Removing a tick once it's got it's head embedded

I've come home from fighting a bushfire one day. Next night after work I had a shower and found a tick on my "Sack".
I don't really want to say much more about that but he'd had a good feed and my eye's still water when I think about it!!!!

Cheers,
Brett

Hi,
One of the best methods that we have found up in in sunny Nth Queensland is to spray aerogaurd or rid onto the tick and then just leave it. The spray will kill it, then it will just fall out. After camping alot up here you find these things out. Too hard to carry everything else like metho which also works.

I have only ever got two ticks on me. One on my arm and the other on my back. Both times I just ran a flame from a cig lighter over it quickly and they came straight out.

Ortho wouldn’t recommend that method on a year 7 camp don’t think it would go down to well with the parent’s of the boy. The tweezers were the best way to go

You're not meant to smother the tick with anything as it runs the risk of upsetting the tick and by doing so it may regurgitate its stomach contents back into the person which can cause infection. The best method is just to hold onto the tick as close to the head as possible and apply slight pressure (not squashing it!!!) you may have to hold it for a while but it will eventually let go as it wil feel uncomfortable.

I hope the boy was OK afterwards :o)

Sasha (Mrs Homeboy)

Kero will generally make a tick back out.

We were away camping years ago and one of my sons got one in him. I thought Kero was the go, but a bloody know all we were camping with said a bit of heat on them from a cigarette would do it. Well, after he had a bit of a go my son started to complain that it was hurting, so before it got to the point of burning him I told Tony to take the bloody cig away. I then dobbed some Kero on it and out it came. No pain, no drama.

I then said to Tony "Isn't it leeches you dob a smoke on to make them let go"

"Oh yeah, that's right, I knew it was something" he said.

D!ckhead.

And yes, before anyone else says it, I was a d!ckhead for letting him try. Anyway, no harm done, my boy didn't get burnt and the tick was out.

Stick with Kero.

Cheers,

Jim.

Wow! Twice in one day I get to quote Prof Julian White!! He suggests applying alcohol to a tick to irritate it! He does say not to hold the tick by the body as it may pull it off and leave the mouth parts embedded in the skin. The alcohol sounds good for the humans but not the ticks!! Good advice about how to remove the mouth parts by turning it anticlockwise. (Julian White doesn't address this problem) Incidentally Julian White also says that after a tick bite a tetanus booster should be considered if a booster hasn't been given in the last 5 years.
Cheers
Anni

Back in my TAFE days a friend of mine who quite often indulged in Acid and other drugs of the day, found that dropping acid made the tick bugger off quick smart! LOL

Again, probally not the best solution for a year 7 camp!!!! ;-)

Hi Tickers,

Google is also an ever helpful friend and believe it or not there is a website dedicated to the paralysis tick of eastern australia. Grusome pictures, heaps of good stuff to keep you alert for things that crawl in the bush.

Seeking more WA based information - Qld ticks may be different from WA ticks; I found a fantastic resource posted on the WA Police website on survival in the bush. In 112 pages it covers all sorts of things from vehicle selection and preparation, rescue tips, creek crossings, making fire without matches, bush butchery, bush tucker, radio tips. It also said deaths have been recorded from tick bites - awesome info for a Year 7 camp! It says "Ticks should be removed using alcohol to irritate and then pulling off using tweezers or tickpliers on either side of the mouth part."

The Department of Medical Entomology at Uni NSW says not to use kero as it makes the tick inject toxins. I'm suspecting the paralysis tick is one nasty bugger and needs to be treated more carefully than the common WA roo tick.

Whilst there seems to be disagreement on the use of irritants, the importance of getting as close to the skin with whatever your tool of choice seems consistent across sources. Some say it doesn't matter if you leave the little pincer bits in the skin as they will come away like a surface splinter. Others says it is important to get the lot out.

Perhaps the best message from all of this involves tripping on acid to remove the tick and drinking the alcohol to numb the problem completely. Hate to think of a bad acid trip being spooked by that psycodelic monster tick .......

Tim

Hi Tim,

This wasn't Carine PS Yr7 by chance?

Anyhow we have found acetone (nail polish remover) works a trick.

Regards,
Hugh

Ive have to rmove many ticks from both animals and people over the years. Ive never had any sucess with metho, too impatient I think. I use long nose pliers and grip them as close to the skin as possible. They are pretty tough and Ive never had a head come off yet. It often takes a lot of force to pull them out. I dont think it hurts too much cause the cat wouldnt stand for it - Ha ha.

I have a tick removing device which i bought from my local vet. it is used in a similar way to the Tim's tweezer trick except it is like a 2 pronged fork which locates behind the ticks head and you spin it anticlocwise. we have a lot of ticks around home so it gets used quite often on the dog and ourselves too.