Removing a tick

Attention

• Try to avoid tick bites
• Stay away from areas with lots of ticks
• When in area with ticks, wear clothes that cover your skin (eg long-sleeved shirt)
• Remove ticks as soon as you can
• Do not squeeze, crush or puncture tick's body — its fluids may contain infectious agents
• Need to remove mouth parts of tick, not just body
• On east coast of mainland Australia and Tasmania ticks can carry a bacteria that causes tick typhus
• If fever and rash develop within 1 week of removing tick — report to PHU
• Only try to kill tick before removing it if using alternate tick removal method

What you need

• Sterile dressing pack to use as clean work area
• Normal saline
• Tick remover or pointed tweezers, preferably curved
• Do not use normal household tweezers — they will squeeze the contents of the tick into the blood stream
• Anaesthetic drops (eg tetracaine (amethocaine) 1%) if tick is in ear

What you do

For ticks on skin

• Lay out dressing pack and equipment
• Grasp tick firmly by its mouth parts, as close to skin as possible — Figure 7.20
• Pull up to remove
• Clean bite area and your hands well with soap and water or alcohol wipe

For ticks in ear

• If safe to do so — remove as for ticks on skin
• OR Try washing out with anaesthetic drops 

Alternate tick removal

May be preferable to kill the tick in place. Removing ticks by force may increase the likelihood of allergic reaction

• Large ticks — apply freezing agent containing ether (eg Tick off) to tick
• Wait 10 minutes for tick to die
• Remove tick by its mouth parts using fine tipped forceps or tick remover
• Small ticks or tick larva — apply cream containing permethrin (eg Lyclear) to tick
  
• Apply cream at least twice, waiting 1 minute between applications
• ​Wait for ticks or larva to die or cover with band-aid and leave overnight
• Remove tick by its mouth parts using fine tipped forceps or tick remover