A Nurse’s Terrifying Encounter with Hundreds of Ticks
Aussies who are planning to explore the bush before winter arrives are being warned to take precautions against ticks, following a harrowing incident involving a nurse. Michelle Colpus, from the Northern Rivers in NSW, ended up in hospital after unknowingly brushing past a cluster of tick larvae during a bushwalk.
Michelle had visited Nightcap National Park with a friend last week, where they spent several hours photographing insects and fungi along a short stretch of the trail. It wasn’t until she got home and had a shower that she realized something was wrong. She started experiencing itching and welts appeared on one of her arms, which quickly spread across her body.
Concerned, she alerted her husband, who initially thought she was covered in tiny prickles from a plant on the trail. He began to tweeze them out, but more and more welts were appearing. “Next minute, I’m just covered and he couldn’t keep up,” she said.
Ticks were hiding in bush walker’s hair
After more than an hour of picking out the invaders, Michelle became convinced they were something more sinister and grabbed her macro camera lens. That’s when she saw they were paralysis ticks buried in her skin. Without realizing at the time, Michelle believes she must have brushed past a cluster of larval ticks and ended up with hundreds in her hair. During her shower, she thinks they must’ve washed out of her hair and attached themselves all over her body.
As a nurse and a seasoned bushwalker, Michelle covered herself with Lyclear — a treatment used to kill attached ticks — and took an antihistamine. But before long she started feeling unwell and went to the hospital. “By the time I got there, I said, ‘I’ve got about 400 paralysis ticks,’ and they thought I was actually crazy,” she said. But after a quick look with a magnifying shield, the nurse saw just how covered Michelle was.
“She spent two hours solid just plucking them out of me. I was just so itchy, I couldn’t even tell you.”
More than 600 ticks plucked out
Michelle estimates that the tweezing at home and the hospital combined resulted in more than 600 ticks being removed from her body. The parasites not only caused her skin to erupt in welts, but also sparked symptoms of a stroke that she had 10 months ago, including pain in her foot and leg and feeling off balance.
Dr Kayvan Etebari, an entomologist and lecturer at the University of Queensland, told Yahoo News he had never heard of a case involving so many ticks. “Finding hundreds of very small juvenile ticks after a bushwalk is biologically plausible. Larval ticks can attach in clusters and are sometimes referred to as ‘seed ticks’,” he said. “Most tick bites cause only local irritation, but some can lead to severe allergic reactions, tick paralysis, and in some people, mammalian meat allergy [MMA].”
[MMA] is a severe allergy to meat and products like milk, fat and gelatin from mammals, according to NSW Health.
How to prepare for a bush walk in tick-prone areas
Dr Etebari said people can reduce the risk of ticks by:
- wearing long sleeves, long pants and socks
- tucking pants into socks
- using repellent
- doing a full body and hair check after being outdoors
- carrying a tick-freeze spray in tick-prone areas
“Bushwalkers should take ticks seriously, especially in coastal and bushy parts of eastern Australia. Stay on cleared tracks where possible, avoid brushing against long grass and low vegetation, and check your body, scalp and clothing carefully after the walk,” he said.
One week on from the incident, Michelle’s welts have calmed down but she still feels itchy and isn’t 100 per cent sure that all the ticks have been cleared from her home. Despite the ordeal, she said she still encourages people to get out and explore nature. “I don’t think anyone should let things like put them off going out. I think they should just be aware and be prepared,” she said.
While her stroke symptoms subsided in the days after the ticks were removed, she’s now waiting to see if she has developed MMA. The allergy can develop weeks after a tick bite. “I’m just praying I don’t get it,” she said. “That would definitely be the last thing I need.”
For more information about ticks, allergies and prevention, visit the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, or NSW Health.
