HOW TO REMOVE A TICK FROM A PERSON

We had an incident yesterday that required me to refresh myself on how to remove ticks from a human. Dear hubby had gone out in the field to dump some grass clippings and apparently picked up an unwanted hitchhiker and before I would commit to helping him out, I went in search of the best method of removing ticks. Here are some tick removal tips.

HOW TO REMOVE A TICK

Clean the area with rubbing alcohol and then with clean tweezers grab the tick as close to where it has attached itself to the skin as possible.
If you don’t have tweezers handy, avoid handling the tick with your bare hands. Once you have a good hold, pull it straight out of the skin with a firm, steady motion WITHOUT SQUEEZING THE TICK’S BODY. Crushing the critter’s bulbous little body will cause it to regurgitate its stomach’s disease causing contents. And friend, if there is anything more disgusting in this world than tick puke I can’t name it.
Once you have removed and destroyed the tick, go over the area once again with rubbing alcohol and when dry, dab on some bacitracin ointment. Our doctor says bacitracin (available without prescription) is better than Neosporin.

I have one suggestion on how to teach your kids how to remove ticks from a human being; let them practice on the family dog. Growing up in the country, I had to remove ticks from dogs all the time that they picked up running through the woods and I got really good at it. For all practical purposes knowing how to remove a tick from a human is the same as knowing how to remove ticks from dogs except for the fact that my daddy’s hunting dogs were nowhere near as squeamish as my husband!

Return to Family Recipes, Babies and Parenting Issues to see if my patient feels that I did a good job or if (God forbid) the spot gets infected.