It’s bad enough to have a tick attached to your body, but even worse to have it vomit its stomach contents into you. But that’s what can happen if you don’t properly remove one from your skin, one registered nurse warned.
“If you don’t remove a tick properly, you risk it regurgitating all of its stomach contents into your body,” Jennifer Quante, a Texas–based nurse, said in a recent TikTok.
Quante was responding to another video, where a person was removing a tick using their fingers.
She points to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website for the correct way to get rid of a blood sucker.
“If you find a tick attached to your skin, simply remove the tick as soon as possible,” the Atlanta-based CDC writes. “There are several tick removal devices on the market, but a plain set of fine-tipped tweezers works very well.”
According to the CDC, you should use the fine-tipped tweezers — Quante recommends including tweezers in your hiking and camping gear — to grab the tick as close to your skin as possible, that means at the tick’s head and not its body.
Once you’ve grasped the tick, pull up with “steady, even pressure,” the CDC wrote. “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.”
Be sure to wash the bitten area and your hands with either rubbing alcohol or soap and water.
Quante points out that other forms of removal, “like lighting a match, trying to suffocate it with petroleum jelly or essential oils” can also result in the tick regurgitating stomach contents into you.
Tick disposal should not involve your fingers, either, the CDC writes. Instead of crushing it with your digits, the agency writes, you should put it in alcohol, place it in a sealed bag or container, wrap it tightly in tape or flush it down the toilet.
Although ticks are present in Georgia year-round, they are most active April through September. Be sure to check your pets, kids and yourself after spending time outdoors.
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