How to extract a tick at home, a review of methods, tick remedies for humans

Hello! Once in the spring they entrusted me with a task - to walk with a little nephew. Our route ran through the park.

Views were very picturesque, idyll, everything is as it should be. The nephew, in view of his age-related injustice, ran around, studying almost every bush on his way.

But then it was time to go home, and then he dumbfounded me: "I have a beetle clinging to my hand." Upon closer inspection, the beetle turned out to be a tick.

Of course, upon arrival at home, I was given the task: to remove the tick from my hand in a safe way and to carry out all the necessary measures for complete safety for the health of the child. Which, in fact, I managed to do.

Fortunately, the insect was not infected with encephalitis. But it definitely made me think that it would be nice to study this topic in more detail, in order to avoid potential danger.

Want to learn how to extract a tick at home? How to recognize the symptoms of an encephalitis tick bite? Where to take the tick for analysis? Then read this article further.

Types of Ticks

Ticks are insidious pests, not the most mobile and active. The life of the tick is quite short, as it depends on luck and many related factors. Their reproduction is influenced by many favorable factors and conditions, as a result of which new varieties of parasites appear annually, which adapt to the most adverse conditions.

Types of ticks are very different and amazing. Given their variety, you need to know what are the symptoms and signs of tick bites, what are the consequences and how to properly help the victim. You need to know what types of parasites can be, what is the danger of each of them.

All types of ticks provide a common danger - are carriers of diseases, for example:

To protect yourself and your family, you need to know what types of ticks are and what danger they carry. If such an emergency occurs, then emergency measures must be taken to provide assistance.

Varieties

As you know, not all ticks are dangerous. People and animals are attacked only by ticks, which are part of the family: Trombidiidae (red mites),

Gamasoidea (gamasid mites), Argasidae (argas mites). It does not hurt to study in detail the photo of ticks. This will help, if necessary, to understand whether the insect is dangerous or not. Most ticks are carriers of dangerous diseases.

You can select and "highly specialized" ticks that parasitize exclusively on a particular type of animal. Some species never attack a person, while others, in the absence of the main “master”, quickly find another victim. In the regions of Russia, the main carriers of dangerous infectious diseases are ticks of the Ixodidae family.

Ixodid ticks

The following genera of ticks belong to the ixodidae family: Ixodes, Anomalohimalaya, Amblyomma, Bothriocroton, Dermacentor, Cosmiomma, Haemaphysalis, Hyalomma, Nosomma, Margaropus, Rhipicentor and Rhipicephalus. The genus Ixodes includes more than 240 species and is the most numerous.

Depending on the region, these or those types of ticks prevail. Representatives of Ixodes, Rhipicephalus, Dermacentor, Haemaphysalis and Hyalomma are found in Russia. The main carriers of tick-borne encephalitis and borrelezis belong to the genus Ixodes. We are talking about a taiga tick and a dog tick.

These ticks, photos of which can be studied in detail and on our website, as a rule, attack people living in the temperate zone of Eurasia. Dog tick prevails in the European part, as well as in Siberia.

Ticks Ix. Persulcatus choose wet, dark areas of the forest for habitation. These types of ticks are found from the Baltic states to the Far East.

In the southern part of Russia, there are representatives of the genus Hyalomma, which are carriers of many diseases, Crimean fever in particular. Hyalomma marginatum is especially common. This is a two-host tick.

The larva develops into a nymph on one host. Already an adult tick passes to a new victim. Hyalomma marginatum is found not only in the steppe regions of the European south of Russia. Ticks of this species live in Crimea, on the Mediterranean coast and in Bulgaria.

Photos of ticks that are carriers of dangerous diseases can be found not only in encyclopedias, but also on our online resource.

Ticks of the genus Dermacentor, which carry tick-borne encephalitis, Omsk hemorrhagic fever, tularemia, tick-borne North Asian rickettsiosis and Q-fever, are also dangerous. In addition, they are carriers of piroplasmosis of dogs.

