Cheap Tick Removers

[markandlynn]

Cheap tick removal tools.

[60North]

Eek!

 

I think that I shall stay indoors from now on!

 

[+davy boy]

I think i had better get one of those for when the shorts come out,the little blighters seem to like me!!!!

[+DomHeknows]

a couple of my nearby caches have had tick warnings posted by recent visitors...not a nice thought :-(

[markandlynn]

I've ordered some spare so i can leave them in some caches as swapses

[+Team Ullium]

I got mine from the local vet....the set came with two plastic removers...one large and one small.

 

Although the cost was about £7 they look a bit more professional than the one in the link....though probably it will do the business

[+The Forester]

I think that I shall stay indoors from now on!

In Shetland you are blessed by not having any deer ticks or snakes, but you certainly do have a problem with sheep ticks. The place is stiff with 'em!

 

There is an article on the general subject at the Geocaching Today magazine and in your particular case, the man you would be best to talk to if you need local details is Paul Harvey of the Shetland Biological Records Centre in Lerwick. He's an entomological encyclopaedia on legs. If you're up Unst way, the main man for the subject is Mike Pennington at the High School.

 

Cheers, The Sooth Moother Forester with nothing to do on Shetland

BTW, how many cachers are there on Shetland?

[oddsock]

When we moved into the country in the early 50's our dog got a tick right between the eyes (we did not have a clue what it was) but a very old lady saw it blew on her Woodbine( Fag to all you youngsters) and touched the blood swollen body which caused it to release it's grip she quickly pulled it out with her long finger nails ,pushed it close before my mothers eyes and said "can you see any legs" my mother replied "yes" to which she promptly threw it to the back of the fire ! So don't forget your fags when next you are out in the wilds

Dave

[+Team Maddie UK]

Perhaps this would be a good time and place to remind anyone interested that there is an informative article written by The Forester about ticks here

 

Martin & Lynn

Edited April 28, 2005 by Team Maddie UK

[+The Forester]

pulled it out with her long finger nails

That sounds like the equivalent of using tweezers or one of the modern tools which this thread is about.

 

Pulling the tick quickly is unnecessary and slightly risky. Better to make it a long slow pull than a quick jerk. A twisting action is very helpful in breaking the gripping mouthparts/legs of the tick free.

 

I don't know how wise it is to use a cigarette. Quite apart from the obvious risk of burning the person's skin, you don't want to kill the tick before you have pulled it out.

 

Ticks are not like leeches. For one thing, even the smallest leeches are a LOT bigger than the biggest ticks and therefore there is a greatly reduced chance of burning the person's skin with a glowing cigarette end. With a leech you can irritate it with a closely held cigarette such that it will escape by dropping off the person's skin. Table salt has the same effect on a leech and is a method which some doctors in Africa recommend.

 

I'd say these cheap tweezers are good value for money for any geocacher who walks in areas where there are ticks. Dealing with attached ticks is quite easy and is greatly preferable to the potential consequences of not doing the right thing.

 

Cheers, The Forester

[Team 'James W']

When trekking in Venezuela around La Gran Sabana, we got attacked by little tick-like bugs that would stick their feeder into your arm and via capillary action, draw blood. When they were sufficiently full, they'd drop off. After three days, we got bored of burning, picking and scraping them off and instead would pull the skin tight around the bug and watch as it would helplessly explode after a few minutes of drawing blood, unable to retract its feeder from your arm.

 

Great fun.

 

(Still got the scars)

[+Stuey]

Cheap tick removal tools.

Bought the Otom tick removal tool this week from a vet in North Devon. Ozzy was peppered in them after being down at Heddons Mouth for a nice cache there. We picked more than 12 off him using this tool, and I can really recommend it. There were no tick parts left inside him, they came out really easily.

 

Stuey

[+Pieman]

I picked up my first ever tick on Thursday paying a visit to my Travel Bug Hotel- could have done with this tool. Found a website which recommended suffocating them, so covered it in my son's hair gel. Didn't kill the tick but gave him a nice hairdo! Then tried a hot needle, which the tick didn't seem to mind. Finally got some watchmaker's tweezers from our next door neighbour and made a real mess of the removal so I now have a small piece of tick in my leg. Reading the websites, I am partially assured that leaving a piece of tick in you doesn't make you more suceptible to the nasty diseases, only a more normal infection. If things take a turn for the worse, please form an orderly queue to adopt my caches!

[+t.a.folk]

In our experience the bit lof tick left in wont come out by itself ,will just get redder and start itch ing more .

Nothing for it but to get a sewing needle and dig all around the bit to cut /loosen the skin around it ,then dig the needle in underneath to lever the mouth piece up so it can be cut out .

In our experience it wont lever out til the skin is loosened around it ,and we've had hundreds of the beasts attach themselves to us over many years .

Thats a penality of living near the New Forest ,ticks nearly every outing there despite taking measures to keep them at bay .

If you are lucky the remaining piece of tick it will be on a part of you that you can get at yourself .

If not it 's a case of grinning and bearing it w hile friend /partner /spouse does it for you .Were both experienced at it now ,but it still hurts ,sometimes (always if not doing it to oneself ! )

[+Haggis Hunter]

It just so happens that in The Times today (Yes I do read the Times from Time to time) there is an article on Ticks and Lyme disease, it can be viewed here, you can also view an article on tick removal here. I have done a search on tick removal and all of the pages which I have found say the same.

 

I have just read The Foresters article on ticks, other than the recent findings on Lyme disease increasing, everything he says is spot on. So I think I may print off his instructions and keep with me for when I am out and about. As only yesterday I thought petroleum jelly was the way forward, as is adviced this is indeed a great mistake.

