Ticks and Lyme Disease – Need to shoot or turn? – News



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Removing a tick as quickly as possible reduces the risk of catching Lyme disease. But to remove it, should it turn, as recommended by the manufacturers of ticks? Or just shoot, as advised by US health authorities? Answers.

To avoid Lyme disease, it's best to protect yourself from tick bites. If a tick is still attached, the bug must be removed as quickly as possible, ideally within 12 hours. It remains to be seen how, precisely, to get rid of it. Because the recommendations do not reach consensus. In France, the most common use is to remove it with a tick-tick while turning. This is the opposite of the American recommendations, which insist: do not turn around at the time of withdrawal.

To understand this discrepancy, it is important to know that the US health authorities advise to use in priority, for the removal of the tick, a pair of very fine forceps. But once the tick pinch closer to the skin, turn the instrument and at the same time maintain sufficient pressure to keep the tick stuck is not easy. The risk is great to loosen the hold and break the tick in half. The easiest way is therefore to pull upwards, gently but surely, making sure to take all the parts of the tick.

In France, it is the tick-tick or tick hook that is recommended, and sold in pharmacies to remove ticks. Here is the rotation that prevails. The tick puller must be slipped under the tick, then turned because "the rotational movement decreases the fixing capacity of the small spines of the rostrum, and thus decreases the resistance to withdrawal" explains Denis Heitz, general manager O'tom, a manufacturer of tick hooks. Traction gives less good results.

In the end, one simply has to adapt the gesture to the instrument used . And if you turn or shoot, if the tick is completely removed from the skin, everything is fine. The key is not to squeeze the tick's abdomen at the time of removal, as this increases the risk of transmission of pathogens. This is why it is absolutely essential to avoid the use of a pair of forceps

And if you have not succeeded in removing the biting parts of the tick, do not panic, "because the salivary glands that contain the microbes are located in the belly " underlines Nathalie Boulanger, pharmacist at the National Reference Center (CNR) Borrelia of Strasbourg. In this case, a doctor can help extract the pieces that remain attached to the skin. Or we can simply wait for the residues to dry and fall on their own.

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