Has anyone ever had tick fever? I just got back a month ago from RSA and Namibia. About a week after I got home I got sick. Fever, chills and severe head aches. They lasted 4/5 days. I had 4 ugly bites , one on each arm/leg. The worse one was on the top of my right ankle. It started as a small dot and then grew to a large white spot the size of my small finger nail. Radiating out from the center it was pink/red.I went to a local Doc after about 4/5 days. I suspected a spider bite. He didn't know. Gave me a strong antibiotic to take. The white spot turned red then a large scab formed. It's still there. My friend in RSA said I had Tick fever.
I noticed the bites while enroute home in Joburg, not in the bush. I just wondered if anyone else has had this problem?

I had tick fever in Zimbabwe, some years back but I had been bitten by dozens of the little buggers. They had found the elasticized tops of my socks and under my sock protectors a great place to gather and I had rings of red bites around my legs and lots of other individual bites as well.

Tick fever is not a lot of fun (same symptoms as you quoted) and requires a good stout dose of antibiotics to fix. As I found out from the doctor in Harare it can, in some cases, be fatal!!!!

Congratulations, you probably won the daily double.
Your symptoms are classic for tick fever, and your wound behavior is classic for a spider bite.
JCN
PS As soon as you heal from these problems you will notice the strongest disease: "I-gotta-get-back-over-there-and-hunt-some-more-itis..."

I've had Tick Bite Fever, but my sore had a black spot in the center. The fever was high, and I also felt a bit dizzy.
A massive cure of Doxycyclin for a week killed it off.

I was a little unsure of what I had to begin with, but finally found it out by reading a very good book we had with us: "Where There Is no Doctor". A book I would recommend to all people going off the beaten track in Africa (they also make books specific to other regions such as South America since the diseases can be differant there).
It's written for healthcare workers who live in the bush, but it's written in a fashion so that anybody with a bit of english knowledge can use it, together with lots of drawings. Which came in handy for use when we had to determain what kind of intestinal worms we had...

Erik D.

I've had it a few times, your doc did right with the antibiotics. I got it BAD the first time. They caught it a little late, mostly due to my stubbornness. Every year about the same time, I get some of the symptoms flaring up like muscle aches, fever and headache. The bite (just one) I got is still visible years later as a puffy red welt with a black center. Fair warning, these ticks don't even have to bite you for you to get tick bite fever. In RSA, there is a black tick with little red spots that merely has to walk across your skin for you to get it. Tetracyclene works great for it. Symptoms appear 2-3 days after infection and if not treated within 10 days it can be fatal.
Your wound actually sounds like a spider or centepede bite rather than a tick though. Glad your okay!

Yep! Got mine from "seed" or "pepper" ticks--can hardly see them. Got what I thought was a burst of red seeds from the grass. I didn't have a chance to take a shower that night and picked off 26 that net morning! Only one developed in the manner that you spoke and today the scare looks like someone put out a cigarette on my chest. They bit in the strangest places like between my toes.
I got the ticks in SA and the symtoms did not develop until a week later in Mozambique. One symtom I had was incredible weakness and fatigue. Luckily I had some Cipro and literally the next day I was much better and have never had any further effects.
Jim

If someone comes to your front door saying they are conducting a survey about tick fever and they ask you to take your clothes off, do not do it! IT IS A SCAM; they only want to see you naked!



I wanted to share this information with you before you did something you'd regret. I only wish I'd found out about this earlier, before yesterday. I feel so stupid and cheap now....



Russ

My wife got bit by a tick in Natal when we hunted there. She didn't show any symptoms until we were back in the USA about a week later. She had joint pain, fever, chills, and fatigue. I carried her to the local doctor, and he didn't have a clue. He treated her with penicillin and it had no effect. She just got worse.

I got online over at the old HuntAmerica forums and ran into Alf. He comes to these forums at times, and is a doctor from RSA now working in Canada. Alf told me to get her treated with Tetracycline or she might die.

I presented that idea to my doctor and he agreed. She got the shot and the next day was near new again. She still has the classic "cigarette burn" scar on her hip.

Alf doesn't come around here much, and we don't really get to talk when he does. But, I am grateful for his help.


/

Had it many times and my ankles are a series of scars...You can cure it very quickly with a dose or two of Doxycycline...There has been some arguement on this treatment on this board but it has worked for me on many, many ocassions and has yet to fail me, sooooo

Thanks for the comments folks. I suspected spiders because I never seen any ticks on my body. I got a dozen or so bites on my arms and legs. They all showed up in one day. I got sick about 4/5 days later. All of them disappeared except 4.


