Easy removal of a tick...

[TM7]

Was talking to an old lady friend and she told me tick removal is easy as pie instead of physical removal with tweezers or knife blades, etc., which sometimes leave the mouth parts in the bitten..

Just apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball and swab it for a few seconds (15-20), the tick will come out on its own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away.  This technique has worked every time she used it (and that was frequently, and it's much less traumatic for the patient and easier for all inmvolved.
Unless someone is allergic to soap, I can't see that this would be damaging in any way.....likely baby oil or motor oil would work as well.


...TM7 

[quickdtoo]

There are numerous sources that recommend against using anything such as soap or oil to make the tick back out. Best advice is use preventative measures to avoid ticks to begin with, permethrin treated clothing works excellent.

http://www.sawyerproducts.com/faqpermethrin.htm

Tim

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/ld_tickremoval.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/resources/handbook.pdf

http://www.edcp.org/vet_med/pdf/LD_tick_removal.pdf

http://www.smdc.army.mil/2008/Safety/Articles/Tickremoval.pdf

Be careful not to squeeze, crush, or puncture the tick's body as doing so may cause it to release infected fluids into the wound. For the same reason, do NOT use a hot match, petroleum jelly, soap, nail polish, etc. to smother the tick, as irritating it may cause it to accelerate the transmission of the diseases it carries.

(g) DO NOT apply substances such as petroleum
jelly, finger nail polish, finger nail polish remover, repellents, pesticides, or a lighted match to the tick while it is attached. These materials are either ineffective, or worse, might agitate the tick and cause it to force more infective fluid into the wound site.

[Dances with Geoducks]

The one good thing a cigarette is good for.

Touch the tick on the ass with a cig cherry, they will back right out.

My Dad used to do this with our bird dogs, and us kids.

[quickdtoo]

Page 37 of the CDC link has pretty good details on removal.

Tim

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/resources/handbook.pdf

Tick Removal
To remove a tick, use thin-tipped tweezers or forceps to grasp the tick as close to the skin surface as possible. Pull the tick straight upward with steady even pressure. This should remove the tick with the mouthparts intact. Commercial tick removal devices have been shown to vary widely in their ef. cacy for removing nymphal blacklegged ticks: some worked in every attempt, some failed in every attempt, some were in between. Tick removal devices that have been shown to successfully remove I. scapularis nymphs attached for 48 hours in all attempts in a recent study include #4 forceps, Original Tick Kit (Tick Kit, Inc.), Pick-Tick (Encepur, Chiron), Pro-Tick Remedy (SCS, Ltd.), and the Nick Nipper (Josyln Designs, Inc.).

The mouthparts of larval and nymphal ticks will seldom be left in the skin. With proper removal, they usually come out intact. Adult ticks are more dif.cult to remove intact because of the longer mouthparts. If the mouthparts break off, it will not change the chance of getting Lyme disease. Spirochetes in the mouthparts or cement plug, and therefore the feeding lesion, means the tick was removed too late and transmission has already occurred. Do not use other methods of tick removal (e.g. petroleum jelly to suffocate the tick, heat from matches to make the tick back out or gasoline or other chemicals); they are not effective and may potentially increase the risk of pathogen transmission.

[Dee]

An ole injun trick is to put 4 grains of Unique powder on the tick and light it. Will it remove the tick? No, but it will take your mind off it.

[Spirithawk]

The problem with soap, or any iritant, is yes it will cause the tick to back out but it also causes them to salavitate ( That a word? lol) injecting fluids into the bite and greatly increasing infection or disease. I've had both lyme disease and Tularemia from tick bites. Neither any fun, so it's best to be careful however you choose to remove one.

[quickdtoo]

The key to using tweezers.... use thin-tipped tweezers or forceps to grasp the tick as close to the skin surface as possible.  I've got a Tick Nipper, but never had to use it, permethrin kills ticks that crawl on any clothing treated with it, I've had dozens on my clothing usually on my pant legs, but they just fall off after a few minutes. 

Tim

http://www.theticknipper.com/

[srussell]

The key to using tweezers.... use thin-tipped tweezers or forceps to grasp the tick as close to the skin surface as possible.  I've got a Tick Nipper, but never had to use it, permethrin kills ticks that crawl on any clothing treated with it, I've had dozens on my clothing usually on my pant legs, but they just fall off after a few minutes. 

Tim

http://www.theticknipper.com/

i have never had a problem using permethrin to kill them. but a friend of mine could use a can of the stuff and get them all over. now im talking about what we call turkey ticks about the size of chiggers. if you get in the wrong place you could have as many as 400 hundred on you in one bunch. nasty little things

[GRIMJIM]

Does permethrin come in a spray? Is it safe to use on kids clothes? I'm taking the kids camping soon and would like to keep the ticks off them.

Would a pet store sell it? Or do you need to go to more of a farm supply place?

Remember I'm a city boy so I'm not sure where they would have stuff like this.

[quickdtoo]

Here ya go Jim.

Tim

http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,123353.msg1098427611.html#msg1098427611

http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/documents/PermethrinFTUFS.pdf

http://www.bugspray.com/private/msds/spmm.pdf

http://www.sawyerproducts.com/permethrin.htm

[GRIMJIM]

Thanks Tim.

[petemi]

I've got to agree with Tim....that's usual.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  One time, I took a shortcut out to a favorite fishing spot through some dense phragmites.  There were quite a few birds in there, and when I got out to the bayshore about a half mile later, my clothing was covered with ticks.  I hopped in the salt water bay, stripped and sat in the water and picked about a hundred off my clothing and body.  I returned home the long way....in the water.

Pete

[GRIMJIM]

I tried the spray last weekend. No ticks at all. Doesn't work on poison ivy though.

[quickdtoo]

 

[Dee]

The most effective way of removing a tick without danger of getting tick slobber in the wound, is to take a flint knife napped from flint coming from the Palo Duro Canyon of Texas,  by a Nez Pierce squaw from the upper Yellowstone, and dig out a one inch area of meat around the tick, and underneath the bite area.
After removing this chunk of meat along with the tick embedded in it, go to an emergency room in the northern Montana town of Billings, and asked to be given a tetanus shot by an Iroquois nurse, and to be sewn up by an Apache Doctor. This is the true "old injun" trick for removing a tick.
It was passed on to my Cherokee Grandfather from a Navajo Medicine Man he met in an alcohol rehab center in Ecuador.

[tacklebury]

ROFL 

[blind ear]

tacklebury, DEE keeps the nation strong and alive by passing down the knowledge. eddie