Experts advise always removing ticks quickly – whether on humans or animals. You can find out here why this is the case and how to proceed correctly.
The most important things at a glance
Ticks are blood-sucking parasites. A tick bite itself usually has no serious consequences, even if it temporarily causes minor discomfort. Nevertheless, it is important to remove ticks as soon as possible. Because the bloodsuckers can transmit various diseases – especially Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE). It is not just humans who are at risk: many animals – such as dogs and cats – can also become infected.
Tick bite or sting?
Many people refer to the tick bite as a tick bite. But ticks actually sting rather than bite: once a tick has found a suitable area of skin, it scratches the skin with its scissor-like mouthparts, pushes its barbed proboscis and sucking proboscis into the wound and then begins to suck blood.
Once a tick has attached itself to the skin, it takes a few days (maximum two weeks) for it to become fully engorged and fall off on its own. TBE can be transmitted within a short time after the sting. However, it can take up to two days before infection with Lyme disease occurs. It is therefore still useful to remove ticks that are already blood-filled and therefore large.
If possible, remove ticks before they bite
The best protection against tick-borne diseases is to avoid tick bites. This means, among other things: If possible, remove ticks before they become attached to the skin of humans or animals. The chances of this happening are pretty good: ticks usually don’t bite immediately. First they crawl around (sometimes for hours) in search of a suitable spot. They prefer to have protected areas with soft skin – in humans, for example
- at the hairline,
- on the ears
- On neck,
- in the armpits,
- in the crook of the elbow,
- under the watch strap,
- at the navel,
- under the waistband,
- in the genital area or
- in the hollow of the knee.
During the tick season – in Germany mainly from March to November – the following therefore applies: immediately after spending time in nature, thoroughly examine the body and remove any ticks discovered immediately. Light-colored clothing is helpful for humans: The parasites are easier to recognize on them. (Especially in animals with dark and/or long fur, ticks tend to go undetected – often too long to prevent infection.)
Shaking your clothes vigorously and showering your body thoroughly can be enough to remove ticks that have not yet established themselves. However, it is by no means advisable to forgo searching the entire body surface.
Properly remove attached ticks
If a tick is stuck in the skin, the risk of infection increases the longer it stays there. Experts therefore advise removing ticks as soon as possible: those who act in good time reduce the risk of Lyme disease considerably.
Good to know
A tick bite does not necessarily make you sick: Most ticks do not carry any pathogens that they could pass on.
When pulling out ticks, two things must be observed in particular: Firstly, do not squeeze the tick to avoid pushing pathogens from its body into the skin wound. Secondly, if possible, remove the entire tick so that the puncture site does not become inflamed.
There are special tools to remove ticks properly: tick tweezers (or tick tweezers), tick cards and tick hooks – available in pharmacies, for example. Normal tweezers with inwardly angled tips are also suitable for pulling out the parasites. This is the best way to do it:
- Grab the tick just above the skin (i.e. by the proboscis and sucker, not on the body) or push the tick card or hook between the skin and the tick.
- Slowly pull the tick straight out of the skin – if possible without turning it (even if the tick does not come off immediately).
- Attention: It can take about half a minute for the tick to detach itself. So continue to pull gently if it doesn’t slide out of the skin immediately.
If you don’t have a suitable tool at hand, you should still remove a stubborn tick immediately – for example with your fingernails. Even then it is important to grab the bloodsucker as close as possible to the puncture site and not to squeeze it with your fingers. You’ll find more about it here.
Important NOTE
If a tick bites a hard-to-reach or very sensitive area of skin – for example in the genital area, in the ear canal or on the eyelid – it is advisable to have the tick removed by a doctor.
What remains to be done after removing the tick
If you want to render a tick harmless after removing it, you should not flush it down the sink or toilet. It makes more sense, the parasite, for example
- to crush with a solid object (not with your fingers!),
- throwing in strong alcohol (over 40%), chlorine cleaner or disinfectant or
- in a sealed bag or wrapped tightly with adhesive tape in the (residual) waste.
It is also important to carefully clean the bite site after removing the tick (ideally with a wound disinfectant) and to wash your hands thoroughly.
Sometimes it is not possible to remove the entire tick. Therefore, it is also advisable to examine the skin area for possible tick remains. A stuck tick snout, for example, is usually recognizable as a small black dot.
