OT : Tick removal

[HOGHEAD]

Its summer time & alot of us are out in the woods Jeepin ,,I got this e-mail from a friend :


A School Nurse has written the info below -- good enough to share. And it really works!! I had a pediatrician tell me what she believes is the best way to remove a tick. This is great, because it works in those places where it's some times difficult to get to with tweezers: between toes, in the middle of a head full of dark hair, etc. 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 I've used it (and that was frequently), and it's much less traumatic for the patient and easier for me.

Unless someone is allergic to soap, I can't see that this would be damaging in any way. I even had my doctor's wife call me for advice because she had one stuck to her back and she couldn't reach it with tweezers. She used this method and immediately called me back to say,
"It worked!"

[Bobster]

A dab of nail polish also works.

[Cster71]

I've heard of this used in a similar way before. Baby oil, vasoline, etc.. Spending a lot of time with these critters, there is another way to get them off, a little extreme, but very effective. If you can get to them before they attach, as with seed ticks, a rag with alcohol can be used to wipe them off. I have even used a rag, lightly soaked with gas, and then washed quickly!
Be safe out there...

[kstechtom]

Carb cleaner freaks them out (and most other bugs to) but I've used the nail polish trick most of the time.

[SteveInColorado]

I've had a few billion in my day, and used all sorts of different ways to get them off. When I worked in the medical field, though, I researched what worked and what didn't, and what was bad. Here's the results:
In spite of what people believe, ticks don't "corkscrew" in. I believed that one for most of my life. I've even heard doctors tell patients they do.
If a tick has Rocky Mountain spotted fever or Lyme's disease, it transmits the disease to people by regurgitating its stomach contents into your system. If you squeeze it or put any chemicals on it, you increase the likelihood of that happening.
The best way to get it off (from the disease risk standpoint) is to grab its snout as deep as you can with tweezers and pull it straight out.
Like I said, I've used all the above at different times, but I watched my dad suffer from Rocky Mountain fever for 6 months, so I'll take any precaution I can to avoid it.

Steve.