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Comment by pengaru | Hacker News Reader

> The risk is leaving bits and pieces behind when you pull them off, which is why you want to encourage them to let go on their own.

I thought the reason was if you accidentally apply pressure to the engorged tick, it backflows the potentially lyme-contaminated blood into your person.

They sell special tweezers which engage the head while avoiding the body for this reason AIUI.

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There’s also a tool called a tick twister that is supposed to get them around the neck and twist them out. Like flat tweezers that you slide along your skin so you don’t accidentally squeeze the body. If I understand correctly they have flexible spines/barbs on their head which is what can keep the head in if you pull without twisting. When you twist the spines lay down and so the tick slips right out intact. That’s the marketing behind the tool anyway.

https://www.ticktwister.com/

IIRC the recommended approach now is to freeze them off with those wart removers you can find at drug stores. Even the special tweezers were hard enough to use properly that it's no longer the recommended approach.

'How to handle those bloody potentially life-ruining ticks properly' is something that seems to change rather frequently. Quite annoying, despite the fact that improvements in that area are welcome.

Any definite source? Pulling them out is usually easy.. but not always, if freezing them off is feasible and better would like to try, but this thread now has already the bad alcohol recommendation :/ so would like to make sure not just hearsay?

Good question. I've read a lot of local news here in New England in the last year that recommends freezing, but looking up formal sources... it isn't so simple. Seems like freezing means you still end up using tweezers for the removal, but the risk of pushing toxins back into your bloodstream is lessened because the toxins themselves are frozen inside the tick.

So I guess the recommendation remains: remove with tweezers carefully, targeting the head so as to avoid sqeezing the body and flushing toxins back into your body. Which is easier than heading to a drugstore for freezing wart removers anyway.

Yes, my wife pulled one out with an "approved tool" but it left a bit off the fangs or whatever in unfortunately. Went to the doctor and to my surprise she said: I won't fumble now and do anything there, the important thing is the body/gut is gone, this is unimportant, just lets disinfect it and watch for lime. shrug

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