A distinctive feature of ticks of the genus Dermacentor is a white pattern on the dorsal shield. They differ in the manner of nutrition. Previously, the insect makes several test punctures.

It is worth paying attention to the meadow tick (Dermacentor reticulatus). This species lives in the zone of mixed and deciduous forests of Europe and Siberia. A tick prefers open spaces. It can be found on lawns, forest edges, clearings, pastures and meadows.

It lives even in water meadows and perfectly tolerates flooding. Centers of mass breeding Dermacentor reticulatus are often found in grazing areas. Peak activity of the meadow tick is from April to May. The insect is activated in the fall.

The main types of ticks found in Russia

In addition to Dermacentor reticulatus, many other types of ticks are found in various regions of Russia.

The pasture tick (Dermacentor marginatus) lives in the forest-steppes and steppes of the European part of Russia, Kazakhstan, in the south of Western Siberia, the Caucasus, in the mountains of Central Asia, in the flat and mountain steppes, in the forest-steppe, in mountain forests, beams, floodplain meadows and forest belts .

Mite Dermacentor nuttali - lives mainly in the steppes of Siberia. Dermacentor nuttali nymphs also attack humans.
No less dangerous is Dermacentor silvarum. This species occurs in the forest-steppe zones of Eastern Siberia and the Far East.

Prefer coniferous-deciduous, birch-larch, broad-leaved and aspen forests. Adult ticks attack humans. Activated in the summer. This species is a carrier of tick-borne rickettsiosis and tick-borne encephalitis.

Brown dog tick (Rhipicephalus sanguineus) is distributed almost everywhere. If you carefully consider the photos of ticks of this species, you will notice that the insect is small in size. A brown tick without a pattern.

Rhipicephalus sanguineus is especially active in moist coastal areas. Distributed along the Black Sea coast. Dog pyroplasmosis is tolerated. In addition, Rhipicephalus sanguineus transmit the causative agent of Marseilles fever.

Rhipicephalus sanguineus, can feed on different mammals, but the main host is a dog. It attacks people extremely rarely. A brown dog tick can complete its life cycle indoors.

Easily masters any corner of the globe. It can reproduce both in the house and in the dog kennel. It is enough to enter several ticks and a colony may appear soon. The female lays eggs in the cracks of the doghouse and cracks in the walls.

Larvae hatch in a few weeks. If environmental conditions are favorable, two months is enough for the egg to become an adult tick.

An example of a single-host tick is the subgenus Boophilus, which is part of Rhipicephalus. The larva enters the animal and leaves it only for laying eggs.

They are almost invisible due to the extremely small size. An unpleasant, itchy rash develops with a bite. Pathogens of scabies also include pathogens of scabies, as well as demodicosis.

What other types of ticks exist and why are they dangerous?

A tick is a small parasite related to arachnids. A carrier of many insidious and dangerous ailments that can cripple a person’s life.

Most of these pests lay a larva, which grows into an adult. That is why it is very important to kill all the larvae in a timely manner.

Scabies mite

Scabies mite is the most common and common type of parasite, especially in childhood and adolescence. This tick causes a disease such as scabies. As for scabies, this is a rather dangerous and very contagious disease that can be transmitted by contact or with household items.

The itch mite, the causative agent of scabies, can manifest itself in the following symptoms in the human body:

1. on the skin there are a lot of abrasions, sores and scratches;
2. the patient is tormented by terrible itching, especially at night;
3. on the skin there are grouped rashes that look like vesicles and nodules;
4. manifested scabies that have gray or black dashed lines.

Remember, the scabies mite is very dangerous and can lay larvae, requires urgent treatment and isolation of the patient so that other people do not become infected. The tick larva must be destroyed.

Taiga tick

There is such a species as a taiga tick. As for a similar problem, the taiga tick, a carrier of very dangerous diseases, presents ixodic parasites. Ixodid ticks most often attack a person, so a taiga tick is a direct threat to human health and life.