This is the first pic taken about a week after I got sick.


This the 2nd pic I took today, about a month after the first one. The top layer of skin around the hole dies and flakes off. There's a deep hole under the scab. It appears the flesh just rotted away. There was never much pain from the bites, just itching.
With this additional info, what do you think, spider or tick?

TJ,

JCN and I are both physicians. Sounds like he nailed it without the photo.



Your wound looks like the necrotic eschar of a brown recluse spider bite.



Dapsone 50 mg daily (an old leprosy drug) and excise when fully ripe at 6 weeks post bite if not healed and granulated in to a scar. G6PD deficient people can't take dapsone, however, as a word of caution.



This is an empiric regimen. The spider toxin has killed some tissue. Treatment is not directed at an infection of any sort, unless something secondary comes up along the way, as it may with any chronic break in the skin.



Bad ones require plastic surgery somrtimes (excise, skin graft or plastics closure), most will heal just fine. Must be the healthy folks that do fine and heal well on their own.



Bacitracin ointment and a bandaid might be all you need, and see what develops.



Doxycycline is a gentle bacteriostatic antibiotic that is good for the atypical bugs that cause tick fever. It is good for malaria prophylaxis too, oddly enough, though Malarone is my choice, better but more expensive.



Russ got crowded together with too many people in Kuwait, got some viruses more likely, which don't respond to doxycycline, though a walking pneumonia or Legionaires disease would, or maybe a secondary bronchitis that followed a cold or flu from a virus.



FWIW, I assume no responsibility nor liability. This is just internet blabber based on the appearance of photograph.

Russ,

Doxycycline 100 mg twice daily for 10 days is the common dosage for acute illnesses responding to doxycycline.



What is the malaria prophylactic schedule that the USA was providing? I would have to go look it up. 100 mg once daily?



I would recommend any non native to the area taking along the doxycycline 100 mg twice daily for 7-10 days to take if he got into a bunch of ticks, just to prevent tick typhus, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Lyme disease, etc. depending on the location. That may not be the proper academic thing to do, but doxy is so harmless in general that I would prescribe it at the drop of a hat to an adult that wanted it.

First thing I thought when I saw your pic was ( as mentioned ) that it looks like the brown recluse bite I got years ago. Got mine on the heel and it took almost year to fully close. Still have a deep and ever-building calous on the heel which requires periodic treatment.

Get it taken care of whatever it is.

Being in South Florida, I have seen that one a lot. That my friend is the result of a brown recluse or related nasty 8 legger. What ever you do, don't clean it with hydrogen peroxide, as the scar will worsen and the hole won't heal correctly. RIP got it dead on with bacitracin regimen. Try to keep the scab soft with the ointment, but leave it on if it will stay. Eventually the outer edges of the hole will develop a necrosis and begin to slough, and new skin will fill in the hole slowly. These holes can take years to heal, if at all. You are lucky, it's not all that big or bad looking. My brother had one on his shoulder the size of a silver dollar that went to the shoulder blade. You could see bone for about 2 years.

Does Larium have an antibotic effect against tick fever?

TIA.

Gentlemen



Brown recluse is nasty little spider, I got bitten and it took 3 years before it the scar was gone.



Tick fever? I been bitten many times by ticks and gotten borelia, antibiotics has worked fine. If borelia is not treated one can get some serious health problems.



Since we got physicians here, what shall be included in a African hunting pharmacy



Cheers

/ JOHAN

Excellent answers from the experts. Thanks, Docs!
I have Bacitracin Ointment and will try it under a bandaid. I agree with the spider versus a tick because my son was hunting with me and if it was a tick he would probably have bites also. I probably pissed some little old spider off and he had his way with me.
I'm not concerned with scars, one more won't matter. All the lines on my face ain't wrinkles, their scars!
P.S. Will a 45/70 kill a Recluse Spider?
Thanks folks.

Listen to RIP. Go see a wound specialist and get started on the dapsone. Don't fuck around with this. Comprende?

Well I guess I have been doing the right thing. Before my first trip my PH put me in touch with a physician in Wy and he gave me script for Doxy for Malaria prevention. I always get 50 100 mg and start a few days before leaving and take them until they are gone. They may be doing more for me than I thought. I still inspect every where I can at each shower. The thought of ticks give me chills.