What to Do After a Tick Bite: Removal, Warning Signs and Why Not to Test the Tick

If you find a tick attached to your skin, take it off as soon as possible. Don't wait to have a health care provider do it: putting off removal could raise your risk of catching a disease spread by tick bites. There are several tick removal gadgets on the market, but a plain pair of tweezers works very well.

How to remove a tick

1. Grasp it close to the skin. Use clean, fine-tipped tweezers and take hold of the tick as close to the surface of the skin as you can. If you have no fine-tipped tweezers, regular tweezers or your fingers will do. Holding it close to the skin keeps you from squeezing the tick's body.
2. Pull steadily. Draw the tick away from the skin with steady, even pressure. Don't twist or jerk it — that can break off the mouthparts and leave them in the skin. If that happens, your body will push them out naturally as the skin heals; you can also take them out with tweezers, but if they don't come easily, leave them alone.
3. Get rid of the live tick. Put it in a sealed container, wrap it tightly in tape, flush it down the toilet, or put it in alcohol. Don't crush it with your fingers.
4. Clean up. Wash the bite and your hands thoroughly with soap and water, rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer.
5. Look for more. One tick may mean others. Check your whole body carefully and remove any others promptly. Ticks can hide under socks and blend into hair; check yourself after time in grassy, brushy or wooded places.

What not to do

Don't use petroleum jelly, heat, nail polish or other substances to make the tick let go. They may agitate it and force infected fluid from the tick into your skin.

Should you have the tick tested?

Some commercial groups offer to test ticks for infection, but in general it is not recommended:

• Laboratories that test ticks do not have to meet the strict quality-control standards of clinical diagnostic laboratories, and their results should not be used to decide on treatment.
• A positive result — the tick carries a disease-causing organism — does not necessarily mean you are infected.
• A negative result can falsely reassure you: a different tick, one you never noticed, may have been infected.
• If you are infected, you will probably have symptoms before the result comes back. If you fall ill, don't wait for a tick test to start treatment.

Afterwards

If you develop a rash or fever in the weeks after removing a tick, see a doctor, and tell them:

• about the tick bite;
• when it happened;
• where you most likely picked up the tick.

CDC's online Tick Bite Guide, a mobile-friendly tool, walks you through removing a tick and deciding whether and when to seek care, asking about things such as how long the tick was attached and any symptoms. CDC also publishes a tick removal fact sheet, and advice on where disease-carrying ticks live and how to prevent bites.

Sources

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "What to Do After a Tick Bite": https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/after-a-tick-bite/index.html
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.
• The source says to see a doctor for a rash or fever "within several days to weeks" in one place and "within several weeks" in another; this page says "in the weeks after."
• The page's photographs and illustrations are not reproduced.