If it happened that you were bitten by a taiga tick, you do not need to panic. It is forbidden to pull it out of the skin, as you leave its head inside, which will increase the infectious and inflammatory process.

Take a thread and make a loop, then throw on its proboscis and tighten stronger. After that, you can pull it out and send it to an empty jar with a tight lid. The lesion site must be treated with iodine and a doctor should be visited, take special tests and be vaccinated.

Mite demodex

The demodex tick can inhabit the sebaceous glands and hair follicles of people, animals. Despite its small size, it can cause huge health problems.

This is due to the fact that the tick can manifest itself with the following symptoms: baldness, redness and irritation, especially on the face, deep damage to the skin occurs. A hair parasite, which is considered dangerous and threatens baldness, also belongs to this variety. A hair pest requires urgent help.

The demodex tick is very noticeable, since it is given out by such signs:

Demodex requires urgent treatment with special medicines. It is very important to get rid of acne correctly so that no scars remain.

Eye tick

An eye tick is one of the causes of demodex. The disease affects those with weak immunity. This tick is located on the nose, forehead and neck, on the eyebrows and eyelashes, in the hair, acne appears. Such a pest is able to inject toxins into the human blood, which causes an allergic reaction (runny nose, inflammation).

An eye tick requires medical treatment within 25 days. The therapy is carried out under strict medical supervision to avoid complications. The disease should be treated as follows: compliance with the regimen, healthy eating, washing your face / eyes with soap, special drops and more.

Home tick

The next variety is domestic ticks, which are arachnids. As for such creatures, their activity is connected with man and his immediate dwelling. Upholstered furniture, books, shoes and toys, a vacuum cleaner, baseboards and corners, linoleum, pillows and mattresses are considered to be a favorite habitat.

The consequences of bites:

1. allergic reaction;
2. Quincke's edema;
3. rhinitis;
4. conjunctivitis;
5. bronchial asthma;
6. deep acariasis;
7. dermatitis.

Other species

If you find such pests, contact the clinic, do not self-medicate!

Encephalitis Tick Bite: Human Symptoms

There are no specific signs of encephalitis tick. It is possible to determine whether an insect is infected only in the laboratory, therefore, in contact with the parasite, you should immediately seek specialized help.

The first signs of encephalitis after a tick bite appear only after 7-10 days, but in a weakened body the symptoms appear already on 2-4 days.

All forms of the disease begin acutely with flu-like symptoms:

1. fever and fever up to 39-39.8 degrees;
2. malaise, body aches;
3. weakness;
4. nausea, vomiting;
5. headache.

In this case, the fever coincides with the active reproduction of the virus in the blood and can last from 5 to 10 days. If the development of the disease stops at this, then this is a mild febrile form of the course of the disease.

A person is easily restored and receives a stable immunity to the virus. In rare cases, the febrile form becomes chronic.

If the disease proceeds to the next stage, then after a fever a 7-10-day remission occurs, it seems to a person that the disease has receded.

But after resting, the fever repeats, the virus penetrates the blood-brain barrier, the nervous system is affected, and encephalitis passes into the meningeal form. With this lesion, internal organs suffer, where at this moment the virus is actively multiplying.

After a tick bite, the symptoms of encephalitis of the meningial form are manifested as follows:

Meningoencephalitic and poliomyelitis forms of encephalitis are a type of focal infection, in this case brain tissue is affected and often the consequences of the disease are irreversible, and often fatal.

The following symptoms are distinguished depending on the location of the affected tissue:

1. When the meningoencephalitic form is characterized by hallucinations, mental disorders, impaired consciousness, paralysis and paresis, epilepsy attacks.
2. With the polio form, the symptoms are similar to poliomyelitis - persistent paralysis of the muscles of the hands, neck, leading to disability.
3. With a polyradiculoneurotic form, peripheral nerves are affected, pain, limp limb, goosebumps, impaired sensation and the development of flaccid paralysis starting from the lower extremities, severe pain in the groin and front of the thighs are noted.