[+The Gecko's]

Bought the Otom tick removal tool this week from a vet in North Devon. Ozzy was peppered in them after being down at Heddons Mouth for a nice cache there. We picked more than 12 off him using this tool, and I can really recommend it. There were no tick parts left inside him, they came out really easily.

 

Stuey

 

Sorry Stuey & Ozzy

 

I was not aware that Heddons Mouth had a problem with Ticks. I have walked here often without picking any up.

 

I have now added ticks to the cache attributes so that others can be better prepared.

 

Dave - The Gecko's

[+Stuey]

Hi Dave,

 

No need to apologise . We were picking ticks off him that were still crawling in his fur when we were at the Hunters Inn, obviously some stayed on for the ride, hehe. When we went to the vets hospital at Mullacott Cross just outside Ilfracombe, the nurse who removed them (no charge by the way, nice) told us that her dog always picks up ticks at Heddons Mouth. I suppose it's because they wander through the ferns. You'd have thought they'd learn

 

Cheers,

Stuey

 

p.s. it was a nice cache even still

[+The Hancock Clan]

Our dog gets riddled with unnoticed ticks as his hair is so long. We have to get it cut right back quite often and the doggy-hairdresser leaves all the horrible things just dangling there, so one of these tools will be a great investment!

In fact only yesterday a 'fully inflated' grey tick was on the kitchen floor next to the dog bowl - Mrs H dropped a box of washing powder on top of it and what a mess!!!

On a serious note, both myself and Mrs H have managed to get that stupid Lymes disease. Although a couple of years apart from each other, it seems like we were both nibbled in the New Forest / East Dorset area.

If anyone does get a big bullyseye looking rash after being in tick country then the doctors love it! The cameras come out, the student medics all crowd around while they discuss the disease, and you become the centre of attention big style!

Apparently it can be really dangerous if not treated, otherwise it's not much more than a rash. There's loads of websites with pictures and more info.

Thanks for the link, really useful.

[+The Forester]

It just so happens that in The Times today (Yes I do read the Times from Time to time) there is an article on Ticks and Lyme disease, it can be viewed here, you can also view an article on tick removal here. I have done a search on tick removal and all of the pages which I have found say the same.

 

I have just read The Foresters article on ticks, other than the recent findings on Lyme disease increasing, everything he says is spot on. So I think I may print off his instructions and keep with me for when I am out and about. As only yesterday I thought petroleum jelly was the way forward, as is adviced this is indeed a great mistake.

Many thanks for bringing this new information to our attention.

 

My article, which I wrote about a year ago, was based on what I was taught well over a decade ago by some unusually well experienced and very highly trained military medical specialists. Back then, the received wisdom was that in Scotland fewer than 1 in 200 ticks carried the infective agent of Lyme disease or any of the numerous other nasty diseases such as encephalitis. My article reflected this quite low risk and was quite sanguine (no pun intended) about the urgency with which ticks should be removed.

 

The new information which Haggis Hunter has brought to our attention is very important and corrects my understatement of the level of risk inherent in tick attack.

 

As soon as the editorship issues at Geocaching Today are resolved, I shall be submitting an updated and revision of the article for consideration for re-publication, taking into account the fact that a 35% increase in the number of tickbites/infections has been officially recorded in a single year and the important estimate by a clearly knowledgeable and very highly qualified medical specialist that the official figures probably understate the true numbers by a whole order of magnitude.

 

I shall also invite the new editor to include a link to the interesting and well informed EU website which Haggis Hunter has found.

 

When writing the original article, I decided against mentioning the technique of using either one or two pieces of cotton thread to extract a tick. The reason for that decision was that if it is done wrong by someone who's never seen it done before, it can result in accidental decapitation of the tick. The wee blighters are usually well stuck in, both by backward facing barbs and by a kind of natural glue which they use to cement themeslves in place for the feeding session. The first time you extract a tick, or see it done by someone else, you will be surprised how steeply arched the skin becomes by the force you need to apply to pluck the tick out. This can make an inexperienced person apply too much sidways force on the cotton ends and so garrotte the tick inadvertently.

 

In view of the usefulness of the cotton thread method as an improvised tick removal tool in the field and in view of the much greater risk of transference of diseases such as Lyme disease than I had appreciated, I think my revised edition of the article ought to include a paragraph or two on that sub-topic.

 

I remember being taught that ticks hold the world record for the number of different diseases which they carry and transmit to humans -- more diseases than are carried by lice, fleas and mozzies combined. Dealing with the wretched things is very easy, but does require a wee bit of basic knowledge which I think all geocachers, ramblers, hillwalkers, orienteers etc ought to be told about.

 

Thanks again to Haggis Hunter for drawing the few deficiencies in my original article to my attention. Although I know a lot more about the subject than many GPs, I am not a qualified medical practitioner of any kind and I'd hate to learn that something I've said or not said in that article has led someone into dealing with a tick or ticks inappropriately and had consequently contracted an easily avoidable disease.

 

We are now pretty much at the height of the tickbite season, so bumping this thread onto the front page of the forum is quite timely too!

 

Cheers, The Forester

[+The Hole-in-the-wall Gang]

I don't know how wise it is to use a cigarette. Quite apart from the obvious risk of burning the person's skin, you don't want to kill the tick before you have pulled it out.

 

Ticks have a nasty tendancy to vomit their contents back into the host ( i.e. YOU ) when attacked. This is a sure way to get any nast bacteria that they picked up including the bacteria that causes Lymes disease.

 

Bad way to remove ticks; squashing, burning with cigarettes or smothering with creams, jelly etc.

 

Good way to remove ticks; tweezers, tick removal tool or cotton thread.