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Everyone and their uncle has a favorite method for removing a tick -- from burning it with a cigarette to smothering it in petroleum jelly or painting it with nail polish. But that’s not how you should go about it.

Table of Contents Show

Remove Ticks the Right Way
What Do I Do With the Extracted Tick?
When Should I Call My Doctor?
How to remove a tick
How do I remove a tick?
How do you remove a tick without a tick remover?
What happens if a tick head is stuck in human skin?
How do you remove a tick with Vaseline?

To safely remove a tick, all you really need is a pair of pointy tweezers and a good eye.

Remove Ticks the Right Way

Before you dive in, you’ll want to get:

Pointy tweezers
Rubbing alcohol (If you don’t have it, soap and water works, too)

Pointy tweezers aren’t the typical household tweezers that you use to pluck your eyebrows. You want pointy tips, not squared-off ones. Ticks can be as small as poppy seeds. If you use regular tweezers, you might tear them.

Once you have your tools, here’s what to do:

Clean the area around the tick bite with rubbing alcohol.
Get your tweezers right down on your skin so you can grab as close as possible to the tick’s head.
Pull up slow and firm. Don’t jerk or twist; a nice, steady pressure straight up will do.
Clean the bite area again, and your hands, with rubbing alcohol or soap and water.

And that’s it. If the part of the head breaks off when you pull the tick out, that’s OK. You can try to remove it with tweezers, but if you can’t, it’s no problem. Your skin will heal.

What Do I Do With the Extracted Tick?

You have two options: Get it tested or get rid of it.

Send a tick for testing: It can help to get the tick tested so you’ll know if it was carrying any diseases it might have given you. To do this, place it in a sealed container along with a blade of grass to keep it alive. Then, take it for testing.

Some state agencies do tick testing, but if you’re not sure where to send the tick, ask your doctor.

Get rid of a tick: If you just want it safely out of your life, you can:

Drown it in a container with rubbing alcohol or soapy water
Flush it down the toilet
Wrap it tightly in tape, then throw it out

Whatever you do, avoid the temptation to crush it with your fingers. This is another way you can get disease from it.

When Should I Call My Doctor?

Call your doctor if you have any symptoms of Lyme or other diseases carried by ticks, such as:

Chills
Fever
Headache
Muscle aches
Rash

Make sure to tell your doctor that you had a tick bite, how long ago it happened, and where you might have gotten it.

This is a good reason to get the tested. Tick diseases have similar symptoms to each other and to a lot of other illnesses. It can help to know what it was carrying.

Removing a tick
Testing of ticks

If you find a tick attached to your skin, simply remove the tick as soon as possible. There are several tick removal devices on the market, but a plain set of fine-tipped tweezers works very well.

How to remove a tick

Use clean, fine-tipped tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin’s surface as possible.
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 cannot remove the mouth easily with tweezers, leave it alone and let the skin heal.
After removing the tick, thoroughly clean the bite area and your hands with rubbing alcohol or soap and water.
Never crush a tick with your fingers. Dispose of a live tick by
- Putting it in alcohol,
- Placing it in a sealed bag/container,
- Wrapping it tightly in tape, or
- Flushing it down the toilet.

Follow-up

If you develop a rash or fever within several weeks of removing a tick, see your doctor:

Tell the doctor about your recent tick bite,
When the bite occurred, and
Where you most likely acquired the tick.

People who have removed a tick sometimes wonder if they should have it tested for evidence of infection. Although some commercial groups offer testing, in general this is not recommended because:

Laboratories that conduct tick testing are not required to have the high standards of quality control used by clinical diagnostic laboratories. Results of tick testing should not be used for treatment decisions.
Positive results showing that the tick contains a disease-causing organism do not necessarily mean that you have been infected.
Negative results can lead to false assurance. You may have been unknowingly bitten by a different tick that was infected.
If you have been infected, you will probably develop symptoms before results of the tick test are available. If you do become ill, you should not wait for tick testing results before beginning appropriate treatment.

However, you may want to learn to identify various ticks. Different ticks live in different parts of the country and transmit different diseases.

Avoid folklore remedies such as “painting” the tick with nail polish or petroleum jelly, or using heat to make the tick detach from the skin. Your goal is to remove the tick as quickly as possible–not waiting for it to detach.

How do I remove a tick?

Use clean, fine-tipped tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin's surface as possible. 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.

How do you remove a tick without a tick remover?

If no tools are available, rather than delay use a fine thread, something like cotton or dental floss. Tie a single loop of thread around the tick's mouthparts, as close to the skin as possible, then pull upwards and outwards without twisting. DO start by cleansing the tweezers/tool with antiseptic.

What happens if a tick head is stuck in human skin?

What to Do If a Tick Head Is Stuck in Your Skin.

Grasp the tick head with sterile, fine-tipped tweezers..

Firmly pull the tick head straight out, not at an angle..

If you couldn't remove it with tweezers, sterilize a needle with rubbing alcohol..

Use the needle to gently widen the hole where the head is embedded..

How do you remove a tick with Vaseline?

Do not twist the tick when pulling it out. Do not try to kill, smother, or lubricate the tick with oil, alcohol, petroleum jelly, or similar material while the tick is still embedded in the skin.