Encephalitis Treatment

Treatment of tick-borne encephalitis virus-infected should be carried out in a hospital under the supervision of an infectious disease doctor. But the methods of managing sick people and animals are different.

Treatment of tick-borne encephalitis in humans should consist of the following measures:

The treatment of tick-borne encephalitis in children is carried out according to the same scheme, only detoxification therapy with infusion solutions and dehydration are added to reduce tissue swelling. Treatment of children should be carried out necessarily in an infectious diseases hospital, since reduced body reserves can lead to death.

How to properly remove a tick at home

The highest tick activity is observed during the spring – summer period and persists until mid-autumn. Infected ticks are carriers of diseases dangerous to humans.

Having found a tick on the body of a person, it is necessary to immediately take the necessary measures to remove it, since even non-infectious specimens of the parasite can cause serious harm to health.

Precautions before the procedure

Ticks are dangerous precisely because during a bite they can transmit pathogenic microorganisms to a person that can provoke serious diseases, including Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis. However, dangerous viruses and bacteria can also be transmitted to humans during the removal of a harmful tick.

If, nevertheless, a person touches a tick, he needs to thoroughly wash his hands with soap and try not to touch them with eyes and mucous membranes.

Among other things, it must be borne in mind that the tick does not bite a person in the full sense of the word, but is screwed into the skin, moving clockwise. Thus, in order to prevent rupture of the parasite, it must be twisted by moving counterclockwise.

Given that the tick can deepen its proboscis and head a few millimeters into the skin, removing them when separated from the body will be quite problematic.

At the same time, if a part of the parasite remains in the wound, this will significantly increase the risk of infection of the victim with pathogenic microflora, which could be a tick carrier, and can also provoke suppuration.

With tweezers

You can get rid of the parasite at home with tweezers. Before this procedure, the bite site should be treated twice: before removing the tick and after.

The use of ordinary thread and other improvised means

When you need to quickly figure out how to properly remove the tick in the field, and there is no equipment necessary for this, the best tool is a thick thread. The thread should be at least 20 cm in length.

The entire procedure should be carried out very carefully, since the thread can cut the body of the parasite in half. It is necessary to remove the tick from the body so that it does not leave its head and proboscis in the skin. All manipulations should be carried out slowly and without sudden movements. You can pull out the tick with your own thread and in the field.

If you don’t have a thread that could pick up a tick, and no other tools that would be useful in this matter, you can use a transparent plastic bag, in which tourists usually wrap food.

Put the bag on your hand so that it hangs freely on your fingers.Next, gently grab the tick and begin to twist it.

It is worth noting that when using a plastic bag it is not always possible to completely remove a tick from a person, since in most cases it does not work out to calculate the strength, which leads to damage to the insect.

However, if you do not try to pull out the insect in jerks or just too quickly, it is quite possible to tear off the tick from the human body completely.

Using soapy water

A cotton swab should be moistened in a strong soapy solution and applied to the sucked tick. After some time, without squeezing the fleece from the parasite, begin to rotate the insect counterclockwise.

With a superficial skin lesion, the tick quickly enough comes out. In case the parasite dug deeply, the cotton swab will have to be held and rotated longer.

In a medical facility

If you are not far from a medical facility, it will be wiser to remove a tick from a specialist. Home methods are not always effective, and delaying the removal of the parasite is highly undesirable: the virus secreted by the insect enters the bloodstream gradually, and the sooner help is provided, the smaller the proportion of infection the body will receive. The doctor will correctly and without damage to the patient’s health remove the tick.

Removing a tick with a syringe

This method also provides for the availability of the device, but it is so simple that everyone can make it themselves in a couple of minutes at home.

What we need to remove a tick at home:

Extraction process. We take an ordinary disposable syringe (ideally 5 cc). Take the piston back. Cut off the upper part of the syringe, the one that is sharpened under the needle.

