How to Get Rid of an Engorged Tick
There are all types of ticks and some transmit disease, so if you or your pet have an engorged tick, you should kill it ASAP. Ticks are only dangerous if they have already eaten. This means that the host, you or your pet, is only exposed to infections after the tick has already feasted on your blood.
You are safe from infection as long as any tick remains loose and unattached. This one of the reasons, for example, that the incidence of lyme disease is quite low even in areas where there are many infected ticks present. Lyme disease is spread by the deer tick. Often, Lyme disease treatment is a “watch and wait” scenario where treatment doesn’t begin until symptoms of the disease appear. It takes several weeks before you would test positive for Lyme disease even if you had it.
Remove the tick
It is very important to immediately remove an engorged tick. The best method is to use fine tweezers and to grab the tick as close to the skin as you can get. Once you have grasped the tick in your tweezers, pull back with a very steady hand as forcefully as possible. Try to do it successfully in one movement because you do not want to have to let go and try again. This would allow the tick to release fluids into your body.
Don’t try any of the techniques you might see on the internet, such as using kerosene or a lit cigarette. Tweezers are really the best method. You don’t want overkill either. Crushing the tick will also cause a loss of body fluids and start a possible infection. When you have removed the tick, wash your hands and the skin where the tick was positioned.
You can kill the tick by dropping it into a jar with a little rubbing alcohol in the bottom.
Identify the tick
Once the engorged tick has been successfully removed, you can look it up on the internet to identify the species. Deer ticks, which carry Lyme disease, are brown and around the size of a pencil tip. They are found most often in the Eastern and Mid-Atlantic parts of the United States.
Many other types of ticks also cause various infections and diseases. Remember that it is not an engorged tick (full of blood), you have not been infected by it. The standard treatment for Lyme disease is doxycycline. Symptoms of the disease include a rash that is salmon-colored which has what looks like a bull’s eye in the center.
If you live in a state where Lyme disease ticks are prevalent, you can get preventative injections for your dogs which will protect them from picking up Lyme disease. If you find a tick on your dog, remove it in the same way as you would a tick on your own body--using tweezers and being careful not to release fluids. Ticks often attach themselves to the necks of dogs or to the areas around the ears or down around the stomach. You might need to have someone hold your dog while you remove the tick to prevent any quick movements. Removing an engorged tick can be painful so keep this in mind.
There is nothing at all pleasant about ticks, particularly when they have just fed on you or your pet. Just stay calm and remove the tick as fast as possible. If you can afford preventative tick treatment for your dog, it is more than worth the cost. If you are the victim of a tick, watch for any signs of infection and see your doctor right away if symptoms appear.