Safe method to remove a tick without leaving the head stuck in the skin that works with small or large ticks and is easier than tweezers.
Each spring and summer, warmer weather and spending more time outside and camping outdoors increases the chances of exposure to nasty tick bites. The question is not “if” but “when” it will happen. And, when it inevitably does, how to remove a tick safely to minimize the chances of disease?
I have a friend who lives on a farm in Kentucky with his wife and five children. During tick season, he and his wife perform tick checks every night on all their children right before bathtime. They take ticks very seriously in their home because the Lyme disease carrying kind are very prevalent in their area.
It’s not just Lyme disease that is a potential risk either. The Journal of General Internal Medicine published an article by Susan Wolver, MD, and Diane Sun, MD, which identified a rising trend of red meat allergies from tick bites.
When one of my children was a fairly young baby and not even mobile yet, a tick lodged itself into the top of his head. Most likely, the tick dropped out of a tree onto his head, so don’t think your children are safe just because they aren’t hiking in the woods or walking in the grass!
If you discover that your child or pet has a tick that has lodged itself into the skin, here is the safest, easiest and quickest way to remove it.
How to Remove a Tick Safely and Quickly
The best way to remove ticks is using tweezers according to most authoritative sources. However, there is a new gadget called the tick twister remover that works even better.
My friend in Kentucky says that they used to use tweezers, but the tick twister is far superior and easier to use. It can be used to remove ticks from both pets and people.
Each tick twister tick removal set (it only costs about $6) has two removers inside: one large and one small. The different size is to allow for safe removal of both small and large ticks.
This ingenious device created by a veterinarian to safely remove ticks regardless of a person’s expertise has the following benefits:
- It is easier to use than tweezers especially for small ticks.
- It removes the tick without squeezing it, which greatly reduces the chances of disease transmission.
- It ensures the head and mouthparts of the tick are removed along with the body.
- It can be used for both large and small ticks.
Every home with children and/or pets should have one of these! It should also be included with camping equipment.
Safe Removal Steps. Better than Tweezers!
There are three steps for removing a tick using the tick twister.
First, you select which tick twister to use. If the tick is large, use the larger tick twister. If the tick is small, use the smaller one. Pretty simple!
Second, you grasp the tick between the head and body using the hook end of the tick twister. The picture below shows how to do it.
Third, simply twist the tick twister gently to easily and safely remove the entire tick out of the skin. That’s it!
After removing the tick, thoroughly clean the affected skin with alcohol. If there is any irritation, a dab of this herbal salve does wonders to quickly heal the skin.
Warning About some Tick Removal Recommendations
Some sources recommend pulling a tick straight out of the skin as the best method of removal.
This is very dangerous advice, because trying to pull a tick straight out will almost ALWAYS result in the head staying stuck in the skin. This is because ticks frequently lodge into the skin at an angle. They don’t usually burrow straight in perpendicular to the skin’s surface.
If you must use tweezers because you don’t have the tick twister remover available, be sure to pull the tick out at the same angle it went in.
This will give you the best shot at removing the head along with the body. In other words, grab the tick very firmly and close to the head as you can and pull out on a straight line but the same angle it burrowed in. I hope this makes sense.
It’s a little difficult to describe in words. This is the method taught to me by my Dad, who is a retired family doctor. Using this method, I’ve never left a tick’s head in the skin of any pet or person in over 40 years.
Of course, using the inexpensive tick twister is the best method of all. You don’t have to worry about angles – you simply twist the tick out of the skin!
How to Repel Ticks
This article describes the method for preparing an herbal yarrow tincture which is very effective at repelling ticks so you don’t have to remove them in the first place.
You ideally need to spray yourself every 2 hours or so.
Note that yarrow has been reputedly found by the US Army to be as effective as DEET in repelling ticks.
My aunt recently posted the email in the above article. Thank you so much for all your work on getting out the information on proper tick removal, Judith. It would be terrible to find that one my relatives, especially, had tried any of these dangerous methods. Hopefully, my aunt will be more aware of using information from improperly cited articles. I would also like to point out that in the light of all the information given, the OP has lost all journalistic integrity by not at least apologizing for her misinformation.
It would certainly be a good thing for Sarah to delete this post (it’s at Facebook too) and even better if she would post information on tick removal methods that are actually safe. I still feel bad about all the people who probably read the post and never looked at the comments to see that the post was completely wrong.
quid soap to remove ticks– not a good idea
Although the liquid soap method of removing ticks does make them drop off, it also may stimulate them to release saliva which may contain harmful diseases that ticks are known to carry. They carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Lyme Disease which have occurred in many parts of the country. It isn’t worth the risk to use the soap method even if you don’t live in an area of high tick infestation.
