The Australian Paralysis Tick: Facts and First Aid for Tick Paralysis
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The paralysis tick (Ixodes holocyclus) is a small parasite found along the east coast of Australia. It is the most dangerous tick in the country. Many people’s first instinct on finding one attached to their skin is to grab it and pull it straight out, but this can make things even worse. There is a safe way to deal with a paralysis tick, one that can keep a bite from becoming a threat.
What Ixodes Holocyclus Tick Looks Like
A paralysis tick has a flat, oval body about the size of a sesame seed, and a colour ranging from light grey to brown. As it feeds, its body swells and its colour shifts toward a blue-grey. A fully engorged tick can reach close to a centimetre across. Ticks have eight legs. The first pair, closest to the head, and the last pair, closest to the body, are dark brown, while the two middle pairs are paler.
Where The Paralysis Tick is Found in Australia
The paralysis tick lives along the east coast of Australia, from Far North Queensland down through New South Wales to southern Victoria. They favour warm, humid areas such as bushy coastal areas, damp forests, long grass, and shaded gardens. Their numbers increase after wet weather.
These ticks feed on a wide range of hosts. Animals such as bandicoots and possums carry them often and tend to tolerate the toxin, while humans and pets can pick one up just as easily, and so can you.
How The Paralysis Tick Attaches And Feeds
A paralysis tick climbs to the tip of a blade of grass or a low leaf and waits with its front legs outstretched, then grabs onto any warm body that brushes past.
To feed, the tick cuts into the skin and anchors itself with its barbed mouth, then draws blood. An adult usually attaches for three to seven days, swelling as it engorges. Where the tick has been attached, a small crater and a red, raised lump can remain for some time after it is gone.
The Neurotoxin: How A Paralysis Tick Causes Paralysis
The danger from a paralysis tick comes from poisons in its saliva called holocyclotoxins. The amount injected builds the longer the tick stays attached, and they target where nerves meet muscle. There, the chemical signal that nerves use to tell muscles to move is blocked, so the muscles go limp even though they are not harmed. As this nerve blockage spreads through the body, which causes paralysis.
Symptoms Of Tick Paralysis
A paralysis tick bite brings two dangers; the paralysis itself and the risk of an allergic reaction. Reactions range from mild swelling and itching at the bite to anaphylaxis, a whole-body allergic emergency that can close the airway within minutes.
True tick paralysis is rare in people and affects young children more than adults. It can begin as heaviness or unsteadiness in the legs and climb through the body and towards the head. Signs of tick paralysis include a drooping face, headache, and a change in mental status such as drowsiness or confusion. The bite may also lead to respiratory failure, which is what makes the condition deadly.
Cases of tick paralysis are far more common in dogs and cats than in people, and far more severe. In a dog or cat, the early signs are wobbliness and weakness in their back legs, a changed bark or meow, vomiting, and noisy or laboured breathing.
First Aid For A Paralysis Tick Bite
Your job after you find a paralysis tick is to check the bitten person for signs of a severe allergic reaction. Trouble breathing, swelling of the face or throat, a widespread rash, or collapse points to anaphylaxis: call triple zero (000), use an adrenaline autoinjector if one is on hand, and follow the person’s ASCIA action plan. Leave the tick in place.
How To Safely Kill And Remove A Paralysis Tick
Safe tick removal comes down to killing an adult paralysis tick where it is attached rather than tearing it loose. Ether-based freezing sprays, sold in pharmacies for treating warts, can kill an adult tick within about five minutes. Spray the tick, then leave it alone to drop off on its own rather than trying to remove the tick yourself with tweezers. Once it falls away, gently wash the bite with soap and water.
Tick Prevention Outdoors
Tick prevention is the best protection. and a few habits make a bite far less likely. Paralysis ticks are far more active in the warmer months, with the tick season peaking through spring and early summer and numbers rising again after rain.
Steer clear of long grass, leaf litter, and dense scrub in tick country, especially after wet weather. Cover up with long sleeves, long trousers tucked into socks, a wide-brimmed hat, and light-coloured clothing. Apply a tick repellent containing DEET or picaridin to exposed skin. Permethrin-treated clothing provides the strongest barrier, though it should be noted permethrin is toxic to cats and treated items should be kept away from them.
When you come back indoors, run a thorough tick search over your body, paying attention to your scalp, behind your ears, the backs of your knees, and other skin folds. Children need the same careful check, and a dog or cat that shares the outdoors with you does too. Run the clothes you wore through a hot dryer for around twenty minutes to kill any ticks still clinging to them.
Enrol in First Aid Training
The harm a paralysis tick can do is decided less by the bite than by what happens in the minutes after you find it. When you find a tick, knowing what to do and having practiced it ahead of time through first aid training can be the difference between a fright and a serious medical emergency.
FAQs
Can a Tick Bite Lead to a Red Meat Allergy?
Yes. A bite from the Australian paralysis tick can trigger mammalian meat allergy, where the body reacts to a compounds found in red meat such as beef, lamb, and pork.
Does the Australian Paralysis Tick Carry Lyme Disease?
Locally acquired Lyme disease has not been confirmed in Australia, and health authorities do not treat the Australian paralysis tick as a carrier.
Will a Vet Remove a Tick From My Pet the Same Way?
No. A veterinary doctor does not use the freezing method used for people. After taking the tick off, a vet treats a sick dog or cat with tick antiserum that counters the toxin, along with supportive care like fluids and help with their breathing.