Further, we press the syringe tightly to the surface of the body, covering the tick-aggressor, who decided to drink our blood and begin to gradually pull the piston up. Thus, excessive pressure is created, which simply sucks the tick out of the skin.

results

I don’t know how the tick feels at the same time, but the author claims that this method allows you to remove the tick completely, without any damage, that is, neither the head nor the claws with which he skillfully bites through the skin inside a person.

Moreover, this method allows you to pull out of the affected area not only the tick itself, but also those substances with which it accompanies its activities, which you understand, is a huge plus compared to such methods as tweezers, hooks and other mechanical gadgets.

Basically, this is the whole method of tick removal at home. Nevertheless, if you live in an area where encephalitis is not an empty phrase, then it is better not to delay the trip to the doctor for vaccination. As people say, it’s better to overdo it than to overdo it.

How to remove a tick if there is no syringe

By the way, using a syringe is not the only way to safely remove ticks. If suddenly such a tool was not in the home medicine cabinet, then any tube will do, for example, a part of an ordinary ballpoint pen.

The process looks almost the same as with a syringe, only you have to use your lungs as a piston. We cover the tick with the tube and, in the absence of a piston, simply suck it out through the opposite end of the tube.

You can also use another similar and painless method, these are simple cans. After all, everyone remembers how we were treated with this folk remedy in childhood. It turns out that banks, you can pull out and tick.

We bring a burning match or a lighter to the bank so that oxygen burns in it and cover the place with the tick. He will pull the bloodsucker out of the skin easily and gently, one can say, without disturbing sleep, along with all the toxins that he managed to launch under your skin.

The maximum that this threatens you with is a bruise, but a bruise is better than the infection that this small evil creature carries.

By the way, the banks will work if you have already tried to remove the tick yourself and as a result the head remains in the body. Feel free to put the jar (any container, even a small bubble will do) and wait for it to pull the evil out.

What methods are not suitable

Some people who rarely encounter ticks prefer alternative methods to eliminate ticks, which may be unsafe.

In some cases, such methods are indeed effective, but under certain conditions they can cause the death of the tick and increase the risk of infection of human blood with pathogenic microorganisms, the carrier of which was the parasite. Such folk remedies include:

1. soap solution;
2. vegetable oil;
3. moxibustion
4. alcohol;
5. vinegar.

Soap solution and vegetable oil contribute to clogging the spiracles of the tick, due to which it can begin to move back.

Despite the fact that the use of oil can really make a tick leave a person’s body, it is not worth using it, because due to a lack of oxygen, an insect can burp part of the drunk blood back into the wound, which will significantly increase the risk of infection with pathogenic microflora.

Among other things, a tick can simply die before it can get out of the wound, which will greatly complicate the process of extracting it.

The use of chemicals to cauterize a tick can also lead to its death. Removing a tick from the human body requires accuracy, so do not use aggressive means to carry out this procedure.

Since it is possible to correctly remove a tick in humans at home using more rational methods, it is best not to resort to folk remedies, which do not always have the necessary effect.

If you do not have the necessary tools at hand to safely eliminate the tick, it is better to seek help at the emergency room, where the parasite will be removed quickly and without the risk of complications.

How to properly remove the pest's torn head from the skin

If it was not possible to completely remove the tick from the human body and the head, along with the proboscis of the parasite, remained in the wound, it is necessary to take measures aimed at eliminating the remaining parts of the body of the insect.

An ordinary needle is best suited for this purpose. To eliminate tick residues from the wound, it is better to use a needle from a medical syringe, but if it is not available, a sewing needle is also suitable.

In addition, the needle itself must also be thoroughly treated with an antiseptic. It is necessary to remove the remnants of the tick as if it were a splinter.Given that the proboscis and the head of the insect are black, removing them from a shallow wound with a needle will be quite simple.

Often it is simply impossible to completely eliminate the remnants of the tick on your own, so the help of medical workers is needed. In no case should you leave parts of the parasite in the wound, since in the vast majority of cases this causes suppuration and, under certain conditions, can lead to sepsis.

