Tick Twister

Wade, Have you tried it (or the REI one)? I’m wondering about the rotational aspect of it. My concern, which is perhaps unfounded, is that the twisting/rotation will cause the tick’s proboscis (the mouthpart inserted into the skin) to separate from the tick, remaining in the skin. This alone can sometimes become infected or have a hard, semi-solid “cyst” form around it (personal experience) that can take some time to resolve. Furthermore, if it is too traumatic, tick’s can someitmes regurgitate through their proboscis before it becomes separated – this often becomes infected – again, in my limited personal experience.

My guess is that the twising/rotation should be done very slowly in order to give the tick time to respond to the stress and back out on its own with its proboscis intact. Just curious, what do the directions for use say?

The authorities agree, the best way to pull a tick out is to slide a tick spoon (a flat piece of metal with a notch in it for the tick’s head) between the tick and the skin, then gently apply pressure until the tick releases its grip. The tick’s mouthparts don’t ressemble a screw and hence there is no need to unscrew the tick by twisting it. Nor do any of the other folk wisdom rememdies work: bring a match close to the tick, put vaseline over the tick, etc.

Instead of a tick spoon, you can use pointed tweezers to gently grasp the tick’s head, without squeezing the tick’s bottom.

The simplest approach is to use your fingernails of the thumb and middle finger to slide between the tick and the skin and then gently pull until the tick lets go.

Most of the ticks I encounter are very tiny nymph ticks. I just scrape these off by dragging my fingernail along the skin until it reaches the tick, then gently pulling at the tick from the side until it lets go.

Read “Ticks–and what you can do about them” by Roger Drummond (1998) for more info.

Ticks are the biggest wildlife danger in temperate climates, for most hikers. They are far more of a risk than poisonous snakes or drinking untreated water (which I do all the time), for example.

Frank, Excellent post. I have always pulled them out – slowly. But at times, even extracting slowly, I have failed to wait for them to back out, and thus, suffered the consequences of impatience. You’re absolutely right about the other methods. You can’t suffocate them. They can go literally days without suffocating. At which point they would have disengaged after feeding for a day anyways. The old hot match trick can cause a tick to regurgitate and lead to infection. Absolutely, gentle, steady traction (not against the abdomen), but rather against/grasping the cephelothorax, is the right way to do it.

In case anyone reading this is unaware, for hard ticks, the earlier instar stage (sometimes called larvae) of ticks have only six legs unlike the final instar stage (nymph) and adults. This is the main way to tell these very tiny brown ticks (smaller than the head of a common/hemming pin), from the very tiny adult deer ticks which have eight legs.

Yes, I agree. you shouldn’t twist a tick off. The tick twister does not really need a twist to remove it.

The tool I have from REI works just as you speak of – place under the tick, feed it into notch and lift slowly, providing pressure until it lets go.

I’m always amazed at how tenacious they are at holding on.

Wade, Sounds like you have a winner of a tick extractor there. Eliminates making the mistake of grasping the abdomen. Slow and steady is the way to go. I’m going to check REI.com now to see if they still sell them. Thanks for mentioning the source for your device.