How to protect yourself from ticks in the city. How to protect yourself from ticks and avoid their bites. How to protect yourself from ticks in a country house or dacha

Ticks are potential carriers of infectious diseases dangerous to human health. Every year, a large number of victims seek help from medical institutions. So that your vacation or trips to nature are not overshadowed, it is very important to know how to protect yourself from ticks and what to do after a bite.

Ticks are quite moisture-loving, so their main habitats are well-moistened areas. Such places can be shaded deciduous or mixed forests, dense thickets of grass, forest ravines, and willow thickets. The person himself also provokes the accumulation of bloodsuckers. By leaving uncleaned branches and leaves, people thereby create a favorable microclimate for dangerous insects to live in.

There is a myth in everyday life that ticks fall from tree branches. However, this is not true. Insects wait for their victims on overgrown grass along paths along which people walk, on stumps and low-growing plants.

Recently, the number of victims among city residents has increased. This suggests that ticks do not necessarily need the forest to survive. They can be found in parks, squares, and playgrounds. They need vegetation cover in the form of tall grass, which keeps moisture close to the ground.

Safe clothing

Before going into the forest, you need to carefully consider how to protect yourself from ticks in advance. Mechanical protection in the form of safety clothing can combat this problem. You can use what you have in your wardrobe, or you can buy a special suit. The main thing is that the clothes meet certain criteria:

the fabric should have a slippery structure so that it is inconvenient for the tick to grab hold of its paws and crawl upward;
light shades allow you to quickly detect an attached insect;
trousers must be tucked into boots or socks;
Your feet must be wearing rubber boots or other closed shoes;
It is better to have a high collar or a scarf around the neck;
It is recommended to tuck a shirt or sweater into trousers;
the item should have tight-fitting cuffs;
You can put a hood or cap on your head;
clothing should be convenient and comfortable.

After a walk, you need to thoroughly shake all your clothes, inspect your body and comb your hair with a fine-toothed comb. If you remember how to protect yourself from ticks with the help of your clothing, then nothing will ruin your vacation.

Anti-mite drugs

As you know, special means can help effectively protect against ticks. Drugs are divided into three groups:

Acaricidal preparations contain the insectoacaricide alphamethrin. The aerosol agent causes nervous paralysis in ticks, and the insects simply fall off things. The most effective medications include:

Taiga-Anticlech spray;
plant origin Milbiol;
Anti-Tick Picnic;
Allergof spray;
Tornado;
Reftamide;
aerosol Gardex Extreme and others.

The products are very active and harmful, so it is recommended to apply them to clothes, wait for the items to dry, and then put them on.

Repellent medications help avoid contact with ticks. Having sensed diethyltoluamide, they try to crawl away in the other direction. The protective agent is valid for five days. It is not as toxic as acaricidal, so it can be applied to things and uncovered areas of the body. The most popular repellents:

Extreme against mosquitoes and ticks;
Gardex;
DEFI-taiga;
Gal-RET;
Reftamide and others.

These medications can protect you from both ticks and mosquitoes. The products last for more than a week.

Insecticidal-repellent substances retain the qualities of two groups. It is not recommended to apply them to the body:

Gardex Extreme;
disinfectant Medilis-comfort;
aerosol Moskitol Special protection against ticks;
Kra-Rep;
Kaput tick and others.

Children under three years of age are prohibited from using repellent and combined preparations, as they contain chemical compounds that are dangerous to the child’s body.

Many parents wonder how to protect themselves from tick bites without harming their baby. Traditional medicine methods are quite effective. Fragrant essential oils do a good job of repelling bloodsuckers without worsening the child’s health. But first you need to make sure that he is not allergic to these drugs.

First aid

The bite itself is very difficult to notice, since the tick releases saliva, which numbs the wound. As soon as you find an insect, you need to try to get it out immediately.

You should take nail tweezers or a special device. If there are no instruments, improvised means may be suitable. You need to take a thread, make a loop and put it around the proboscis.
Having tightened the loop, you should carefully, rocking from side to side, pull out the tick, turning it around its axis.

If extraction is not carried out correctly, the head may come off and remain inside. Then you need to wipe the bite site with cotton wool soaked in alcohol and pull out the head with a needle pre-calcined in the fire, like a splinter. The wound should then be disinfected.

If you cannot remove the bloodsucker yourself, you need to go to the nearest trauma center.

Then you should fill out the label, indicating the full name and contact information of the victim, the date, time and place of discovery of the tick. After this, you should immediately contact an accredited laboratory to check the insect for infections.