The best method is still to use tweezers, grasp the tick close to the body and pull it straight out. Apply antiseptic and keep the tick in an enclosed jar with the date in case symptoms of a disease occur.
OMG DONT DO THIS GET THE TICK OUT RIGHT AWAY… BY PUTTING SOAP OF A TICK YOU WILL HAVE A WAY BIGGER CHANCE OF GETTING A DISEASE GET IT OUT WITH TWEEZERS RIGHT AWAY>>> OMG THEY NEED TO TAKE THIS OFF THE INTERNET
As with petroleum jelly, liquid soap is likely to be ineffective because of the tick’s low respiration rate.
And a detailed scientific study by Glen R. Needham, PhD that evaluated six popular methods for removing ticks found that “the application of petroleum jelly, Liquid soap fingernail polish, 70% isopropyl alcohol, or a hot kitchen match failed to induce detachment of adult American dog ticks”.
Experts agree that it is important to remove a tick as soon as possible after it is discovered. Thus, even if applying a substance such as soap does eventually cause the tick to detach, the unnecessary delay in removal could significantly increase the risk of disease transmission. Health authorities note that the preferred method for removing a tick is to use fine-tipped tweezers. The CDC tick removal article notes:
How to remove a tick
1. Use fine-tipped tweezers and protect your fingers with a tissue, paper towel, or latex gloves. Avoid removing ticks with your bare hands.
2. Grasp the tick as close to the skin surface as possible and pull upward with steady, even pressure. Don’t twist or jerk the tick; this can cause the mouth-parts to break off and remain in the skin. If this happens, remove the mouth-parts with tweezers. If you are unable to remove the mouth easily with clean tweezers, leave it alone and let the skin heal.
3. After removing the tick, thoroughly disinfect the bite and your hands with rubbing alcohol, an iodine scrub, or soap and water.
If we ve learned anything it is that there are differing opinons, from experts, and so called experts. The links have been revealing. Let’s be a little less over the top with patronizing and dogmatic semantics. And another thing we have learned is the medical community is ignorant on a lot of issues, pharma is as well. ( perhaps pharma is smarter than we give them credit, if we all got well, they would be out of business). I have fibro and the medical experts felt surely it was lymes. No tick, no bullseye but all the symptoms, no indication in the blood tests. It was probably caused by pharma and incorrectly prescribing of antibiotics in a third world country while I was there. Sorry some are suffering. I stopped researching lymes when the news came out that the same medicatios to treat malaria, was helping lymnes patients. That was a decade ago and probably not relevant now. I think this ‘comment chain’ has covered the waterfront on ticks. Perhaps we can talk about another blood sucking problem we have, taxation and very poor representation and worse governing for the past decades. Be well, find solutions and d*** the blood sucking ticks of this world.
Hello Judith, I would just like to start out saying I greatly appreciate your consistency on trying to make sure people are properly informed on this issue. I really think Sarah should remove or correct the wrong information. I am a young mother of two children, until recently I have never thought much about ticks and the diseases they carry. I have always used the tweezers method to remove many ticks from both myself and pets, but I never knew if this was the correct way of doing so and since I now have children whom have both been bitten by ticks I figured it was time to become more informed on the issue. I came across this blog and at first was ecstatic to find there was a less traumatic and more effective way to remove ticks from my boys. Had I not wanted to learn more and read the comments posted here I would unknowingly be putting my poor babies in great danger of these horrific diseases. I am sure Sarah’s intentions are well-meaning but I am also sure there are many other young moms such as myself that may not read further to find out the information posted is very dangerously wrong. These unsuspecting people are going to see this and begin risking innocent babies lives…this blog really should be fixed at the least.
JUDITH, if you don’t mind I have a couple of questions about ticks that were on my boys, after reading many of your posts I don’t know of a person that has as much experience and knowledge on the subject. My first question is about a type of tick. My 7 month old had a tick attached to his arm about 2 weeks ago; I don’t believe it was attached for more than five hours. However it was a tick I have never seen, it was a small tick and the body of the tick was all white, the head appeared to be a black or brown color. Before reading your posts I never thought to save the tick (thank you) so we burnt it and threw it away. I cleaned the bite well after we got the tick off, and it seemed to heal well, there are no red spots or anything. Are there specific signs I should watch for or should I get him tested for any tick diseases to be safe? I recently moved from MO to WV could it just be a different species of tick for this region?
