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MYTH No. 3: Ticks must be removed very carefully.
Luckily for my purposes of ridicule, the doc goes on to tell us that we
should never, never, ever remove ticks with our fingers. Unfortunately, he
doesn’t say why, but he does recommend using fine tweezers.
He goes on to say, "Don’t use alcohol, nail polish or petroleum jelly to
remove ticks – it just makes them mad. A provoked tick will attach itself
more firmly to it’s host..."
"A provoked tick" - I marvel at the mere suggestion, as ticks in my
experience have seemed rather passionless. Perhaps this is where the term
"ticked off" originates. The Doc recommends you go home and shower after
your tick exposure. Again, he doesn’t exactly say why. Certainly you’re
not going to just WASH OFF any self-respecting tick. They do this for a
living, and they’re damned good at it. It makes sense though, that if
you're not going to be removing your ticks (maybe you want to show them to
your friends when you get home) you’ll want to make certain that they’re
as clean as you are.
The article said the doctor was from New Jersey, but is suspect he is
originally from A Large Western State.
The other day, I got into a tick discussion on a Usenet group. Some poor
babe was trying to find out how to AVOID ticks, and all the local experts
seemed fixated on how to advise her to properly remove them once she’d
been "tick-timized".
My client seemed to favor trying to discourage the attached tick (she got
dozens, of course) by burning them with a cigarette lighter. This appeared
to be a very painful solution and a very ineffectual one. Maybe if you
pulled the tick off with your fingers and THEN burned it.
Let’s get to the point here. How do you spend a great deal of time in the
Great Outdoors without being driven to distraction by ticks?
STEP ONE: KNOW YOUR TICK MODUS OPERANDI.
Here’s how ticks do business. They climb up onto a tall stem of grass or a
bush and wait until something warm and juicy, such as yourself, walks by
and rubs against them. When it does, they hop on.
STEP TWO: AVOIDING TICKS
Therefore, the number one best and most effective thing you can do to
avoid ticks is to avoid tall grass. At home this is best done by mowing
the lawn. In the wild, it’s somewhat more difficult, but there are ways to
lessen the impact of your tick-related experience.
Ticks do not immediately sink their choppers into your soft underbelly as
might a Doberman Pinscher. In fact, you might find that they’ll even
wander around in your clothes for a few hours before selecting just the
right spot from your lush display of anatomy.
That’s just one good reason not to wear a lot of clothes.
When you must walk through tall grass or any area that promises
tickfulness, try wearing shorts so you can easily see any ticks that get
on you. Every so often, bend down and look to see if ticks are crawling up
your legs. If they are, simply flick them off and go on your way.
Grizzled old-timers think that anyone who uses insect repellent probably
has lace on his shorts too, but a good repellent such as "Off" applied
directly to your bare legs in conjunction with this
frequent-check-and-flick routine is about as effective as any method
you’ll find. (Besides what’s wrong with lace?)
Nothing, however, is foolproof, so when you do get them, here’s the Noble
Savage two-step technique for removing ticks:
1. Grasp the tick between the nails of your thumb and middle finger.
2. Pull.
I think part of the reason that so many people may be squeamish about this
technique is because, in the process of sucking your very delicious blood,
the tick actually embeds his head inside your skin and when you pull him
out, chances are the head stays behind. This can cause more aggravated
itching and, I imagine, increase one’s exposure to Lyme Disease.
I agree that you shouldn’t try unguents or fire to try to get the tick to
let go. Ticks very are slow to pick up on a hint, and you’ll just look
silly in the process. If you want to carry tweezers around with you, I
guess that would work okay, but the most important thing is to get the
tick as quickly as you can after he bites into you. The longer he’s been
ensconced, the more you’ll itch when he’s gone. I’ve also read that if you
screw the tick out counter-clockwise, you’ll remove him with his head
intact. This sounds a little off-the-wall, but I’ve tried it, and it does
seem as though they don’t itch quite as much when you do. Maybe.
You may note that I’ve not made a lot of comment about Lyme Disease. I
have to admit that for several years I suspected that the whole ailment
had been invented by Newsweek. I’m sure I’ve removed ten thousand ticks
from my person in this lifetime, and in my experience the itch is the
major down-side. In recent years, however, my father, a confirmed
tough-guy from way back, claims to have contracted the disease and if
that’s what he said he had, I’ll not argue. I’d just comment that the odds
of NOT getting it are better than one is led to suppose.
In summary, ticks are a fact of life most everywhere there are mammals
living outdoors. Places that have more ticks tend to have fewer muggers.
You need to put things in perspective.
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