After a recent dentist visit and the questions that arose about my medical history and Lyme disease, I realized that it was time for me to write about a very important topic to me. The safe removal of a tick and early detection.
Because that is where it all begins really.
With summer finally arriving!!, so have the deer ticks, unfortunately. They are what transmit to humans and animals the spirochetal bacteria infection of Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdoferi, when they bite & burrow their head into our skin. Plus, there are over three hundred species of borrelia that are known to exist worldwide. If you have Lyme disease, you also have to contend with coinfections.
They are now finding out that flees, mosquitoes, and mites also carry the infection.
It is a blood-borne infection that is transmitted like any other one, including ones like HIV and Hepatitis. That means it is sexually transmitted, as well as passed along through pregnancy and breastfeeding. They don't filter through donated blood at Blood Centers for Lyme disease before it is transfused.
Our kids have a 50% chance of having it.
Most ticks don't carry diseases, and most bites don't cause serious health problems, but it is important to be knowledgeable and aware of how to remove a tick as soon as you find it to help you avoid contacting Lyme disease in the first place.
It is much more easily treatable if it is caught early. I cannot stress this enough. I had it for so many years before I got properly diagnosed that it has become chronic for me. Incurable, essentially. It has created such havoc on my body that I, also, have three autoimmune diseases that have come along with it.
There are many "ideas" about the best way to remove a tick, one of the most common tricks being to light it up with a match! (I understand ~... trust me! ... you are thinking: "Burn that sucker!" right? They are pretty creepy!) However, even being married to a Firefighter for the past 16 years, I would strongly suggest NOT using this method. The truth is, this can and probably will only increase your chance for infection because you could end up releasing the icky fluid right into your body! Exactly what you do not want to do.
Same goes for "smothering" the tick with petroleum jelly, nail polish, rubbing alcohol or the like.
When you return home from areas where ticks might live, carefully examine your skin and scalp for ticks. Check your pet & kids, too, especially babies. Be diligent about looking at hard to reach places where one wouldn't commonly notice a bite. Ticks can be so small that it is even hard to see them. In fact, they can be as small as the size of a sesame seed! This makes it very hard to tell if you even removed its head or not.
So here is my list of "steps" of removing a tick:
- Use a fine pointed tweezers and grab the tick's head firmly as close to the skin as possible where the bite is. Remember to wear latex gloves when doing this. Don't grab it around its body. If you don't have a tweezers, then put on gloves or cover your hands with tissue paper, then use your fingers. Do not handle the tick with bare hands ever.
- Gently pull the tick straight out until its mouth lets go of your skin. Do not twist or "unscrew" the tick. This may separate the tick's head from its body and leave parts of its mouth in your skin.
- It is critical to NOT squeeze the tick body at any time -- this can inject more potential pathogens into you.
- Look at the tick in your tweezers to ensure all feet, body and head are in place.
- Cleanse the skin with mild soap and water.You can then apply antibiotic ointment if you wish.
- Put the tick in a jar of alcohol or a ziplock bag for later identification if necessary.
Symptoms of infection may include:
- Pain, swelling, redness, or warmth around the area.
- Red streaks leading from the area.
- Pus draining from the area.
- Swollen lymph nodes in the neck, armpit, or groin.
- Fever or chills.
The usual treatment is a round of antibiotics initially for a few weeks. Unfortunately, most times the antibiotic isn't used long enough, or it isn't the right one. Or like for me, they didn't help at all.
The bacteria can go dormant, traveling from your blood to your organs and tissues. Not good.
If you or someone you know experiences a tick bite, I would be happy to pass along some recommendations I have of health care practitioners that I feel are knowledgeable and well-trained in diagnosing, testing & treating Lyme disease. It is a very complicated and complex disease, even for practitioners.
I hope this information only helps you have a fun and safe summer, and doesn't scare you to death of ticks, mosquitoes, and creepy-crawly things or even Lyme disease! :)
P.S: {added 7/10/11} Please click here to read an article that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had in their paper, which I found very interesting and helpful to pass along my readers, especially if you live in Wisconsin!
2 comments:
I just had to post a "comment" here that I found to be very interesting, and also useful and helpful to you, my readers. A friend of mine on Facebook posted this as another method: dish soap on a cotton ball, put it on the tick and it will back out. Thank you for sharing!
Another friend forwarded me this in an e-mail that I'd also like to pass along ... Thank you for sharing!
How To Remove a Tick:
Bet it would work on dogs too.
Spring is here and the ticks will soon be showing in heads. Here is a good way to get them off you, your children, or your pets. Give it a try. Please forward to anyone with children... or hunters or dogs, or anyone who even steps outside in summer!! 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 sometimes 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!"
Please pass on. Everyone needs this helpful info!
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