FYI

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To All,

FYI.

Larry NV

What's The Best Way To Remove Ticks?

May 29, 2001

ine: My son is a caddy at a golf course and he's been getting a lot of

ticks that he's been brushing off; none have been embedded yet. There is a

lot of different information about how to effectively remove a tick if it's

embedded. Other caddies are telling him to take a match to the tick and it

will back out. I've heard also to take tweezers and pull it out.

Dr. Dean: You are right. There is so much misinformation out there - pour

lighter fluid on them and they'll back out. But, they won't back-out -- they

're tough! As a matter of fact, I found one crawling on my clothes over the

weekend. They're incredible creatures.

There was a professor at Yale who was very involved in Lyme disease

research, of course, with Lyme, Connecticut being where it all began. He

found that people in nudist colonies don't get Lyme disease because they don

't get tick bites. The tick is so smart that it likes people with clothing,

so it can crawl under the clothing and hide.

Don't believe the old tale that they screw-in clockwise, so you want to

unscrew them counterclockwise. Don't, because that's a quick way to break

off the head and get a real inflammation.

The way to remove them is to simply grab them and pull straight and steady.

You probably should wear rubber gloves, but if you don't have rubber gloves,

wash your hands well afterwards. Do this and they will let go. All these

other things will kill them right there on the spot and then they won't let

go. You can pull their little heads off and they don't let go.

So if you can pull a little critter's head off and it doesn't let go, what

good will putting Vaseline on it do? That won't do it. None of those methods

are approved. Yes, forceps are probably the best way to go, a little pair of

tweezers. And since he's on the golf course, maybe he should keep a Swiss

Army knife that contains little tweezers to pull off any embedded ticks.

ine: As far as insect repellant, is there any I can buy that has the

most DEET to provide complete protection?

Dr. Dean: Most products will not have more than 30 percent DEET. It's a

matter of wearing long sleeves. Cuffs should be wrapped with something. Many

now on golf courses will tuck their pants into their socks. Even fashion is

going along with tick bite prevention. Check yourself afterwards, and make

certain to look in those little special dark places, because that's where

they also like to hide.