Advice: don't persist with the parasite's head.
I don’t want to think about it, but sometimes this happens: a tick has attached itself to you, and despite the horror of the situation, you need to do something about it. Tearing the parasite from your body in your hearts is not an option. Is it dangerous. You need to act strictly according to the instructions, and how, says Yulia Korzhenkova, an infectious disease specialist at the Ilyinskaya Hospital.
It is advisable to detect an attached tick on your body as early as possible. Then there is a risk that he will not have time to bite. Therefore, inspections every two hours in nature are the most important part of prevention.
The inspection should include areas where ticks bite most often:
- armpits,
- groin,
- the back of the knees,
- scalp.
Taking a shower or bath immediately after spending time outdoors is a good idea, as this can help identify and wash away ticks that have not yet attached to the skin.
If the tick is removed within 24 hours of the bite, transmission of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease is very unlikely. But the tick-borne encephalitis virus enters the human blood from the first minutes of suction. Therefore, vaccination against tick-borne encephalitis is the only effective measure to prevent this disease.
How to properly remove a tick with tweezers
- Use pointed tweezers to grab the tick as close to the surface of the skin as possible. Tweezers with a rectangular end are not suitable for plucking eyebrows. Be sure to disinfect them before use.
- Pull upward with steady, even pressure. Do not twist or jerk the tick - this may cause parts of the insect's mouthparts to break off and remain on the skin.
- Never crush a tick with your fingers or even touch it with your bare hands: there is a risk of infection if its saliva or other parts of the tick get into a cut or eye. Use gloves or a plastic bag to protect your hands.
- Thoroughly clean the bite area, hands, and any device used with alcohol/antiseptic or soap and water.
- Dispose of a live tick by placing it in alcohol, burning it, or flushing it down the toilet.
How to treat a wound
Since after removing the tick there remains a slight damage to the skin, it is better to treat it. Various solutions can be used for this purpose:
- Chlorhexidine.
- Alcohol.
- Vodka.
- Hydrogen peroxide.
- Iodine.
- Any alcohol-containing compositions (lotions, eau de toilette).
- Antiseptic (for example Medilis-asept).
It is recommended to carefully rinse the damaged area with liquids. Under no circumstances should you rub the compounds into the wound, as this can lead to contaminated saliva getting deep into the tissue.
How to get the tick’s “head” if it remains inside
Sometimes after removing a tick, part of it remains at the site of the bite. Some call this the head of the tick, but it is actually part of the mouthparts. If fragments of the parasite are stuck in the skin, try to remove them in the same way: grab them with tweezers and slowly pull up, without jerking or twisting.
If this cannot be done easily, leave the bite area alone, treat it with an antiseptic and let the skin heal. Over time, the remains of the mite will be torn off with a crust on their own. You should not persist in getting the coveted “tick head”: this will only further injure the bite site and increase the risk of infection.
What to do if the head remains in the dog
It is necessary to remove the tick from the dog's body entirely; leaving its head under the skin is unacceptable. Otherwise, the process of inflammation and suppuration will begin.
The tick's head looks like a small black dot, similar to a splinter. To extract it, use a thin needle. Before carrying out the procedure, the needle must be calcined and disinfected. To prevent the dog from resisting, it is better to numb the area of skin and calmly carry out the extraction. Then the wound site is wiped with a disinfectant solution.
If the parasite's head is deep in the wound, you should seek help from a veterinarian. He can pull it out by making a small cut.
How to remove a tick using a twister from a pharmacy
If you know that you cannot avoid encountering ticks, it is good to have with you a special tick remover (also called a lasso handle), which you can buy at the pharmacy. The device is made of plastic, so it is lighter than tweezers and is more convenient to take with you outdoors.
Before removing the tick, wear gloves or use a plastic bag to protect your hands and disinfect the device.
To remove a tick with a twister, you need to pick it up so that it is between two teeth. But despite the name of the device, it is better not to twist it, but to slowly and evenly pull it up, as when using tweezers. Otherwise, there is a high probability that part of the tick will remain in the wound.
Carefully treat the bite area with alcohol or other antiseptic.
Do I need to use oil?
There is a fairly widespread opinion in society that when the bite area is lubricated with oil, the tick falls off on its own. This opinion is not only wrong, but can also be harmful. Oil cannot be used for these purposes for the following reasons:
- Tick breathing occurs through the back, the oil on which will help the tick to suffocate. The dead insect will remain in the body and will be difficult to remove.
- The oil will frighten the tick and it will splash its dangerous substances into the body. In this case, infection can hardly be avoided.
How to pull out a tick with a thread
Wear gloves or use a bag to protect your hands from contact with the parasite. Disinfect the thread with alcohol or other antiseptic.
Wrap the thread around the insect as close to the skin as possible and tie a knot. And then pull up smoothly and slowly. Avoid twisting and jerking.
Afterwards, treat the bite site with an antiseptic, do not rub or injure the skin.
When and where to look for ticks in fur
The tick does not bite immediately after it hits the body. It takes him 1-2 hours to find the perfect spot. Parasites usually move upward and settle in the ears, armpits and thigh folds. Males unclench their jaws after they reach a moderate stage of satiation. Females remain on the body for up to 10 days. Hungry ticks look like spiders. Well-fed ones look like a voluminous mole or bump.
