Ticks are biting more and more each year.
After a walk in nature, we all risk ending up with a tick on our skin.
And the problem is that they transmit more than 10 dangerous diseases, including to children and animals!
So, how to remove a tick without taking any risks?
First, avoid all tricks you can see on the Internet like smothering the tick with nail polish or burning it with a match.
ALL these home remedies increase your chances of catching a dangerous disease!
Here is the one and only way to safely remove a tick attached to your skin:
- tweezers with a fine tip
1. Catch the tick closest to the skin to using the tweezers.
2. Turn the tweezers counter-clockwise and gently pull the tick upwards, without making any sudden movements and maintaining the same pressure.
Be careful, you should never compress the parasite's abdomen, at the risk of forcing it to disgurgitate the microbes in the victim's blood.
3. Once the tick has been removed, disinfect the bite thoroughly , as well as your hands, with alcohol or with a skin antiseptic.
There you go, now you know how to remove a tick without taking any risks to your health :-)
Quick, easy and efficient, right?
No more taking unnecessary risks and fearing that the tick will contaminate you with its disease-carrying saliva!
In any case, do not forget one important thing:if you observe a rash, pimples, fever or flu-like symptoms, consult a doctor immediately!
This is because prompt screening and treatment helps reduce the risk of serious complications later on.
Every year, scientific studies find an increase in cases of Lyme disease.
And unfortunately, due to certain "tricks" that we see circulating on social networks, these figures are likely to increase even more...
For example, this Facebook video advises pouring peppermint essential oil on the tick to make it detach from the skin:
"Death to ticks!" shouts the title of the video, unknowingly shared by more than a million Facebook users with their friends and loved ones.
Very nice, but there is a big problem... This so-called "trick" goes completely against what scientific experts recommend.
Of course, peppermint oil makes the tick detach from the skin, but the oil will especially irritate the tick, and it will then spit saliva directly into the blood...
As a result, this increases the risk of spread tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme disease and Powassan encephalomyelitis.
"Ticks carry all kinds of diseases," says Dr. Connally, an entomology expert for the prevention of Lyme Disease.
"And of course, all of these diseases are found in the tick's saliva. So the last thing you want to do if a tick attaches to your skin is to irritate it.
"If the tick is irritated, it will produce even more saliva, which increases the danger that it will transmit a disease to you."
Conclusion, never put peppermint essential oil on a tick like in the video!
According to experts, the primary goal is to remove the tick as quickly as possible.
Note that there is also a suitable tweezer to easily remove ticks on the skin.
This is the tick hook , also called the tick-puller. This tool is tiny and easy to take with you everywhere.
I have one in my backpack, in my medicine cabinet and even in the glove compartment of my car.
Thanks to the tick puller, removing a tick from the skin is even easier than with tweezers. Find out how here.
Once the tick is removed, do not throw it away, even if it is very tempting!
There is a free app called Tick Report . You can download it here for iPhones, and here for Android smartphones), quite simply.
It is an application published by the National Institute for Agronomic Research (Inra).
After downloading the app, you can report that you have been bitten by a tick.
You will then have to put the dead creature in an envelope and send it by post.
Why bother so much? Because thanks to this very simple gesture, you participate in the Citique project which helps scientists locate ticks in France and find out if they are carriers of Lyme disease.
Now you know all about how to remove a tick...
But the ideal is also to know how to get away ticks, and avoid their dangerous bites!
Here are the 2 best 100% natural remedies to keep ticks away:
- Tea Tree Repellent , the recipe is here.
- Rose Geranium Repellent , the recipe is here.
