Removing a tic from a patient - Page 3

Register Today!
  1. Jul 20, '12 by
    (didn't go into all that because it wasn't what the questioner asked. here they say 24 hours, not 48. 90% of the ticks collected at the bsa national jamboree did not carry lyme or any other tick-borne disease...and good lord, we collected a lot of ticks. generally true about treatment, problem being that diagnosis isn't always as prompt as we could wish. wfa here too. :d)
    TDFlMedicRN likes this.
  2. Jul 20, '12 by
    Quote from grntea
    (didn't go into all that because it wasn't what the questioner asked. here they say 24 hours, not 48. 90% of the ticks collected at the bsa national jamboree did not carry lyme or any other tick-borne disease...and good lord, we collected a lot of ticks. generally true about treatment, problem being that diagnosis isn't always as prompt as we could wish. wfa here too. :d)
    true enough. just pointing out that testing is unnecessary and expensive in most cases, as well as running the risk of keeping the critters around for longer than necessary. remove 'em and get rid of 'em. clinical signs warrant treatment and maybe testing.

    but i do appreciate your point as well - this is more than the original poster asked for.

    ultimately, the best bet is to pull 'em off, wash with soap and water, and watch. ymmv, of course, but testing a tick is ridiculous, imo, unless there is something to really raise your index of suspicion way above baseline.
  3. Asst. Admin
    Jul 20, '12 by
    Quote from TDFlMedicRN
    True enough. Just pointing out that testing is unnecessary and expensive in most cases, as well as running the risk of keeping the critters around for longer than necessary. Remove 'em and get rid of 'em. Clinical signs warrant treatment and maybe testing.

    But I do appreciate your point as well - this is more than the original poster asked for.

    Ultimately, the best bet is to pull 'em off, wash with soap and water, and watch. YMMV, of course, but testing a tick is ridiculous, IMO, unless there is something to really raise your index of suspicion WAY above baseline.
    If you follow the link I gave from the CDC they also say it really isn't necessary to test the ticks.......from the CDC website CDC - Diagnosis and Treatment - Testing of Ticks - Lyme Disease
    People who have removed a tick often wonder if they should have it tested. Some state or local health departments offer tick identification and testing as a community service or for research purposes (such as evaluating infection rates among ticks in an area). Check with your health department; the phone number is usually found in the government pages of the telephone book or online.
    In general, testing of individual ticks is not useful because:
    • If the test shows that the tick contained disease-causing organisms, that does not necessarily mean that you have been infected.
    • If you have been infected, you will probably develop symptoms before results of the tick test are available. You should not wait for tick testing results before beginning appropriate treatment.
    • Negative results can lead to false assurance. For example, you may have been been unknowingly bitten by a different tick that was infected.
    However, you may want to learn to identify various ticks. Different ticks live in different parts of the country and transmit different diseases. For your own peace of mind, you can save a tick that you have removed from yourself and have it tested later, if you wish. Just tape it to a piece of paper or put it in a small container.
    But this is asking about a patient in a facility and the doctor should be notified for liability reasons then the tick needs to be removed. Bluegrass......7 ticks from the nether reigions alone .....you're a better girl than me.

    GrnTea I love you but I still hate ticks even if the wild turkey's eat them and my town North of the Vinyard "on the mainland"..........doesn't allow chickens. When I pull them off my dog with an old pair of hemostats.....I burn the little buggars and listen to them pop.
  4. Jul 20, '12 by
    So glad everyone is an expert on ticks. My neighbor used to use a lit cigarette to burn them off his dog! He had the steadiest hands. My dad got ether from the pharmacist, soaked a cotton ball in it, and held it to the tick. It'd fall asleep, fall off, and then we'd call the neighbor for a lit cigarette.
    AheleneLPN, Hoosier69, and fiveofpeep like this.
  5. Jul 20, '12 by
    In the physician's office I used to work at, we would frequently have pts with ticks after mushroom hunting. The doc would remove the tick, give it to the pt in a dated ziplock, & tell them to keep it in the freezer. Just in case the pt later started to develop any symptoms, the tick was still available for testing (I guess freezing did not damage the specimen?) I really don't recall any pts ever having to send their tick off for testing though.
  6. Asst. Admin
    Jul 20, '12 by
    Quote from CapeCodMermaid
    So glad everyone is an expert on ticks. My neighbor used to use a lit cigarette to burn them off his dog! He had the steadiest hands. My dad got ether from the pharmacist, soaked a cotton ball in it, and held it to the tick. It'd fall asleep, fall off, and then we'd call the neighbor for a lit cigarette.
    Ether while effective is extremely flammable.....lucky dog.
  7. Jul 20, '12 by
    listerine........good ol' stinky original listerine.....will back a tick out faster than you would believe. just soak a cotton ball with listerine, put it on the tick for a couple of seconds, lift it off........tick out! very rarely have i had to do it twice. i always worry about pulling on them, if the head stays in, there's a risk of infection.

    have had to remove several times from patients in the past few years... uuuugh.
    Hoosier69 and BluegrassRN like this.
  8. Jul 20, '12 by
    Didn't mean send it to the hospital lab. And I'm not a male, it's just my avatar! We always save ticks where I live.
  9. Asst. Admin
    Jul 20, '12 by
    In my area the county cooperative extension of the state university agriculture department offers free testing of ticks (dog & deer). It's part of a grant funding. They've done it for years, in search of epidemiological data on Lymes and a few other tick-borne diseases. Apparently grad students doing a few different fellowships are trained to complete the testing. The same group also performs the testing on the black crows & other birds for West Nile Virus as that was a big problem a few years back.

    I was always taught to NOT put listerine, alcohol or vaseline on a tick as it will then regurgitate into the bite site, just like not squeezing the abdomen. We were taught to get as close to the head as possible to pull out an intact tick without doing further harm. Sharp tweezers work for my dogs and my Cub Scout son. When I worked ER years ago as a tech, an MD order was required for tick removal and could be delegated to certain staff members. (We had quite an issue some summers in this area, so quite few techs & RN's were sent to class for competencies on tick removal and preservation. The only ticks I recall being sent for actual testing was a ones removed from a police officer who was covered in ticks post foot chase of an armed suspect. There were probably almost a hundred ticks and many tested positive for Lyme's.)

    They do pop nicely when burned and are a real pain to try and squash. But they do nicely shrivel up and die when dropped in a vial of isopropyl alcohol or acetone.
    Hoosier69, GrnTea, TDFlMedicRN, and 1 other like this.
  10. Jul 21, '12 by
    Quote from JustBeachyNurse
    I was always taught to NOT put listerine, alcohol or vaseline on a tick as it will then regurgitate into the bite site, just like not squeezing the abdomen. We were taught to get as close to the head as possible to pull out an intact tick without doing further harm.
    This.

    And you don't even really need tweezers - a slow, steady pull will do. He doesn't want to have his face pulled off any more than you want to have it lost in you - he'll let go.

    But the right tweezers won't hurt.

    Honestly never dealt with removing the critters in an ED or inpatient setting, so hadn't considered the need for competencies and physician orders. How silly of me not to have known that.