Removing Ticks: Nothing Fancy, Just Grab It with Tweezers

My son came home from an afternoon fishing trip with a tick on his eyebrow. He didn't even notice it until a buddy pointed it out. The other friend who went fishing with my son also found a tick when he got home.

Ticks spread disease. They carry all kinds of nasty bacteria. Lyme disease is the most feared of all tick borne infections, but not the only one. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is another to worry about.

My son removed his tick without any problem.

We found a tick on my dog a few weeks ago, but she didn't come off as easily. In the case of my dog, I'm pretty sure part of the tick's head was left behind. The longer a tick goes unnoticed, the more likely it will be engorged with blood and harder to remove. This one didn't come off very easily at all.

In the case of my dog, there luckily wasn't an infection. However, it took several days for the raised weal to scab over and go away. I couldn't see any tick parts in there, but I'm fairly certain whatever was left of the tick worked its way to the surface and was expelled.

If you try to remove a tick and see that some of it didn't come out, you'll have to see a doctor. Leaving any part of the tick in the skin increases the chance of an infection significantly.

There's only one right way to remove a tick: pull it out with tweezers.

There are a lot of tick removal ideas on the internet, but they all have one fatal flaw -- the tick backs out on her own. Anytime the tick is going to back out of the skin she's going to puke up her blood meal first, complete with all the bacteria you're trying to avoid. The tick has to do that because she gets engorged as she consumes the blood, which makes it harder for her to pull her head out.

You may get a whole tick out by burning or smothering it, but you raise the risk of infecting the host.

• How to Remove a Tick Video