How to Do a Proper Tick Check for Yourself, Kids & Pets

from July 2023

MARIJUANA IS GOING MAINSTREAM continued...

Plus… What to Do If Bitten

Good weather has officially arrived and families are enjoying time outdoors. Unfortunately, ticks are out in full force as well. Tick expert, Dr. Thomas Mather and Equip-4-Ticks Resource Center have compiled helpful tips on how to conduct a proper tick check on yourself, kids, and pets.

Tick Checks

“The most important thing to think about when you’re doing a tick check is that you need to check the lower extremities first and then move up.” —

Dr. Thomas Mather

Start From the Ground Up

After spending time in a tick habitat, it’s important to do a thorough tick check. While many recommend checking from head to toe, Dr. Mather recommends checking from the lower part of your body first and then moving up, because that’s how ticks move, from the ground up.

Places to check for ticks:

• Between toes

• Behind knees

• In the groin area

• Around waistline

• In the belly button

• Inside elbow joints and armpits

• In and around the ear

• Around the hairline

• On the scalp

Dr. Mather notes that it’s especially important to check areas where your clothing meets, or binds closely to, your skin. Ticks will crawl to those areas and won’t be able to, or want to, go any further, and they’ll bite there.

Check Your Pets

Once you’ve finished doing a tick check on yourself, it’s also important to perform a tick check on your pet. On a pet, the head region is the most important place to look for ticks. Ticks will also end up on other areas of dogs, or cats. Make sure to check all places where a tick could get caught up in its fur or the crease of its skin.

Places to check your pet for ticks:

• Paws and between toes

• Between back legs

• Between front legs

• Under the collar area

• In or around the ears

• Head region

• Base of the tail

Resource: Watch the video “Tick Checks: Best Practice for Humans and Pets” on YouTube at https://youtu. be/8PrbC5iClUI

BITTEN BY A TICK? WHAT TO DO NEXT.

Finding a tick on yourself, your family member, or your pet can be scary. While it’s vital to remove a tick as soon as possible, it is also important to ensure that you do it properly, and that you take the right steps once it’s removed. This includes storing the tick, and sending it in for testing in case it is carrying a dangerous tick-borne disease like Lyme, or a dangerous allergen like Alpha-gal.

1) Remove the tick

According to tick expert, Dr. Thomas Mather, the best strategy for removing a tick is by using fine-tipped, pointy tweezers like the ones from TickEase. By having something with a very pointy tip, you are able to get as close to the skin as possible and pull the tick out.

To remove a tick:

• Hold tick with fine-tipped, pointy tweezers

• Get as close to the skin as possible

• Pull straight up in a slow, steady motion

2) Keep the tick in a plastic bag

After removing the tick, don’t throw it away. Instead, place it in a Ziploc bag. Most people won’t know how to identify what kind of tick it is, and if you don’t, you won’t know what kind of diseases it may be carrying.

3) Identify the tick

Next, take a clear photo of the top side of the tick, and send it to TickSpotters, where Dr. Mather and his team will identify it for you within 24 hours with the following information:

• The kind of tick it is

• How long it was attached

• And what kind of germ it likely, or even didn’t likely, transmit to you

4) Send the tick in for testing

After the tick has been identified and TickSpotters has let you know if the tick that bit you has a high chance of carrying a disease, you can choose to send in the tick to a testing facility.

It should be noted that while tick testing can be a helpful resource, it should not be used as a substitute for physician diagnosis of disease.

Tick Testing Services Recommended by TickEncounter:

• TickReport

• Eco Laboratory

• Ticknology

• TickCheck

Resource: Watch the video “Safe Tick Removal, Storage, and Identification” on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ AXQn8H4na-U

Dr. Mather (a.k.a. “The TickGuy”) joined the University of Rhode Island in 1992 from the Harvard School of Public Health, and now serves as director of URI’s Center for Vector-Borne Disease and its TickEncounter Resource Center. His research focus is on tick ecology, area-wide tick control strategies, tickbite protection, and tickborne disease prevention. His research and outreach programs are diverse, including antitick vaccine discovery projects, evaluations of targeted tick control strategies, tickborne disease risk prediction, as well as development of tick-bite protection decision support tools and social networking strategies for tickborne disease prevention.

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Parent Training is it?,” “Where can we find it?,” “What does it look like?,” “What does it sound like?,” “What does it feel like?,” “How can we create it?” This book is also a good reminder for adults, too. We show our children what peace looks like in everything we say and do. Peace is something we should be exploring together first in our hearts, then in our minds, then in our community, and ultimately in the larger world.

It is said, “we have 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason.” We need to listen more and talk less. Perhaps a little mindfulness and reflective work will help us learn to listen first and then respond more thoughtfully and respectfully. Books like these and many others can be found in your local library and bookstore and online. Sharing and listening to books and stories, and talking with our children, can help all of us come to a place so we can celebrate all of US.

June

Dr. Donna Phillips is an associate professor in the College of Education at Niagara University where her specialty is literacy and children’s literature. She lives on Grand Island, NY and is the mother of two adult children and the grandmother of one.