Tick bites: Should you be worried about Lyme disease and how can you protect yourself?

Justin Bieber is the latest high-profile person to speak about battling Lyme Disease, joining a list of celebrities that includes Bella Hadid, Alec Baldwin and Ben Stiller.

"It's been a rough couple years," the 25-year-old wrote on Instagram, adding that he'd "had a serious case of chronic mono which affected my, skin, brain function, energy, and overall health."

In 2017, former England rugby player Matt Dawson spoke about how he'd contracted the disease while taking a leisurely walk through English woodland with his children. He was bitten by a tick – although he didn't notice at the time. Dawson revealed he was later diagnosed with the bacterial infection, Lyme disease and had to undergo multiple heart operations and 18 months of treatment to rid himself of what that one little tick had given him.

"It was something I'd always associated with places abroad, on the continent, in America, wherever there were deer," said Dawson, addressing his naivety around the disease. “There’s no way that I would’ve walked through a wood or a forest with my kids and gone back home and thought, ‘Right, I’ll just check for some ticks just to make sure everything is fine’. I just wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Dawson is right – areas which are heavily populated with deer are hot-spots for ticks. In the UK, the deer population stands at around 1.5 million, the highest level it has been for 1,000 years, which has contributed to the increase of Lyme disease cases in this country.

Professor Richard Wall, of the University of Bristol, explains: “Anywhere that you have lots of deer, you get lots of ticks. The females feed on the deer and then produce lots of eggs."

The most common sign of infection is a growing area of redness which looks like a bull’s eye on a dartboard and shows up around a week after the tick bite.

Lyme disease can often be treated effectively if detected early on, however unfortunately many like Dawson do not think they can pick up the infection in the UK and as such it worsens the more you ignore it. As well as heart conditions like those endured by Dawson, it can also cause meningitis.

If you do find a tick on you, wear gloves to remove it or a specially designed hook that you can buy at chemist shops.

According to the NHS, there are an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 new cases of Lyme disease in England and Wales every year. While it can go away with a round of anitbiotics, many Lyme specialists believe that this may suppress symptoms but rarely cures the disease. Infectious-disease experts refer to this, which can affect up to twenty per cent of patients, as Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome.

The syndrome is more popularly known as Chronic Lyme disease, which is what Hadid and actor Baldwin have suffered, and presumably the strain that Bieber is referring to. Sufferers report recurring issues with fatigue and fever-like symptoms.

However most doctors reject the term as many people who say they have it are no longer infected with borrelia, the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease. It results in long term use of antibiotics as sufferers try to combat their symptoms but this in itself can have complications with your digestive and immune system.