Former England captain and 2003 World Cup winner Matt Dawson has revealed how he underwent heart surgery after being bitten by a tick.
He said: “I’d heard of Lyme disease before. It was something I’d always associated with places abroad, on the continent, in America, wherever there were deer.
“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.
He added: “It was a really scary time for me and my family. Such a tiny creature caused me to end up needing heart surgery.”
Ask your vet on how to protect your pets against ticks. See the results of the UK’s largest vet study into ticks at https://t.co/m89hhN92aP pic.twitter.com/b7mho1Qgf3
— The Big Tick Project (@bigtickproject) August 16, 2017
Dawson is now free of the disease, having undergone multiple heart operations and endured 18 months of treatment, the BBC said.
But he said: “I’m still on medication and its going to take a lot of time for the heart to fully recover.”