Ear mites are a subcutaneous parasite. Its presence is determined by a thick brown mass. To make sure the diagnosis is correct, you need to take a certain amount of mass from the ear with a cotton swab and shake it over the tissue. If whitish insects appear on it, then it is an ear mite.
To spot a tick in time, you need to regularly examine your dog after a walk.
The examination begins with the muzzle, armpits and groin. Then they move to the back and sides. If the dog has thick fur, it is almost impossible to notice the tick. In this case, they check it manually: the wool is felt from the undercoat to the outside of the pile. The skin is examined using circular movements.
Signs that an animal has been bitten by a tick:
- apathy;
- drowsiness;
- reluctance to move;
- loss of appetite - the dog approaches the food bowl, but leaves it untouched.
In large breeds, bite symptoms appear after 5-8 hours, in small breeds - almost immediately. If a tick is still found, it can be removed at home.
You can’t throw it away: what to do with a tick
In Russia and the rest of the world, the fate of a pulled out tick is very different. After you have removed the tick, in Russia it is customary to put the insect in a jar (with damp cotton wool/gauze) to prevent the tick from drying out, and take it to the laboratory for “dispensary examination”. Wait for the results of the study and then do something with the information received.
In Europe, America and the rest of the world, they don’t stand on ceremony with a tick: if you pull it out, you need to destroy it (flush it down the toilet, burn it, pour it with alcohol).
And that's why:
- Mite testing is not 100% sensitive. Negative results may lead to false confidence;
- if the test shows that the tick contained infectious agents, this does not mean that you are infected;
- If you are infected, symptoms may appear before test results are available. And waiting for the result should not be a delay in treatment.
Vaccination
Currently in Russia there are four vaccines for immunization against tick-borne encephalitis, two domestically produced and two imported.
All four vaccines are obtained by reproducing the tick-borne encephalitis virus in the suspended primary structure of chicken embryo cells, and also contain aluminum hydroxide as an adjuvant. This means that they should be treated with great caution by those who suffer from allergies and those with a history of neurological diseases.
Other general contraindications are pregnancy, acute diseases, as well as chronic diseases in the acute stage. The EnceVir vaccine, discussed above, is contraindicated for asthmatics, diabetics, patients with cardiovascular and endocrine diseases, blood and connective tissue diseases, rheumatism, and epilepsy.
So what to do after a tick bite
After a bite, you must consult a doctor: a therapist, a pediatrician, an infectious disease specialist.
The best thing is to already be vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis. Otherwise, if you are bitten by a tick and you live in an area with an unfavorable situation for encephalitis, emergency prevention is used: the administration of anti-tick immunoglobulin (no later than 96 hours after the bite). This is practiced only in Russia; it is not carried out in Europe due to unproven effectiveness and the risk of a more severe course of the disease when immunoglobulin is administered.
If the tick is from an endemic area for borreliosis and there is a suspicion that it has been sucking blood for a long time (more than 24-36 hours - this is determined by its fullness) - it is recommended to take the antibiotic doxycycline once for prophylactic purposes. This must be done no later than 72 hours after removing the tick.
As of 2019, these recommendations are also allowed throughout the world for children of any age; in Russia it is permissible for children over 8 years of age: at the rate of 4.4 mg/kg, but not more than 200 mg – once. In any case, the dosage and need for any prophylaxis is determined by the doctor.
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Photo: RIA Novosti/Igor Zarembo, Pavel Lisitsyn, Mikhail Mordasov
Pulling out a tick with a syringe
There is another household method for removing a tick. It involves using a knife and a regular medical syringe, preferably an insulin one, but a 2 cm3 capacity is also suitable. The procedure is quite simple to implement and anyone can perform it. Using a knife, cut off the end of the syringe along with the needle. It is important to make the cut as smooth as possible. The finished product is tightly applied to the site of tick suction and the air is pumped out of the syringe. The vacuum formed in the resulting capsule should push the bloodsucker out of the wound it created. This method allows for the formation of a small bruise, but these consequences are disproportionate to the risk of contracting a disease dangerous to health.
how to remove a tick with a syringe
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Facts and myths about ticks
- Under no circumstances should the tick be lubricated with oil, alcohol or other liquids. The idea that this will supposedly help extract it is a dangerous myth. This will cause the parasite to choke and more saliva will enter the bloodstream. Oiling only increases the risk of infection. In addition, such a “treated” tick is unsuitable for laboratory diagnostics.
- Ticks do not live on trees. They rarely climb higher than one and a half meters, so their favorite habitat is tall grass and bushes.
- Ticks live not only in wild forests, but also in city parks. Even if your region is not among the most dangerous for tick-borne encephalitis, there is still a risk of catching a tick.
- Once on the victim, the ticks only crawl upward. Therefore, when going outdoors, make sure that the cuffs fit snugly to the body, and, if possible, tuck your trousers into your shoes. The more of the body is covered with clothing, the lower the risk of a tick bite.
- There are more than 54 species of ticks in the world, but not all of them are dangerous to humans. Ixodid ticks are carriers of infections, house ticks are the culprits of dust allergies, and skin ticks are a source of dermatological problems. Some species are so tiny that they can only be seen under a microscope, while others are visible to the naked eye. Among mites there are predators and plant pests, parasites and saprophytes. And all together they belong to the class of arachnids, and not insects, as many people think.
