Bugs. Love them or hate them, they exist. No matter your opinion on bugs, it’s important you’re aware of them– especially ticks.
You’ve probably seen or heard about ticks before: the tiny relatives of spiders are present all across the United States, typically in the warmer months, but some species persist into the fall. The primary thing that makes ticks a threat to humans is the way they feed. Ticks feed on the blood of humans and animals, and by feeding on blood, they are also able to transmit pathogens – bacteria, viruses, and parasites – that can seriously harm humans.
The most common tick-borne disease is Lyme disease, a bacterial infection spread by the black-legged tick (also called the deer tick). However, many tick-borne illnesses share a lot of the same symptoms, and it’s hard to tell that you’ve been bitten by a tick unless you know what you’re looking for.
Ticks usually make their homes in grassy, wooded or brushy areas, and they will bite onto any exposed skin. This is why it’s crucial to do a full-body visual scan of yourself and see if you’ve been bitten anywhere. But what do you do if you’ve been bitten? Are you automatically going to develop Lyme disease or one of the other dozen tickborne illnesses? No, but you do need to remove the tick as soon as you notice it. And it isn’t as simple as just yanking it off of you, or your friend, or even your dog.
The best way to remove a tick, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is with clean tweezers. Don’t have tweezers? You can use your fingers, but the main goal with tick removal is not to squeeze the tick’s body. The other key thing with tick removal is steady, even pressure. Any jerking or twisting motion can lead to the tick’s mouthparts staying in your body, which your body will naturally push out, but it isn’t exactly an ideal situation.
Once you’ve got the tick off your body, there are a few ways you can kill it. The traditional “Appalachian” way of tick murder (if you will) is setting them on fire with a lighter. While this does hypothetically work, if you light a tick on fire, they could also explode, which means the blood they ingested could go everywhere. Gross. To avoid this, stick to these methods: putting it in a sealed container (like a Ziplock bag or wrapping it in tape), flushing it down the toilet, or putting it in rubbing alcohol to kill it.
Monitor your symptoms in the days following a tick bite. If detected early enough, you should be fine, but if you develop a rash, fever, or any other concerning symptoms, call your doctor ASAP. It may be fall, but as long as it’s above freezing, you’re never free from the elusive tick.
