Be nice or I’ll mention botflies. 
My first impulse to seeing a tick on skin would be to drown it in rubbing alcohol, which would help sterilize the wound at the same time, then pull it off with alcohol-soaked bandage-type material. Is there some reason why this won’t work or is inadvisable?
I already know about botflies, thankyouverymuch. And I’ll remind you that I did a staff report on pinworms , which made my butt itch for days afterwards. The things I’ve done for this job…
I’ve done this, and it seems to work very well. The tick has always come out easily, with all its body parts, and I’ve never had an infection at the site.
And it gives you the satisfaction of a chemical warfare attack on them bastids.
I can’t remember having to treat a tick attack recently, but this procedure was the one we used on our dogs and cats years ago. Sometimes a tick would be found in fur, swelled to 20 times its body size, engorged with blood and no doubt, drunk with power. Off with their heads!
Tick vomit. Again, if you stress the tick out, she’s likely to regurgitate her stomach (or, uh, whatever passes for the stomach in a tick) contents, which may include viruses that you can catch.
Recognizing and Avoiding Tick-Borne Illness - Harvard Health Publications - Harvard Health
@Lynn: Loa loa filariasis d&r
it’s easy to remove her dry. having her wet or using a barrier (bandage) to pull her off just makes it more difficult. she might be infectious, she isn’t toxic.
wipe the area after she is off.
You’re going to have to do better than that.
Kind of hard to soak my scalp in alcohol. And as I mentioned, I may not have been bitten anyway, when I picked it off me it was whole and didn’t look bloated.
But don’t remind WhyNot it’s teeny little legs were moving!
What you do is soak a cotton ball in alcohol, and hold it against the tick. The tick gets drunker than a skunk and dies happy.
And then you go catch a millipede and put it on WhyNot.
Aw! A millipede! How cute. And amazing, see all those teeny tiny legs moving in a wave? Not at all creepy. I love millipedes. <3
Ticks. Just ticks are ick. Thanks goodness, or I wouldn’t enjoy camping nearly as much as I do!
How do you feel about tocks?
No hurry to respond; take your time.
The “tick vomit” thing is new to me. I agree with all the “just gentle pulling” advice but the “Don’t smother” advice I’ve read just said that your goal is to remove the tick as soon as possible and applying petroleum jelly and waiting goes against that purpose.
Not doubting tick vomit though as I see it’s cited. Learn something new every day.
Millipedes are kind of fun to watch.
I remember that we used to get dusted with sulphur powder (I THINK it was sulphur powder) in day camp, to keep the chiggers off. I don’t know if this works with ticks, but I do know that my husband uses some sort of insecticide when he goes hunting. And when he comes home, he takes a hot bath with a little bleach added. This is an old country folk method of dislodging chiggers and ticks all at once.
Tocks rock.