Dealing With Ticks
Bob McNally 01.31.16
Ticks pretty much come with outdoor territory and are commonly encountered by hunters, fishermen, campers, and hikers. While most common tick or deer tick bites are of minor irritation, carefully removing them and cleaning the wound with antiseptic is wise.
Covering ticks with clear nail polish, allowing them to die, and removing with tweezers has been standard practice for many sportsmen over many years. Using the heat from a just-extinguished match also works at dislodging a biting tick, but care must be taken to avoid burning flesh of the victim.
Simply squeezing a tick and pulling it with tweezers removes the bug from the bite site, but often the head of the tick remains and can cause infection. Careful removal of all parts of a tick and cleaning and disinfecting the bite is essential. A topical medical salve on the bite site is needed, too.
Some ticks carry Lyme disease, others Rocky Mountain or Colorado tick fever, which though rarely fatal, are very real hazards to health. An infected bite from a Lyme-disease-carrying tick quickly shows a telltale red bulls-eye mark. Immediate medical attention should be sought to thwart the disease in its early stages, since if left untreated very dire health complications may result sometimes years after the bite.
