That video is wrong.  You can't just drop a fucking tick in the trash can; it will crawl out and re-attach itself to you or someone you love.  You either drop them into a dish of nail polish remover (and even then you have to watch 'em swim awhile before they stop moving) or set them on fire (quicker and more fun; but watch out they don't pop and splatter ya).  It's the only way to be sure!

Somehow I see this thing leaving the head in place, which can lead to a serious skin infection, septicemia, or a deadly illness like Plague, or Hantavirus.

Having pulled innumerable ticks off my dog and a few off myself and friends, I'm with fnord on this one.  This device will leave the head embedded.  I think Georgi's mineral oil method may work, but I just grab a pair of tweezers, grip the head, and yank the damned things out.  The dog likes to eat them, but I demur.

What's the name of that fly that burrows into your skin and creates a larva? That you kill by putting duct tape over your skin, and it basically wiggles out?

You are all making my Neato Thingie into a not-so-neato thingie.

*itches*

We used to use Vaseline. It worked.

*sticks fingers in ears*

LALALALALALALALALA

In Alaska, I lived blissfully without the menace of ticks or chiggers or fleas or snakes. Then I moved to the Sierra Foothills of California where all these things lived in abundance. I was horrified. They were everywhere. They were after me. They wanted to kill me, slowly, by draining all my precious bodily fluids.

Now I live in San Francisco where I don't have to deal with the damned things and the only creatures who want my precious bodily fluids are good looking guys and phlebotomists. I see one mosquito a year. If I can't be back in Alaska, this does quite nicely.

I hate Taint and I hate square and I hate toe.  Ugh ugh ugh.  Vomit vomit vomit.

For 14 years I lived in the Bay area where Taint's description is correct. I can count the number of mosquito bites I received on 1 hand. And as an added bonus from the gods, there may be  some sort of enzyme in certain local animals that interrupts the Lymes disease life cycle.

Now I am mostly in the N  East for the year and living in ground zero for Lymes. I was visiting the hospital in February and saw a pallet load sitting in the hallway. It was boxes comprising  2 cubic yards of sterilized tweezers and little scissors. All for pulling out the coming season of embedded ticks. They go through two of these shipments a year.

The locals here spend alot of time educating everyone on proper removal. Tweezers that have the correct machined tips to do the job quickly. I think they are so vehement against all other methods because they can result in a stressed tick injecting more disease laden saliva or blood into the bite.




"They've gone from being cutesy deer to antlered rats. Each deer is loaded with ticks. This is a significant public health issue."  said Dr. Timothy Lepore, medical director ... (includes related articles on Lyme disease prevention)

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2009-06-26 10:14:18)

choad wrote:

Another entry in the let's-gross-out-George competition.

That larvae in the first pic doesn't look like it could have come from under your skin. It does, however,  look like it could have come from Uranus.




Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

Last edited by Banjo (2013-12-24 09:05:21)