My next question is about my 21 mo old. Sunday evening we found a tick attached to his neck, it was a regular brown tick I have seen many times before. When we went to remove it he was scared and wouldn’t sit still and his father got half the body the first try and the rest of the body the second try but the head it still lodged in his skin at the base of his neck. The area is red, I have been cleaning it every day with alcohol prep wipes and antibiotic ointment. I believe he got the tick Saturday night, the night before we found it, from playing with a friends outdoor dog. Should we try to get the head out? If so do you have any suggestions on doing so? Also should we take him to the doctor? Is there anything specific you know of we should ask the doctor, or any tests we should ask them to run? I know you posted some websites on information about ticks, (I plan to dive in to them when I get the time) but are there any major signs we should be watching for to tell us he may be getting Lyme disease? Or is there a website you suggest me to checkout first that may list signs and symptoms of tick related diseases? Sorry to bombard you with questions, anything you know of you wouldn’t mind to share would be appreciated, I have already learned a lot more about ticks just reading your comments,(thank you once again) I had no idea about the regurgitation or the fluids that could be put into the wound from the tick being broken in half; that’s what brought my attention to making sure he doesn’t get sick from this bite, I would have just watched to make sure it healed well and not thought about it again. But thank you for taking your time to read my comment and I very much appreciate all your helpful advice on here.
Cheyenne
Hi Cheyenne.
My best advice on identifying ticks is to look at tick identification images online. It helps if you have a good magnifying glass. You can put the tick on a card and tape it with transparent tape, look at it carefully, and compare with the images. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tick that had a white body so I can’t tell you anything. The female Lone Star tick has a white spot in the middle of her back. males don’t have the spot. Could have seen a bright white spot surrounded by brown?
You can also drop the tick into a small container of alcohol, which will kill it fast, and then examine it. (Yuck.)
There are several species of ticks in North America, and probably most of them are in MO and WV. Unfortunately, Lyme disease is not the only tick disease in the US that affects humans. There are several more.
Also, most agricultural extension offices will take a tick and ID it for you–put it in a small container like a pill container and get it to them. Check with your local Ag. office first. In my area, it’s a free service, and they give you information on that species of tick.
For the tick that was hard to remove and broke apart, I don’t think there is any need to keep disinfecting beyond the first few minutes. It’s true that if you squish a tick and release body fluids, they may be infective. So just clean well right away and disinfect the area. I don’t believe the pathogens can survive on the skin for any length of time, and disinfecting once should kill them. They have to be injected to cause disease.
If the head or mouthparts are left attached, they act like a splinter; they can cause local infection and irritation. This is not a tick-borne disease like Lyme. Once the tick’s body is gone, the mouthparts can’t transmit a disease. I would personally treat it like a splinter if it was my kid; you have to make your own judgment call depending on how inflamed it seems. I personally would use warm compresses which usually help the skin to push out a splinter. If the soreness or infection seems to get worse, I’d go to a doctor. If you can get your child to hold still and relax, and let you grasp the tick firmly down near the head with tweezers and pull slowly and smoothly, the mouthparts should come out easily. It helps to have very fine-pointed tweezers that don’t grab the tick’s body, just down at the head. But I understand how it is when a child is nervous.
Unfortunately, most doctors are uneducated about tick borne diseases. This group has some good information you could take to your doctor if you go:
–There is information about testing and other issues there. But there are several other tick borne diseases in the US, and at least one that has no test yet (STARI).
Here is a helpful site:
That is their FAQ’s about Lyme; the whole site is helpful.
I’d be most concerned about Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever because it can become very serious very fast. The other tick diseases move more slowly. With RMSF, you need to get treatment as soon as possible. I don’t mean to alarm you, but a young girl just died of RMSF in NC. I think she may not have been treated soon enough. So here’s one link to information on RMSF:
http://www.cdc.gov/rmsf/symptoms/index.html
It’s important to know that some people don’t get a rash with RMSF, so doctors should not wait for a rash before treatment begins. Testing can take too long, also–it’s best to treat when there are symptoms before test results come in. There is good information on this about halfway down the CDC page. I think some doctors are not well informed on this, so it’s good to take the information to your doctor.
Here is a good link for tick information in general, including tick identification:
http://www.tickencounter.org/
I think if you look at the links I posted earlier, that should cover the territory. If not, let me know.
Snopes is right. This is a dangerous hoax. It doesn’t work. Soap, alcohol, even tincture of iodine don’t make ticks drop off. I HAVE tried this myself.
Has ‘Sarah’ tried it? I daresay ‘she’ has not.
The important point is not whether this method makes a tick drop off or not. The important thing is that this method can give you a tick-borne disease! Irritating an attached tick in any way can make it regurgitate gut contents into the bite wound as it tries to detach. The disease germs stay down in the gut for several hours after the tick attaches, so during that time as the tick begins to feed, it is not transmitting disease. If you make the tick regurgitate during that time, it can bring up the disease germs and inject them into your skin, so you increase your chance of catching a tick-borne disease, from zero chance to a major chance. I got this information from the person who runs the listserve for tick disease in dogs. He spent most of his life studying ticks and insects all over the world–probably 50 years or more.
