Episode 9 — A tick after a walk: the first ten minutes home

Back from the allotment. Saturday, late afternoon.

Leon's been running about on the grass half the day.

Basher was picking daisies. The dog was nosing through the bushes.

Everyone home's starving. Someone wants the shower. Someone's after a charger.

And that's exactly when I remembered the one piece of advice you hear every summer.

When you get home, check nobody's brought a tick back.

Hello. I'm Tomasz Szuster. I built the Moja Pteczka app.

And that just now was Iza, my wife and mum to R2.

Hello.

Today we've got a topic that comes round every weekend in summer.

A tick after a walk.

What to do in the first few minutes once you're home.

No panic. No hour of trawling the internet.

And straight off, honestly, this isn't an episode where anyone tells you whether you've got Lyme disease.

We'll come back to that.

Because you know what always surprised me?

I thought ticks meant woodland. Proper, dense woodland.

And we'd only been to an ordinary allotment.

And that's the commonest misunderstanding.

The standard advice is to check yourself over carefully after any trip out.

Because ticks aren't only in woodland.

They're in meadows and in the park, too.

And the same guidance adds you'll meet them by ponds, lakes and rivers.

In back gardens.

Sometimes in towns.

So exactly where families sit in summer.

A picnic.

A blanket.

The pram in the park.

Exactly.

And one thing that changes how you think.

Ticks don't drop from trees and they don't jump.

They wait on a blade of grass or a leaf and catch onto your clothes as you brush past.

So the risk doesn't only start when I head into the wild.

It starts mowing the grass at the allotment.

Yes.

And that's actually good news.

If it's an ordinary walk, the response can be ordinary, too.

A simple habit.

Not an operation.

Then tell me the habit.

Because, honestly, eight in the evening after the whole day,

I can't remember what I was meant to do.

And that's the nub of it.

But the biggest problem with ticks isn't a lack of knowledge.

It's that once you're home, your head's elsewhere.

Bags.

Children.

Dinner.

The dog.

The washing.

So the best thing is to make it a simple ritual.

And it's not my idea.

The standard public health advice is to check yourself over carefully after any trip out.

We turn it into five steps.

The same after every walk, anywhere green.

First, outer clothes in one place.

Because a tick can travel over the fabric before it reaches skin.

Then, and this is the bit the guidance stresses, you check everyone over in good light.

On a child, where exactly?

The guidance points to warm, damp spots.

On a child especially.

The scalp.

Around the ears.

The armpits.

The groin.

The tummy button.

The backs of the knees.

And where the elastic of the underwear sits.

So all the nooks you don't normally see.

Those exactly.

Third step.

The variation says to check the dog, too.

The blanket.

The rucksack.

The children's tops.

The things that were lying on the grass.

Fourth.

If a tick's dug in, you don't panic and you don't improvise.

You reach for tweezers or a tick tool.

But how you pull it out, that's strictly by the public health guidance, which I'll come to in a moment.

And fifth.

You write down what happened.

The date.

Where you walked.

Where the bite is.

Why write it down?

Sounds over the top.

Because if you go to the doctor with this in a few days, a short note helps.

Allotment.

Saturday.

Bite behind the knee.

Is the kind of detail nobody remembers a week later.

Right.

So with the tweezers in my hand, what next?

And I'll warn you.

In my house, there's a theory going round that you smear a tick with butter so it comes out on its own.

That's actually one of the things the public health guidance warns against outright.

The advice is, don't smother the tick with fat, butter, cream or surgical spirit.

Don't crush it.

Don't burn it.

Why?

Grandma always did it that way.

Because, according to the guidance, irritating the tick can raise the risk of infection.

And I'll stress, this isn't my opinion as the app's maker.

I'm only repeating the public health guidance.

So all grandma's butter tricks in the bin.

That's what the public health guidance says.

And what does it recommend instead?

Fine-tipped tweezers or a proper tool, grip as close to the skin as you can and pull it straight out.

Then, disinfect the spot and check no part's been left in the skin.

And if it has?

Or if it's a little one and I'm afraid to touch it?

Then, and this matters, you ring the doctor.

If you can't get the tick out, part of it's left in the skin, or you simply don't feel confident with a small child, you get medical help.

