Tips on How to Remove a Tick
Summer is coming to the Northern Hemisphere. Most of people spend a lot of sunny days outdoors hiking, walking through the forest or sitting in the parks. Most of them don’t know that danger lurks anywhere in the tall grass and shrubs. Although it cannot be seen, it doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.
One of the biggest threats to our health is tiny, almost invisible parasite called – the tick.
What is tick?
Tick is the common name for the small arachnids in superfamily Ixodoidea. Ticks are ectoparasites (i.e. external parasites), living by hematophagy on the blood of mammals, birds, and occasionally reptiles and amphibians. Ticks are dangerous because they are vectors of a number of diseases, such as Lyme disease, Q fever or Colorado tick fever.
Ticks’ color is usually black, brown, reddish or tan. While they’re young ticks have six legs, and the mature ticks have eight legs. They vary in size and appearance depending on the species (about 900 known species).
A tick attaches itself to its host by inserting its mouth into the skin, and it’s almost impossible to remove it.
However, there is a way, but you first have to find a tick on your skin.
Symptoms
As said, ticks usually vary in size, from the size of a pinhead to almost the size of a thumbtack. You will usually see them as dark spots on your skin. Perform the check naked, because ticks can be stuck anywhere on your body, from head to toes.
However, some ticks are so small it is hard to see them. So you’ll have to pay attention to other signs, such as symptoms of a skin infection which may include:
- Pain, swelling, redness, or warmth on the skin
- Red streaks leading from the area of bite forming an ‘eye’
- Pus draining from the area of bite (in more serious cases of infection)
- Swollen lymph nodes in the neck, armpit, or groin (in more serious cases of infection)
- Fever or chills (in more serious cases of infection)
If you couldn’t find tick, or bite spot, visit your doctor who can perform tick removal and take care of infection.
How to Remove Tick
In case you find tick on your skin, perform following:
- Use fine-tipped tweezers to remove a tick. If you don’t have tweezers, do not handle the tick with bare hands. Put on gloves or cover your hands with tissue paper, then remove tick with your fingers.
- Grab the tick as close to its mouth as you can. Mouth is the part that is stuck in your skin, while the body of the tick will be above your skin.
- Try not to grab the tick around its bloated belly. If you squeeze it, you could push infected fluid from the tick into your body.
- Gently pull the tick straight out until its mouth lets go of your skin.
- Dispose of the tick immediately by burning it or by squishing it using a tissue and then flushing it down the toilet. If you’re concerned that tick might have been infected, put it in a jar filled with rubbing alcohol or freeze it in a plastic bag and save it for later identification in case you get sick.
After you removed the tick, wash the area of the tick bite with a lot of warm water and soap. Be sure to wash your hands with soap and water as well.
Do Not
- Twist or “unscrew” the tick, because this may separate the tick’s head from its body and cause the mouth parts to remain in the skin
- Squeeze, crush, or puncture the body of the tick because its fluids may be infected, containing bacteria of some of the mentioned diseases
- Use old wives’ recipes such as petroleum jelly, nail polish, gasoline, or rubbing alcohol trying to smother a tick that is stuck to your skin
- Burn the tick while it is stuck to your skin
Both smothering and burning a tick could make it release fluid into your body and increase your chance of infection.
If you have a rash, headache, joint pain, fever, or flu-like symptoms even after you’ve removed tick, this could mean you have an illness related to a tick bite. Any of these symptoms, or symptoms of a skin infection, should be taken seriously and reason to visit your doctor immediately.