So, you got bit by a tick. Here’s exactly what to do next.
During tick season, which runs from April to September in the United States, people spend more time outdoors and small, hard-to-detect tick nymphs are active, so your chances of encountering them are higher. Finding a tick on your skin is always concerning because all it takes is one bite and a small amount of saliva for it to transmit disease-causing pathogens (like Lyme disease) to you, the host.
If you spot a tick on yourself or a loved one, remove it immediately. “The longer a tick remains attached, the greater the chance it will transmit an infectious dose of microbes, and so it is important to get rid of it as quickly as possible,” said Thomas Mather, professor of public health entomology and director of the TickEncounter Resource Center at the University of Rhode Island.
Here’s everything else experts recommend to deal with a tick bite quickly and safely, what to do after removing the tick, and when to contact your doctor.
First, take a good look at the tick.
Take a closer look: Is it definitely a tick? And is it connected? “If he’s walking, he’s trying to find a place to bite to get blood,” said Michel Shamoon-Pour, co-director of Binghamton University’s Center for Tick-Borne Diseases. But a moving tick hasn’t bitten you yet, so there’s no chance of it infecting you, he assured.
A checkmark attached is another story. If it is attached, see how clogged or full it is. A recently unfed tick can be the size of a poppy seed (in the young nymph stage) or a sesame seed (when it’s an adult) “then it gets bigger and bigger, and when it fills with blood, it can look like a small raisin,” said Brian Fallon, director of Columbia University’s Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center.
While some tick-borne diseases can be transmitted in shorter time periods, many, including Lyme, require a tick to feed for at least 12 to 24 hours. “Black-legged ticks, especially those that carry Lyme disease, cannot transmit an infectious dose until they attach and feed for more than a day,” Mather said.
“Try to remember when and where you thought you were and where you thought you got it,” microbiologist James Occi of the Rutgers University Center for Vector Biology later said. If you’re pretty sure the tick won’t remain attached for more than a few hours (say, because you noticed it right after a walk and it didn’t appear to be engorged), you don’t need to worry as much as someone who finds a large, extremely engorged tick, Fallon said.
Remove quickly and carefully
If you have a tick on you, remove it immediately. It is most effective to do this yourself; Waiting for an appointment with your provider allows the tick to continue feeding and increases your chance of developing a tick-borne disease. The sooner you take it off, the safer you will be, Occi said.
Pointed, fine-tipped tweezers are best for removing the tick (you can find some designed specifically for ticks), followed by regular tweezers. You can use your nails in a pinch, but they don’t have as precise a grip, so you’re more likely to break the tick’s head when removing it, Shamoon-Pour said. “This won’t help because if pathogens are present, they will be in the tick’s salivary glands,” he said. Scratching your skin can also introduce bacteria, increasing the risk of infection.
With tweezers, grasp the tick close to your skin and focus on “putting it under the belly of the tick and just lifting it up,” Fallon said. Try not to squeeze the tick’s abdomen: “This can act like a syringe in some cases, pushing the contents of the abdomen into the bloodstream,” he added. If any of the tick’s mouthparts remain, gently remove them with tweezers.
After removing the tick, clean the area (Fallon said you can use rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide) and wash your hands with soap and water or hand sanitizer. Now is the time to do a thorough tick check on the rest of your body.
Will it be skipped when it comes to tick removal methods? Some people try to apply heat to the attached tick, but “that’s not very successful,” said Peter Krause, a senior research scientist in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health. He also added that it was not possible to cover it with petroleum jelly to “smother” it.
Take a photo or keep it in a sealed bag
Experts recommend taking a photo of the tick or placing it in a plastic bag or sealed container. This allows you to determine the type, which can help the healthcare provider understand which pathogens you are at risk of contracting. The best way to capture identifying features is to place the tick on a light-toned background after removing it and photograph it with the tick’s face in the foreground, Mather said.
Although Lyme is the most common tick-borne disease in the United States, black-legged ticks also transmit insects that cause anaplasmosis and babesiosis., And Different species can also transmit other diseases, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever (spread by American dog ticks and brown dog ticks) and Alpha-gal syndrome (red meat allergy caused by lone star ticks). Many of these diseases can make you very sick and require emergency treatment.
Mather and his team at the University of Rhode Island run a program called TickSpotters; Here, anyone can submit photos and receive a free confirmation ID and risk assessment, usually within 24 hours. You can also show the tick (or its photo) to your medical provider or reference images of ticks online.
Experts do not recommend sending ticks to testing companies that do not have a clinical diagnostic laboratory. These laboratories cannot tell you for sure whether you are infected or not. “Just because the tick is positive doesn’t mean you’re 100 percent infected with the disease,” Shamoon-Pour said.
To dispose of a tick, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends placing it in a covered container or wrapping it with tape before throwing it in the trash. Or flush it down the toilet. Do not crush the tick with your fingers as this may spread germs.
Notify your doctor
Once you uncheck it, it’s a good idea to contact your provider. Guidelines from leading expert groups recommend prophylactic antibiotic treatment (usually taking a single dose of oral doxycycline within 72 hours) for adults and children with tick bites who are considered high risk for Lyme disease.
If you live in an area where Lyme is common and you suspect you’ve been bitten by a blacklegged tick, “you can ask your doctor if it makes sense to take prophylaxis,” Krause said.
If they think you have or are at risk of contracting a different tick-borne disease, they can recommend the best treatment protocol for you.
Always seek medical attention if you notice symptoms. With some tick-borne diseases, including Lyme, “you can develop a rash that expands and gets bigger and bigger,” said Jacob Lemieux, an infectious diseases physician at the Multidisciplinary Lyme Disease Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. Sometimes the rash may have the typical bull’s-eye pattern, but not always, and other times it may appear dark red or purplish-blue. Even if you don’t develop a rash (and 30 percent of people don’t), you may experience flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache, muscle aches, and joint pain; many of these are common to most tick-borne diseases.
Most people develop symptoms of a tick-borne illness (such as fever) within a month after being bitten. But Fallon said symptoms of Lyme disease, such as uncomfortable swelling in one or more joints (usually the knee) known as Lyme arthritis, can develop weeks or even months later, appearing on average six months after the initial infection.
“And if you develop a rash or viral-like symptoms over the next few weeks,” she added, “definitely check with your provider, because there may be another tick you missed.”
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