This isn't a moment for heroics.

Right.

That does sound honest.

And the tick kit itself is trivial.

You don't need a separate bag.

The public health advice keeps coming back to a simple set.

Fine-tipped tweezers or a tick tool.

Something to disinfect with.

Disposable gloves.

A few plasters.

An age-appropriate repellent.

And a short note with the emergency number.

999.

A repellent for a child.

There'll be rules there, too.

There are.

And again, not mine.

The guidance is, stick to the label.

Don't use it on broken skin.

Keep it away from eyes and mouth.

Choose products meant for children if a child's using it.

And wash it off once you're home.

This isn't the place for a stronger spray, just because the trip out sounds serious.

Alright.

And now, I predict the moment you tell me your app will spot Lyme disease from a photo of the rash.

No.

And that's probably the most important sentence in the whole episode.

The Moya Patechka app doesn't diagnose.

It doesn't assess a rash.

It doesn't decide on antibiotics.

It doesn't replace your GP or your pharmacist.

And good.

Because it'd be easy to fake a certainty you haven't got.

Quite.

And the medicine cabinet's role in this story is much humbler.

And safer for it.

It's order.

And by the way, the organising part I'm about to describe, those are real features of the Moya Patechka app.

Everything else, getting the tick out, symptoms, the rash, that's public health guidance and a matter for the doctor, not the app.

I say it plainly because the app has one job here.

Order in the home medicine cabinet.

Then show me that order.

On a tick.

Expire date alerts.

So the repellent or the disinfectant doesn't turn out to be out of date right when you're packing the rucksack for the allotment.

Notes.

To jot down where you keep the tick tool.

Who in the family is allergic to insect stings.

What to take on a trip.

Bits like tweezers or plasters you simply add as a note.

And when Leon goes to my mum's, to Irena's, for a whole week.

The shared cabinet.

Grandma, you and I see the same list, live.

If something needs buying, or nobody knows where the tick tool is, we look at the same thing.

No text saying, where was that again?

And spotting that something's running out.

Low stock.

The app can let you know a medicine you've entered is running low, ideally before you head off, not the moment you need it.

And the tweezers or plasters, like I said, you keep as a note.

So the app keeps an eye on the list, not on health.

Exactly.

The information about medicines is just that.

Information.

When there are symptoms after a bite, the doctor makes the decision.

Full stop.

Let's come back to the children for a second.

Because it's all fine in theory.

But Basha, once she's home, only wants a drink, food or sleep.

No tick inspection is going to win against that.

That's why splitting the jobs helps.

In line with the public health advice, one person unpacks, another checks the child in good light, someone checks the dog or the blanket.

And if there was a tick, one person writes down the date and place.

And without scaring them.

Without scaring them.

With Basha, you make it a neutral check after the adventure.

You look in the spots the guidance mentions, head, neck, armpits, backs of the knees, as calmly as you check for sand in her shoes after the beach.

Leon's nine, and he actually points out where to look himself now.

For him, it's a bit of a game.

And that's the best outcome.

Not a fear of the woods.

Just a calm habit once you're home.

Give us a quick recap at the end.

The public health advice runs like this.

After you're back from the woods, the park, a meadow or the allotment, check your cells, your clothes and your things.

If a tick's dug in, tweezers or a tick tool, grip close to the skin and pull it out.

Then disinfect and check no parts left behind.

Don't smear it, don't burn it, don't crush it.

That's the advice.

Write down the date and place and get in touch with the doctor if the wound isn't healing, a rash appears or anything worries you at all.

That last one's probably the most important.

The most important.

Any suspected infection after a tick bite is for a professional to assess.

Not an app and not an internet forum.

And if you'd like the home kit and the list all in one place, that's the Moya Potechka app.

The app is free and works offline.

You'll find the link in the episode description.

And if the episode's been useful, share it with someone whose children also run about on the grass all summer.

One more thing before we go.

This podcast is made with the help of artificial intelligence.

I wrote the dialogue myself, but the voices you're hearing aren't ours.

They're AI-generated, synthetic voices.

We're telling you this straight out, because we think it should be the standard for any podcast made this way.

Full details are in the show notes and in every episode description.

Until next time.

Until next time.