Tick Removal

The following article was composed by Ellen Morris, with some information coming from Bonnie Anthony.

I have been teaching people how to handle ticks for 16 years. Burning the ticks is not the method of choice any longer. There used to be several methods which people used, but there were problems found with many of them. People used to try to suffocate the ticks with nail polish or Vaseline, poison them with kerosene or gasoline, and burn them out with match heads and red hot needles...

Ticks, when they bite, make a very small hole through which their mouth parts firmly attach themselves. If they are infected with the Lyme disease spirochetes which are then injected. The tick is actually the vector for the disease, when the bacterium is regurgitated into the host (that is either YOU or your pet). They are seldom transferred to the host animal in less then 24 hours, unless stressed into doing so.

Squeezing the body, burning the bug (which might also burn the host), applying gasoline or kerosene are all inadvisable because they will make the tick regurgitate into the host, and the Lyme disease or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, babeiosis, tuleremia, and/or Erlichiosis is then transferred to the host animal. Erlichiosis is also a real bad boy, fairly recently discovered and as bad for people as it is for dogs. It is treatable with doxycycline, but if left untreated, all these diseases can actually be fatal in some instances.

Erlichiosis is not always treated with doxycycline, but with a tetracycline derivative. They are often treated with multiple antibiotics. If caught early enough they are treated orally but later on in the disease, intravenous antibiotic therapy is used.

If removal is not accomplished completely and a portion of the mouth part left in place a hard raised area may occur. A trip to your veterinarian or doctor for complete removal of the rest of tick is the best order of treatment, then.

If you are bitten by a tick, especially if there is any inflammation of the skin around the bite (even if there is not a tell tale bulls eye rash) some doctors recommend a prophylactic course of doxycycline or ampicillin for 2 to 3 weeks. In my area, the doctors routinely put their clients on a prophylactic course of antibiotics for about 3 weeks. and a Western Blot blood test is drawn to be sure that there has been no infestation. .

What is recommended by the CDC is that the tick should be grabbed at the base of the head in a manner which will pinch the mouth parts are squeezed closed so that they cannot inject the host with toxic material. This is
easily accomplished with a hemostat or some tweezers which, after being fixed onto the base of the tick's head, should have steady, firm. traction put on the tick until it is pulled from the host. Often a small popping sound or click is noted at that time. After removal of the tick, betadine solution or alcohol should be applied to the bite area. If removal is not accomplished completely and a portion of the mouth part left in place a hard raised area may occur. This will gradually recede but since you have been holding the mouth parts closed as you remove the tick, there is little chance that the tick will be able to inject the toxin.

What I've found even better though, is that the application of Frontline Top Spot is a huge help. If you keep the dog dry for a day or so after the application of Frontline, then even repeated swimming will not cause the dog to lose its protection for a whole month. It also works for fleas for at least 3 months, by the way.

I hope this helps those of us who are in tick infested areas. South Jersey finds tick borne diseases epidemic and we actually get to be old hat or rather blas� about removing them. By the way, one thing more: some doctors
and veterinarians recommend that you keep the ticks you remove in a jar of alcohol in case you or your dog become sick and they want to check further. If you are bitten by a tick, especially if there is any inflammation of the skin around the bite (even if there is not a tell tale bulls eye rash) most doctors recommend a prophylactic course of doxycycline or ampicillin for 2 to 3 weeks.

Some Human Advice:

I thought I would pass on to what we used to teach the parents and require the children to do with our environmental ed program in the Jersey Pine Barrens. 

We told everyone to wear their socks over their pant leg bottoms, to tuck in their shirts and wear long sleeves with snug cuffs and to wear a hat.  The premise is that the ticks get on clothing and crawl UP until they find a likely place to "dine!"  We would also tell them to spray their pant legs with raid OUTSIDE and not in the house.  The premise here is that the ticks and chiggers crawl up looking for dinner and you can catch them far more easily before they get to skin, if the raid doesn't kill them first!

All text and graphics are Copyright � by LabsR4U. Please do not copy any text or graphics without permission.