Consequences of a tick bite for humans

Ticks can be carriers of infections dangerous to humans. Particularly serious diseases include:

viral encephalitis, which affects the brain and nervous system, can cause nerve paralysis and death;
transmissible Lyme disease - borreliosis, which affects the lymphatic system, joints, disrupting the heart rhythm and the functioning of other internal organs;
monocytic ehrlichiosis causes pathology of the cardiovascular system, acute renal failure, interstitial pneumonia;
granulocytic anaplasmosis provokes the development of anicteric hepatitis with increased transaminase activity.

In addition to the listed diseases, tick-borne infections affect the lungs, causing pneumonia and pulmonary hemorrhage. The liver is also affected, causing dysfunction of the digestive system.

Ticks are active carriers of several types of microbes and viruses. Therefore, to prevent them from disturbing you, follow simple but effective methods of protection.

Protecting yourself from ticks in the modern world is quite simple; fortunately, there are a huge number of different means for this purpose. There are several means of protection against ticks: mechanical (suits, for example), chemical (aerosols, ointments) and biological (vaccination).

At the same time, protection against ticks in most cases is absolutely safe for humans and animals, which can only be a good thing.

We are, of course, talking about fields, gardens, forests and so on. Moreover, microscopic mites even live in bed, although this particular type of mite is one of the safest.

It turns out that you first need to protect yourself from tick attacks when going out into nature. A forest tick can be waiting for a person in the forest, an ixodid tick can be waiting for a person when going to the field for barbecue, and a house tick can be waiting for a person in bed.

You also need to protect yourself from ticks in those cases when you go hunting or fishing, since the standard clothing for this pastime (usually a camouflage uniform) is not suitable for full protection against bites.

But how to protect yourself from ticks in the forest, while fishing and in your own home? Fortunately, science has created many tools for this that are available to every person.

Methods and types of protection

If we do not take into account folk methods of protection against ticks and other blood-sucking insects, and these methods are very questionable and are not recognized by official science, then there are four main ways to combat ticks and protect against them. Each method is effective in its own way and is used in certain conditions.

In addition, if we talk about vaccination, it protects only against a limited number of infectious diseases, while many others easily penetrate the human body.

Protective suit

The use of protective suits is justified when going fishing or hunting, while this method is not suitable for living in an epidemiological area or if there are ticks in your own apartment. Also, protective suits do not last forever and need to be changed every 2-3 years, which is sometimes difficult, since the price of such protective clothing is very hard on the pocket.

Another problem is that the suit can tear while hunting or fishing. In the absence of patches and the ability to cover the hole with them, the risk of being bitten by a tick increases significantly, which is undoubtedly a huge disadvantage of this method of protection.

Protective suits against ticks are produced for the whole family: there are models for children and adults, as well as models divided by gender.

Graft

The most well-known vaccination that somehow protects against tick bites is the encephalitis vaccination. That's basically all. For other deadly infectious diseases that are transmitted through tick bites, there are either no vaccinations at all, or they are simply not available in the CIS countries.

Meanwhile, borreliosis (Lyme disease) is as common a disease in the Russian Federation as tick-borne encephalitis. Considering that there are no vaccinations against it, it becomes clear that when going outdoors you need something more than vaccination against encephalitis.

Moreover, even successfully and timely Vaccination against encephalitis does not protect against it 100%. It is not uncommon for the disease to develop in vaccinated people, although in most cases it progresses mildly, with virtually no consequences.

It turns out that vaccination against encephalitis is only an additional means of protection to the main one. You could even say it's insurance in case your primary defense fails.

Special equipment

Special anti-tick products are quite effective, but are contraindicated for some people, usually due to health problems and allergies to the active ingredients of the drugs.

Traditionally, special means against ticks include:

Anti-tick products come in a variety of forms, such as sprays, aerosols, or skin ointments. Ointments have the most contraindications, since in people with specific allergies or chronic skin diseases, such chemicals can cause an exacerbation of the disease.

Insectoacaricidal agents are used to treat summer cottages and forest areas against ticks.

On the territory of the Russian Federation, the use of only the following means of this group is permitted:

insecticide "Medilis-Ziper";
ram;
insecticide "Samarovka";
means "Breeze";
acaritox;
alphatrine;
acaricidal agent "Akarotsid" and "Cypertrin";
yurax;
acarifen and Baytex SP (forty percent).

To treat apartments, wet cleaning and washing bed linen at high temperatures (from 60 degrees Celsius) is sufficient. For obvious reasons, the same products that are used to treat forest areas and summer cottages cannot be used in the house.

With the arrival of warm days, more and more people are looking for nature - to warm up, breathe fresh air, and spend time with good company. Especially during the May holidays. For this long weekend, people are planning barbecue picnics, trips to their dachas, and hikes in the forest. Before such events, it is very important to take care that you are not bitten by ticks. They tend to live in thick grass, easily climb onto human clothing, and then look for an area of exposed skin to dig into with their slender proboscis. A person does not feel the bite, since the tick, along with saliva, releases painkillers into the wound. The insect needs blood for nutrition, but why can a tick be dangerous? How does its bite affect the human body?

