How To Remove Ticks

How do you remove an attached tick? Do not use alcohol, nail polish, hot matches, petroleum jelly, or other methods to remove ticks. These methods may actually traumatize ticks causing them to regurgitate their gut contents.

Essentially, you don't want to do anything to make the tick expel its gut contents into the individual or animal--this greatly increases the chance for infective organisms to be transmitted. You also don't want to crush the tick after removal and get the contents of a potentially infected tick on your hands.

The recommended way to remove an attached tick: Wear gloves and use a tweezers. Caution is advised because most diseases that ticks carry can also be transmitted to people. Grab the body of the tick with the tweezers and firmly pull the tick straight out, DO NOT TWIST OR JERK. Do not puncture the body of the tick.

If it looks like some of the tick did not come completely out (the tick's mouth part has a barb on it to make removal more difficult), use an alcohol sterilized needle to remove the remaining pieces. Cleanse wound with soap and water, and then alcohol. Save the tick in rubbing alcohol (the alcohol quickly kills the tick) for future identification and testing, if necessary. Date the bottle. Drowning a tick in water does not work--they can even survive flushing down the toilet.