them anywhere. “It is a mistake to think that Lyme disease and encephalitis do not affect me if I live in the city. According to the report of the Ministry of Health, it has become infected in recent years ticks they also occur, for example, in Ostrava and the outskirts of Prague,” warns RNDr. Aneta Medonosová from the Synlab laboratory.

Of course, there is no need to panic anytime you find a tick attached to your body. It does not mean that you have contracted an infectious disease. But it is certainly good to monitor your health for a few weeks. When you find a tick on your skin, it is necessary to remove it as carefully as possible remove as soon as possible. For this, tweezers or one of the special tools that you can buy at the pharmacy are useful. Do not touch the tick and always disinfect the bite site. In addition to observing the place on the skin after the bite, it is important to be able to distinguish possible symptoms of encephalitis and borreliosis from each other.

To transmit the virus tick-borne encephalitis it can affect a person already two hours after sucking, borreliosis is slower, a significantly longer time of sucking is needed for the transmission of this bacterium to a person infected tick, up to 24 hours or more. There is a similar difference in the onset of the symptoms themselves. In the case of viral encephalitis, you will start to feel them within two to five days, in the case of borreliosis, problems may occur as late as four weeks after infection. Both diseases can manifest similarly in the first stage.

“It is an inflammatory viral disease of the brain tissue, in which the virus can attack the meninges, then the brain and spinal cord. In healthy adults, we most often encounter combined inflammation of the meninges and brain. It manifests itself, for example headaches, vomitingspeech and hearing disorders, tremors of the fingers and eyelids, balance disorders, sleepiness, confusion and other and more serious neurological manifestations,” says doctor Dita Smíšková from the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the 2nd Faculty of Medicine of the UK and the Bulovka University Hospital.

The first symptoms of a tick-borne encephalitis infection resemble a virus or flu. An infected person has a fever, headaches, joint and muscle pain. The immune system will usually deal with this condition and you will feel better after a few days. Until the second phase comes. It starts a few days to weeks after the first symptoms disappear. By this time, the virus has already attacked the nervous system and brain tissue, so the affected person feels a very strong headache, photophobia appears, flu symptoms return, but they are stronger, the infected person has Hight fevers and vomits.

Encephalitis can leave lasting effects. Chronic problems can already be caused by the second wave, which happens to about a quarter of those infected. They suffer afterwards permanent headaches, depression, mood swings. They may appear balance disorders, tremors and limb paralysis of varying degrees. In rare cases, there is a risk of paralysis of the respiratory muscles and subsequent death. A reliable way to prevent tick-borne encephalitis is vaccination and subsequently regular revaccination, which should be carried out approximately once every five years.

Bacterial borreliosis it is insidious in that it can manifest itself very individually. A typical sign is skin changes, in the first phase after infection, it appears at the site of the bite characteristic red spot with a diameter of about five centimeters or more with central fading. “However, this may not appear in everyone, as well as other initial symptoms, which, similar to encephalitis, resemble the flu,” describes Aneta Medonosová.

The second phase of Lyme disease comes several months after the initial symptoms disappear. In addition to headaches, muscle and joint inflammations are typical for her. “The so-called can also appear more often in children Borrelia lymphocytomathat is, a purple nodule on one of the end parts of the body, usually on the earlobe, the tip of the nose or the scrotum,” says Aneta Medonosová.

There is no vaccination for Lyme disease. Prevention is careful monitoring of the state of health, and even if you do not observe typical symptoms and are still concerned, Lyme disease can be detected laboratory test, which will be prescribed by a general practitioner if the disease is suspected. If the disease is confirmed, it is well treatable with antibiotics in the first two stages.

Lyme disease can hide from the immune system, so it does not have to make itself known for months or years after the second phase has passed. It doesn’t have to be for some disabled people late chronic phase occur at all. But if it manifests itself, the disease attacks the skin, nervous system and joints.

It exists cutaneous form of late borreliosis. This is manifested by a bluish-red coloration of the skin on the peripheral parts of the limbs. The skin is thin and delicate, easily broken. In this phase, the so-called neuroborreliosis, in which bacteria invade the entire nervous system. The disease subsequently negatively affects the entire motor and sensory apparatus. O lyme arthritis then doctors speak in the case when the disease attacks the joints, which hurt and then swell. This happens most often in the knee joint.