Danger of ticks to humans

The wound itself after a tick bite is insignificant and usually heals quickly. But by penetrating the skin with its proboscis, the tick can infect a person with serious infectious diseases. Among them are tick paralysis, tick-borne encephalitis, typhus, viral fever, Lyme disease, etc. Most diseases affect the functioning of the nervous system; lethargy and nonspecific reactions to external pathogens may appear. Often such diseases lead to serious consequences and even death. This is why you need to protect yourself from tick bites. Indeed, not all insects are infected - some of them are absolutely safe. But let's not take risks and allow ourselves to be bitten to check whether the tick is sick? One way or another, when going out into nature, you need to be able to protect yourself from these dangerous insects.

How to dress for nature

If you go to work at the dacha, pick mushrooms, have a picnic or pick berries, it is very important to dress wisely. The right clothing will protect you from ticks by 90%.

Clothes must be completely covered. Be sure to wear closed shoes - no slippers or sandals. It is better to tuck your pants into socks or have tight-fitting cuffs to prevent ticks from getting under your pant leg. The upper part of the clothing is tucked into the pants so that the tick does not have access to the skin. Jackets and sweaters should be zipped and not buttoned - ticks can easily penetrate the gap between them. Choose light-colored clothing so that if something happens, the tick can be easily detected on the fabric.

Ticks fall on people from grass and bushes, but this does not mean that the head does not need to be covered. Wear caps, hats, and your hair should be gathered under a headdress. The tick crawls up the clothing, looking for an open area of skin. In addition, ticks usually bite the body where the skin is thinnest. This is the groin area, the area behind the ears, the chest, the inner bend of the elbow. These areas must also be especially protected. Button your shirt collar tightly so that ticks cannot reach you from above. You can hang a thin gauze around your neck to protect this area of skin.

When walking, it is important to regularly inspect yourself and your friends for ticks on your clothes. Often the insect can be caught before it even finds food.

Here are some tips to help you protect yourself from the bite of this harmful insect.

If you come to your dacha for the first time this season, the first thing you need to do is get rid of all the tall grass - this is where ticks most often live.
Be sure to treat the skin and surface of clothing with repellents - special substances that repel ticks and other insects. They are also effective against mosquitoes. They can be sold in the form of creams, but sprays are most convenient to use.
Repellents are water-soluble, so reapply them after swimming. The same should be done after getting caught in the rain. Be sure to pay attention to the packaging - how long the product lasts. After the specified time has expired, repeat application.
Blood-sucking insects do not like the pungent smells of cinnamon, camphor, and cloves. You can prepare a strong decoction of these spices and spray your clothes with it using a spray bottle. If you don’t have time for such events, just put a handful of spices in your outerwear pocket. Ticks are also afraid of the pungent smell of the Zvezdochka balm. It contains a lot of essential oils that repel insects. You can apply the balm precisely to certain areas of the skin - behind the ears, on the wrist, in the neck and ankles.
It often happens that ticks, not finding another open area on the skin, bite the neck, ears, or face. In this case, you need to make a special mask. Boil a piece of gauze in a decoction of cinnamon or simply sprinkle it with cologne. Tie gauze over your face and ticks will not come close to you.
If you plan to camp outdoors, choose an open area without tall grass or bushes nearby. It is better to choose an edge or elevation away from trees. If possible, stay in coniferous forests. The special smell of resin drives away ticks; there are practically no ticks in such places. In addition, the smell of pine needles is very beneficial for the body.
Once you've set up camp, cover the area with tansy, wormwood, or other strong-smelling grass. Blooming bird cherry will also do.
When walking through the forest, try to walk in the middle of the path, do not climb into bushes and tall grass. Most often, ticks land on clothing if you collect rose hips and berries from tall bushes.
I would also like to say something about pets. If you're out in nature, your dog will probably start exploring everything around him. To protect it from insects, treat the fur with anti-mite sprays. If you live in a country house, inspect your pet regularly to protect your pet from ticks.
When returning home from an outdoor holiday, it is very important not to bring ticks into your apartment. This is very dangerous, especially if you have small children. Often, a tick gets into a city apartment with wildflowers or brooms that you collected for a bathhouse.
When you get home, undress and examine yourself completely. Especially in places with thin and delicate skin. Comb your hair thoroughly with a fine-tooth comb. Shake the clothes well and wash them at 90 degrees. If you find a tick, do not crush it with your hands - the infected blood of the insect can enter your body even through a small wound. Press down the insect with something hard, since regular cotton may not be enough - mites have a thick shell.
If you often go outdoors or your work involves being in dangerous areas, it makes sense to get vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis. The vaccination is done in three stages and protects the person completely.