Your goal should be to pull the tick off, using fine-pointed tweezers or another tick-removal tool, as soon as possible–preferably as soon as you notice the tick. To get the tick off early, when you are in tick country, you should check every inch of your skin at least every 12 hours. Use a mirror or a friend to check areas you can’t see directly. If you use tweezers, grasp down at the head and pull slowly and smoothly so you get the whole tick, although the mouthparts and head can’t transmit disease once the tick’s body is removed.
Don’t do anything to the tick to try to make it detach itself! This is a very dangerous method, and so are all the other old methods to make a tick detach on its own. I love Sarah’s blog and have learned a lot here about food and nutrition, but this one post is wrong in almost everything she writes. Read the other comments that correct her errors. Unfortunately, Sarah didn’t seem willing to read any of the links to tick expert sites that we posted here. I hope at some point she will educate herself about ticks because it can be a life/death issue.
I got bitten by a tick earlier this summer. I’d never read about this stuff, so I just pulled it out by hand. According to several websites, even if the head does break off, it won’t infect you (if you remove the tick within 24 – 36 hours). The stuff that will get you sick is in the tick’s stomach.
I would never leave a tick attached that long. You need to get it off within 12 hour of when it attaches, or less. Estimates vary on how soon a tick can begin transmitting pathogens, but most are around 6-12 hours. It probably varies depending in the species of pathogen and various other factors.
In our county there is a dept. (sorry, can’t remember name) that will identify the tick. If it is a deer tick they will test it for Lyme disease (I think it was for $5. Lyme has affected my memory really bad , so forgive my forgetfulness.). My husband took one in and they called to tell us it wasn’t a deer tick, they identified it, and told us what kind of diseases that particular type carried.
We grew up in a heavily infested tick area, tweezing them off is my least favorite childhood memory. I don’t live in an area with many ticks now but when one of my kids had a tick attached and engorged, I immediately sent it directly to a lab for testing. Doctors don’t know much about Lyme in this area, testing is not very accurate, I feel that knowing if the tick itself is a disease carrier is the best starting point. The results were back in less than a week. (Oh, and I agree with always tweezing!)
Irene, there are quite a few other tick borne diseases in the US in addition to Lyme. Most areas have more than one.
During tick season, if you do a complete tick check over every inch, every 12 hours, you are probably going to prevent transmission of disease. Ticks do not transmit disease for the first few hours they are attached. Some sources say it takes 24 hours; some say 12; some say even less. But if you get them off ASAP, they can’t transmit. (I am mentioning this because you indicate that you do find engorged ticks sometimes.) Preventing transmission of disease is the best approach, rather than finding out after the fact, though that is better than not knowing at all.
Oh, of course, I agree prevention is best.
My daughter indicated she had felt the “bump” in the morning (I removed the tick in the evening so it had been there for around 6-8 hours and probably was there before she noticed.) Now she knows to tell me right away but ticks are very infrequent here. This is the second or third I’ve seen in twelve years and the first one that attached.
I wanted to know if the tick itself was infected so I could insist on treatment, most doctors here will not treat without symptoms and I know not everyone gets a rash. I figured a + tick would get her treated immediately.
Now I know to look into what other TB illnesses are in this area, thanks!
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE pay attention to what Judith has been saying in the comment section! DO NOT make the tick dislodge itself! This is so very dangerous!
We live in a very high tick prone area. 2 of my 3 children have Lyme Disease. None had the bullseye that so many think you have to have. There are so many ways Lyme comes out, so anything abnormal needs to get checked out. My oldest son’s Lyme presented itself in random high fevers and finally in his knee as arthritis (he was 6 or 7 at the time). My daughter’s presented very differently. She ran a lot of low grade fevers and complained a lot about stomach/chest pains. Anyway, I’m just saying this because if anything abnormal starts in your health and you have had a tick on you at some point, go get tested for Lyme. Go get tested for Lyme even if you don’t recall having a tick on you. You just never know.
Of course, there are issues with the testing, but I won’t go in to all that. All I know is that I’m very thankful for doctors that are aware of Lyme and am so very thankful for them.
This article on “how to remove ticks” NEEDS to be removed.
Thank you Judith for sort of “screaming” about this post and for informing as many people as possible! 🙂
I grew up in tick territory and we always knew to get rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball and snuff them out and then remove the body. Always worked, whether on humans or pets.
Please read the other comments that explain why it’s dangerous to put anything on a tick before removing it. You need to pull the tick off with a proper tool, not fool with it or apply anything to it.