Wound treatment

After the body of the tick is completely removed from the wound made by it in the skin, it is necessary to disinfect the site of the bite, as this will significantly reduce the risk of developing serious diseases. For processing, you can apply:

Processing the site of a tick bite must be carried out very carefully. After the wound is treated with an antiseptic, it is still necessary to consult a doctor for the introduction of immunoglobulin, as this will prevent the development of such a dangerous disease as tick-borne encephalitis.

If the tick was able to get the whole, it should be placed in a sealed container and submitted for analysis to find out if it was a carrier of certain diseases.

How to save and where to carry the removed tick

The tick must be put in a test tube or small container with a tight-fitting lid. Preferably - on a cotton swab dipped in water.

You need to store it in the refrigerator. If you didn’t succeed in keeping the insect alive, then you need to submit it for research as quickly as possible: the DNA necessary for analysis is stored in the tick body for three days.

Both living and dead insects are accepted for research in the laboratory of especially dangerous infections or the virological laboratory, but government agencies are open only on weekdays.

What tests to take yourself

If a tick test showed a positive result for encephalitis or borreliosis, then first you need to take a certificate and referral to an infectious disease specialist in the laboratory: you can go to the polyclinic at the place of residence, or you can go to the infectious ward of the Fisherman's Hospital.

True, it is worth noting here that you can wait forever for an appointment at a state medical institution. Record - months in advance. In private clinics, it’s also not always possible to get to a specialist every day, but it’s quite possible - within a couple of days. Reception of an infectious disease specialist in a private clinic will cost about 2000 rubles.

The doctor will do an examination, check the body temperature and the place of the bite - they differ in the tick "clean" and tick-peddler. Regardless of whether there are symptoms or not, the doctor will prescribe tests. In the case of borreliosis, you will have to wait at least 8 days - the incubation period of the disease will not reveal the infection earlier.

The most common are two types of diseases - tick-borne encephalitis and tick-borne borreliosis. At the same time, both diseases may have a chronic form, or maybe acute. In state clinics, such analyzes are not done, since this is a specific test, which is rarely required.

In commercial laboratories, the cost of analysis varies from 360 to 510 rubles for each. Separately, you will have to pay the cost of blood sampling from a vein - from 150 to 190 rubles.

Do not wait for results in case of symptoms: aches and pains in the joints, headache and heaviness in the neck, abdominal pain and, most importantly, the appearance of annular redness in the bite or anywhere else.

Tick ​​Control

To date, all the means to combat these arthropods are divided into three types: repellent (aiming to scare arachnids), acaricidal (paralyze and kill ticks), as well as insecticidal-repellent drugs (a combination of repelling and paralyzing effects on ticks). Let's consider them separately.

Acaricidal preparations against ticks

These drugs have in their composition such a substance as alfamethrin, which has a very effective nerve agent effect. That is, only the tick gets on clothes that were previously treated with one of these tools, its limbs are paralyzed, and then completely disappear.

The funds of this group should include: Tafta reftamide, Gardeks-antileasch, Tornado-antileasch, as well as Acaricidal Pretix bar, which need to draw barriers on clothes.

Tick ​​repellents

The basis of repellents contains the diethyltoluamide component. This substance, of course, will not kill the arthropod, however, having felt its smell, the tick strives to quickly leave the person’s clothes.

The most popular repellents include: Biban, Off! Extreme, DEFI-Taiga, Raftamid maximum, DETA-VOKO or MEDILIS from mosquitoes. By the way, for children under 12 years old, manufacturers produce repellents with a low content of toxic substances. These are drugs: Biban-gel, Kamaarant, Evital or Off-child.

Insecticidal-repellent agents

The group of these anti-mite drugs includes drugs based on two active ingredients: diethyl toluamide, as well as alpha-metrine. They are recommended for effective protection against ticks and any other bloodsucking.

Given the high toxicity, such a tick remedy is applied exclusively to clothing. This group includes drugs: Mite-Kaput Aerosol, Moskitol-Spray and Gardeks-Extreme Aerosol. Think about your own safety!