the tick list

Following your feature on ticks (The parasite stealing the Lyme light, August issue), I would be interested to hear about other people’s experiences with these little bleeders. As with many ailments, symptoms appear to vary broadly. My wife has a mutt and I keep a few sheep, so we are reasonably casual about treatment and removal.

However, at the end of a three-month, rather rainy spell in Kwazulu-natal, South Africa, and after many successful tick removals, I became complacent. I botched up one in my calf, leaving its head in my leg.

Upon returning home, I got the fever. My GP sent me to A&E where they took multiple blood samples before informing me that there is nothing that can be administered as the infection is within the red blood cells.

The next 10 weeks were an education. The waves of fever would start politely, increasing to varying degrees of intensity. Occasionally, after a particularly rough session, I would be in no doubt that there had been some reconfiguring “up top”.

Anyway, after the fever, stiff joints, lucid dreams, lethargy, memory loss, swollen glands, personality “foibles”, it certainly wasn’t all bad. Thanks to an extraordinary lymphatic system, you usually return to reality without issue. I work outside year round and I am in no doubt as to my upgraded resistance to man flu and other ailments.

I’ve returned to South Africa many times since and have it on good authority that subsequent bouts are never quite as “thorough” as the first (should you be daft enough to give it another bash).

Richard Whittle, Suffolk