How to remove a tick

Let’s be honest: I’m not a doctor. Everything below is not medical advice, but simply almost 25 years of personal encounters with ticks. I'm a guide, not a doctor.

Over the course of a quarter of a century in the mountains, ticks have turned from horror into everyday life for me. There is no longer enough drama, the routine has begun: you went to the mountains, returned, and in the evening at home you take pictures from behind of three people whom you didn’t even notice during the hike. So let's avoid the horror stories from the textbook - I'll tell you how it really is.

The main mistake is to look out for big ones

For some reason, everyone is looking out for huge monsters, 5 millimeters or more: “oh, now that one over there is going to bite me.” Yes, you can just see this from a mile away, sometimes you even feel it crawling up your leg. But these tiny little things, less than a millimeter, are dangerous. To notice them, you need experience and attentiveness; it won’t work automatically. Just keep in mind: they come as tiny as this. Please don't underestimate.

Pants won't save you

I often hear: I’m wearing pants, they won’t bite me. Well, well. Pants only make life a little more difficult for the tick, nothing more. He sat on your sneaker, climbed up your sock - and what’s stopping him from crawling under your pant leg? Unless you tucked your socks into your pants, but this, let’s say, is not the pinnacle of style. So there is no reliable protection; you need to check it regularly. And you know what's funny - it's actually more comfortable to examine your legs in shorts.

Surprise: spray yourself with chemicals

It dawned on me shamefully late, but not only tweezers and long pants are good against ticks, but also regular mosquito repellent. Once, while hiking in the Alps, I took an aerosol and carefully sprayed it on my legs, on my waist, on my shoes, on my pants, on my shirt several times a day. I poured half a can on myself. And guess what? During the entire trip - not a single bite, although usually I consistently collect 3-4. One just sat on his leg and fell off on its own. The active ingredient was not DEET, but picaridin (aka icaridin). And it’s not just my luck: in studies, 10% icaridin keeps ticks no worse than 20% DEET.

How do I get them

The best thing is tweezers with thin tips (I have this part of a Victorinox knife, always in my pocket) or a special pincer hook. Don't touch it with your fingers, crush it. We take the tick as close to the skin as possible, by the proboscis, and pull it straight up - slowly, without jerking or twisting. It is the twitching that most often causes the head to come off. The hook is the opposite: we hook it from below and twist it smoothly, in any direction, no matter. Do not squeeze the abdomen, otherwise you will squeeze all its contents, along with a possible infection, directly into your wound. If the head still remains, do not pick it with a needle; it usually comes out on its own in a few days, like a splinter. Then we washed our hands, wiped the area, and moved on with our lives.

Oil, fire and other folk ideas

Popular rumor advises pouring oil on the tick so that it suffocates and crawls out on its own. I tried - oils, ointments, all kinds of chemicals. No one wanted to get out. And the worst thing is that oil, Vaseline, nail polish or burning with a match only causes the tick to “burp” the contents back into the wound. That is, you yourself drive the infection inside. Don't do that. Pull it out mechanically - and that's the end of it.

The thread was once also recommended: loop the loop as low as possible, onto the proboscis, and swing it smoothly. With the big ones you get this way and that, with the small ones you suffer. So let it be as a last resort, when there is absolutely nothing at hand.

“Send the tick to the laboratory” - well, well

All the manuals advise this, and on paper everything is beautiful. Now comes the reality: in almost 25 years I have only tried it twice. The first time was a long time ago, out of youth and naivety. The second was recently, when after a hike in Italy some suspicious spots popped up. I know that such a symptom can happen, so I was wary and went to the doctor, this is already in Europe. I bring you: here is a tick, one of those that bit me, I even kept it, and here are my spots. The doctor looked and said: no, it’s not it, it’s not Lyme, don’t make it up. And he essentially refused to take the tick. So it’s worth preserving it, but don’t be surprised if no one is eager to explore it in real life.

What to watch for later

Removing a tick is only half the battle. In the Carpathians and in the west, the tick has two unpleasant “passengers”: tick-borne encephalitis and borreliosis, also known as Lyme disease. So for the next few weeks, just look at yourself. If a ring of redness creeps around the bite, this is a classic borreliosis. If you are covered with fever, aches, or headaches, you may have encephalitis. In any of these cases, go to the doctor, and be sure to tell them that you were bitten by a tick, because they themselves are unlikely to think of asking.

Small curiosities about these creatures

The tick is small and terribly dependent on moisture, so most of its life it hides in the forest floor, somewhere under wet leaves, and only comes out to hunt from time to time: it sits on a blade of grass and waits for someone to pass by. He can't jump. And a fresh discovery that sincerely pleased me: ticks use electrostatics. The charge that the victim accumulates on itself attracts the tick through an air gap several times larger than itself. That is, he literally becomes magnetized to you, and then he figures out where to crawl.

And about vaccination and any infection

I’ve been putting it off for many years, but it seems that I’ll finally decide to get vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis. If you are also constantly in the forest or mountains and regularly catch ticks, at least read about it. Encephalitis, Lyme and other diseases they carry around are truly nasty things. The chances of catching are slim, but it’s definitely not the kind of surprise you’ll be happy about. By the way, have you heard about an allergy to red meat, which can be “infected” from a tick bite? It's called alpha-gal. So far this is mainly American history, not ours, but the world is small - let it be in your head.

At the same time: how to recognize a tick (to distinguish from other crawling “radishes”) and more about tick-borne encephalitis.

Questions and answers about ticks

Scientific sources

• Static electricity attracts ticks to prey - England et al., Current Biology (2023)
• Icaridin is as good as DEET against ticks - Büchel et al., Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases (2015)
• Why oil and cauterization should not be used - CDC: After a Tick Bite
• Red meat allergy (alpha-gal) - CDC: Alpha-gal Syndrome