How to Remove a Tick Safely and Avoid Lyme Disease

It’s always a little alarming to find a tick on you, given all the bad press around the little arachnids. Every year, almost one in ten people will experience a tick bite, and 476,000 will be treated for Lyme disease in the U.S., according to the CDC.

While these stats can be worrisome, the point isn’t to freak out. It’s to take action. The most important thing you can do to lower your chances of developing a tick-borne illness after finding one of the little suckers on you is to get it off.

“Ticks need to be feeding to transmit diseases, so ideally, one would remove the tick before it settles and starts feeding,” says infectious diseases physician Laura Kirkman, MD, associate professor of medicine and microbiology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. “They are a bit methodical and take their time (unlike mosquitoes), giving human hosts a chance to stop them.”

Unfortunately, we’re not always that lucky.

How to Remove a Tick

Here’s exactly how to remove a tick that’s already bitten you:

1. Clean a pair of fine-tipped tweezers with soap and water or rubbing alcohol.
2. Grip the tick with the tweezers as close to your skin as possible.
3. Pull the tick straight up from your skin without twisting or jerking it to avoid breaking off parts in your skin.
4. Place the tick in a sealed bag or container. You don’t need to keep the tick for testing or smush it with your fingers, but you may want to take a picture of it before throwing it away or flushing it down a toilet.
5. Clean the bite area and your hands thoroughly after removing the tick. You can use soap and water, rubbing alcohol, or hand sanitizer.
6. Check the rest of your body thoroughly. Remove any other ticks if necessary.

Don’t worry too much about pulling the tick off perfectly or completely. “Just remove the tick, because the longer it stays embedded, the more likely it is to transmit a pathogen,” says Jean Tsao, PhD, a professor of fisheries and wildlife and large animal clinical sciences at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.

And don’t delay pulling the tick off to wait to go to an emergency room or to a doctor’s office, which only increases the amount of time the tick is feasting, Dr. Kirkman says.

It’s also not worth trying rumored remedies like petroleum jelly, nail polish, or even burning the tick off. These tactics don’t work to remove a tick and could hurt you in the process, says Paul G. Auwaerter, MD, MBA, a professor of medicine in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Once the tick is off, take a deep breath. You’ve completed the most important step. You don’t need to rush to the doctor or emergency room.

After You’ve Removed the Tick

Check the rest of your body diligently for any other ticks if you haven’t already. “They are very small, often the size of a poppy seed, so they can be hard to see,” Dr. Kirkman says. Use a full-length mirror and a hand mirror to inspect your body from head to toe, paying extra attention to areas with folds of skin, Dr. Auwaerter says.

If the tick is in good condition after you remove it, take a picture of it before discarding it. This can help you identify the species of tick that bit you, which “affects the infections we worry about and how likely the tick was to carry a human pathogen,” Dr. Kirkman says.

Identifying a tick can be challenging for the average hiker or trail runner, but there are professionals who can help. Take a photo of the tick from the top side where you can see more of its features, then try an image search online to see if you can match up your tick, Tsao says.

The most reliable option, however, is to submit your photo to a reliable online resource like your state’s health department, The Tick App, or TickEncounter. “These online resources can respond with an identification within 24 to 48 hours, which is in time for medical management,” Tsao says. To be extra cautious, you can submit your photo to more than one of these resources to make sure you get a timely response, she adds.

Depending on the type of tick that bit you, you might be a candidate for preventive antibiotics. “For a high-risk tick bite, a single prophylactic dose of doxycycline can be given to prevent Lyme disease,” Dr. Kirkman says. This is only the case if you were bitten by a blacklegged tick, which transmits Lyme, the tick was engorged, and it’s less than 72 hours since the tick was removed.

If you’re in an area with a high risk of Lyme disease (typically the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Upper Midwest United States) and removed an engorged tick, talk to a doctor about whether this is the right course of treatment for you, Dr. Auwaerter says.

Regardless, over the next several days, monitor yourself for any changes. “If you start feeling sick or notice a skin rash, you should see your physician, and you can inform them of when you removed a tick and ideally what species it is,” Dr. Kirkman says. Keep an eye out for any new rashes, changes at the site of the tick bite, or any flu-like symptoms, Dr. Auwaerter adds.

And in case there’s a next time, consider stashing a few pairs of tweezers where you might need them, like in your car first aid kit and your hiking backpack, Tsao says. That said, if you find a tick and don’t have tweezers around, it’s still worth trying to remove it as best you can with your fingers, Dr. Auwaerter says. Getting that bugger off—and fast—is always the first objective.