Tick Removal Kit

Whether you’re hiking, camping, or just walking the dog outside, it’s only a matter of time before you come into contact with a tick. After all, ticks are almost everywhere where there is vegetation. They sit on plants, branches, leaves, and blades of grass, waiting for a victim. If a potential host passes close enough, the ticks will slough off and attach to them. Ticks can make you ill through their bite, so if a tick is found it is important to remove it as soon as possible.

How to avoid getting ticks while hiking?

The usual precautions to avoid getting ticks such as wearing long pants and tucking them into your socks, avoiding contaminated areas, regular body checks for ticks, and using effective tick repellents help to reduce the risk of getting ticks, but there is always a risk that a tick bites you.

Tick removal kit – fits in every backpack

If you get bitten, you need to remove the tick as soon as possible. A tick-removal kit comes in very handy, it has everything you need to deal with a tick bite. It is small and compact and fits easily in your backpack or jacket pocket.

Last update on 2024-03-13 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

What is a Tick Removal Kit?

A tick removal kit is a small first-aid kit that contains everything you need to get rid of the tick. A special tick tweezer, wound cleaning wipes, band-aids, and an illustrated guide. All this is in a practical small box or pouch that takes up little space and should be a standard that belongs to your outdoor equipment.

What should be included in a tick-removal kit?

  • One or more tools for tick removal.
  • Cleaning wipes for cleaning and disinfecting the wound.
  • Bandages to dress the wound and keep it clean to prevent infection.

A good set should include various sized tick removal tools. It should include a special, flat curved tweezer that lets you grab ticks properly. For nymphs, a very fine tool is required so that the nymph is not squeezed when it is removed.

The tick-removal kit should also usually contain cleaning wipes. These are used to clean and disinfect the bite site after the tick has been removed. As an alternative, use other wound disinfectants to clean the wound.

A selection of wound dressings to cover the wound should be included. Covering the wound prevents dirt from getting in. This reduces the risk of possible inflammation of the bite site and other complications. In most cases, this is sufficient and the small wound heals independently and without complications. However, regular wound checks should not be neglected. However, if pain occurs or the wound becomes infected, it is best to see a doctor.

How to correctly remove a tick

If a tick bites you, it must be removed as quickly as possible. The longer the tick remains in the wound, the greater the risk of infection. Don’t panic, not every tick necessarily transmits pathogens, but you still need to get rid of it right away to reduce the risk.

The best way to remove a tick properly is to grasp it with the special tweezers as close as possible to the skin and pull it up evenly until the tick comes out of the wound.

Avoid crushing or squeezing the tick body. This favors the transmission of infectious saliva or the intestinal contents of the tick.

It is important to try to remove all parts of the ticks. But quite often part of the ticks piercing tools remains in the wound. While this is not particularly dangerous, it is possible that the affected area becomes inflamed. Monitor the wound.

If you don’t have a suitable tool at hand, use your own fingernails carefully. Even with the cutting edge of a knife, you can try to remove the tick if no other tools are available. To do this, place the cutting edge at an acute angle next to the tick, and while applying pressure against the skin push the knife edge against the tick to push it out. However, you have to be extremely careful not to cut the tick, meaning not to off the radula (the tick’s bite tool), otherwise, they will remain in the wound.

Do not try to remove the tick with heat, fire, oil, glue or fuel, or similar folk remedies. These are bad methods that only make the tick feel stressed. If the tick is stressed or in agony then vomiting can occur, causing the food tract and intestinal contents of the tick to be transferred into the wound.

What to do with the tick?

What to do with the removed tick?

Once the tick is out, what do you do with it? How do you properly kill a tick? Should it be crushed, burned, or drowned in disinfectant?

Those little parasites are really tough and are hard to kill. Ticks should be killed without coming into contact with the tick’s body fluids. Pathogens in the tick could get into the human organism through a tiny wound on the finger.

How to kill a Tick

Only brute methods are successful with ticks. The most effective way to kill a tick is to crush it with a hard object, a stone, a glass, or something similar. To do this, fold the tick into a piece of paper (or a leaf) and push the stone or glass over it with pressure.

Another brute but effective method is to light the paper with the folded tick with a lighter and burn everything. When sitting around a bonfire, you might just toss the tick into it. By burning it, the pathogens are also burned.

Drowning the tick in alcohol, methylated spirit or toilet cleaner containing chlorine also kills the parasite and its pathogens.

Learn More:

Removing a Tick: https://globallymealliance.org