These simple tips and rules will help you make your vacation easy and carefree.

If you find a tick attached to your body, do not rush to pick it off. The fact is that its proboscis is a screw-in bolt with a fine thread. When the tick is pulled out, the proboscis may come off and remain in your body. To avoid this, the tick must be carefully removed, turning it around its own axis. The easiest way to do this is to use a special plastic device that looks like a fork with two teeth. The tick is pryed so that it is between these teeth and carefully rotated. If you don’t have a tool at hand, you can make a small loop of thread and throw it over the insect. When the noose tightens, fish the tick out of the wound in the same way.

Never pour oil on an insect. Deprived of air, the tick can vomit into the wound and infect it with pathogenic microbes. After removing the tick, it is very important to treat the wound with antiseptic compounds, or in extreme cases, vodka. Take the tick to a laboratory to be tested for diseases. If the tick is infected, you will need to be vaccinated against one or another disease. If you are vaccinated with immunoglobulin on the first day after a tick bite, the encephalitis virus will be suppressed.

Outdoor recreation, cheerful company, active games, fresh air and barbecue - this is the event that we look forward to throughout the long and cold winter. In order not to spoil your vacation and enjoy nature, you need to take protective measures against ticks in advance. And then you won’t think about this insidious insect. Let your thoughts be occupied with something more important!

Video: how to protect yourself from ticks

Ticks do not bite their prey anywhere, they choose places where the skin is softer and it will be more difficult to notice them (groin area, armpits, area behind the ears, the inside of the elbow and knee).

Repellents (safest for people);
Acaricides (should be applied only to the surface of clothing);
Insecticidal-repellent (also applied to the surface of clothing).

Repellents include:

Medilis;

There are also drugs in this group with a lower content of toxic substances designed for children.

Some people may experience allergic reactions when repellents come into contact with their skin, so it is recommended to first apply a small amount of the product to the inside of the hand and wait 20 minutes. If during this time redness or itching appears on the skin, you should stop using this product.

Acaricides– products of this group should not be applied to yourself, as they are highly toxic. To apply acaricides, you should place clothes on the floor or hang them and spray them thoroughly. After treatment, the clothes should dry and only then can you wear clothes treated with acaricides.

Acaricides:

Reftamide taiga;
Anti-Tick Picnic;
Gardex extreme;
Tornado anti-mite;
Fumitox-anti-mite;
Pretix;
Gardex anti-mite.

The products are sold mainly in the form of aerosols, but there are others. Pretix is sold in the form of a chalk, which is used to outline clothing in places where ticks should not penetrate. It is strictly prohibited to treat clothing on a person.

Popular drugs:

Medilis-comfort;
Kra-rep;
Mosquitol spray;
Gardex Extreme;
Kaput tick.

How to remove a tick

If you have removed a whole tick, you can submit it to a laboratory to be tested for various diseases. This will allow you to protect yourself from dangerous diseases and start treatment on time. The tick that bit you should be placed in a box and taken to the laboratory as soon as possible.

With the onset of spring, nature begins to awaken, including animals and insects. Among the latter, one of the most dangerous is the tick. It begins to show activity with the appearance of the first thawed patches.

Before we find out how to protect ourselves from ticks, let’s try to figure out what they are.

This is an arachnid insect that looks like a red-brown bug. The female needs blood in order to bear eggs. A hungry tick is very small, only 3 mm long, but after drinking blood from its victim, it can reach a diameter of 10 mm.

It is a carrier of viruses, fungi and bacteria that can infect the person bitten. The most dangerous disease is tick-borne encephalitis. Unfortunately, it does not go away without a trace - the motor system and brain are affected, and in 30% of cases death is possible.

Ticks usually live in grass or on bushes up to 1 m in height. As soon as its potential victim (human or animal) passes by, it clings to it with its paws and begins to look for more delicate skin on the body to bite.

“How to protect yourself from ticks?” - a question that worries everyone who spends a lot of time in nature.

First of all, you should pay attention to clothes:

Shoes should be tight and closed. Rubber boots are ideal because it will be very difficult for the tick to cling to their surface.

It is better to replace the T-shirt with a turtleneck, and put a thick hat on your head or tie it with a scarf.

Also, answering the question “how to protect yourself from ticks,” it is worth recalling the need to use special products that have insect repellent properties. Some are applied to the body, others to clothing.

In a forest or open area, you should not leave the path and go into thick grass, especially if there are bushes nearby.

It is worth remembering that he can also enter the house with a bouquet of wild flowers or plucked branches from trees, so it is better to refrain from such actions.

Such precautions also answer the question: “How to protect yourself from ticks?” If you follow them, the risk of a bite is significantly reduced.

Encephalitis can be done as a preventive measure. It can protect against infection for 3 years.