Question:
The other day I noticed a wood tick on my three year old daughter.
It had very firmly dug into her shoulder. It hadn't been there long
since the body was not starting to swell with blood yet. Yetch, I
hate ticks. Anyway, I tried all sorts of methods to get the darn
thing off, usually muttering under my voice 'Let go of my kid!', but
did not find anything very effective.
If you've never come across a wood tick, they dig in and get their
little head firmly embedded under the skin. They hold on *tight*.
I prefer to not pull them off since the odds are that the head may
come off and stay in the skin, perhaps getting infected. So the theory
is to try and make things annoying enough for the little bugger that
they decide to back out on their own.
Things tried:
hold a saturated with rubbing alcohol cotton ball over the tick
douse it with salt
actually tried cleaning ammonia (and then washed it off well)
and the often heard remedy, lite a match, blow it out and then
immediately put the now not flaming match against the ticks body.
Eight blown out matches later (I got Sara involved in having her
do the actual blowing out of the match, she thought it was a game)
and the tick was still refusing to leave and I was running out of
ideas.
I ended up just grabbing it with the tweezer and slowly and steadily
pulling. It hung on tightly as long as it could, but it eventually
came out. I had to pull so hard that her sensitive little skin was
pulled up probably 1/2 inch with it.
Luckily, the head came along with the body.
What I'm looking for is other suggestions from folks on how to get ticks
off. My kid is very active and loves to play outdoors, so I'm anticipating
more ticks in the future.
Any help is appreciated,
Answer:
I remove ticks very frequently. I can't remember when I last had a week
that did not include tick-removal. Fortunately, almost all the ticks
I remove come from my dog. I have also removed them from my cat (unusual
since she is an indoor cat), some lizards, and my husband. I've also
watched other people (try to) removed ticks and I have developed strong
opinions on how to do it. The method I use always works (no tick heads
lost in more than 100 removals), but some people say it is folk lore.
WHAT I DO:
* Get itsy-bitsy tweezers, pliers, or hemostats and grasp the
tick as close to the body as you can. The idea is not to squeeze
the tick and thus push any contaminants in the tick into the victim.
There exist special tick-tweezers designed with this in mind. In
a tight spot, I will just use my fingers. This works fine, and I know
I am being gentle enough not to squish the tick-guts into the victim,
but it gives me the creeps and I have to obsessively wish my hands
for hours afterwards. Shudder.
* Rotate the tick counter-clockwise (widdershins). The tick will just
let go and fall out after a rotation or two. If you let the tick go
and let it recoup, you will have to start over.
Like I said, it always works (both on wood ticks (the big guys) and
deer ticks (west coast deer ticks are small and black/red).
WHY SOME PEOPLE SAY IT IS FOLK LORE:
The special tick-tweezers say it is folk lore to rotate, and you should
just pull it straight out. My father believes this, and as a result
his dog is positively studded with imbedded tick heads. My dog has
no imbedded tick heads. It may be folk lore, but I ain't arguing with
success. Ticks are just a fact of life where I live, and this is the
worst tick year I have ever seen (fleas too, I hear, though we are lucky
so far).
I'm going to freak the first time I find a tick in my son, but I know
it is going to happen. Double-shudder.
