Folk remedies for backing out an attached tick - lit matches, nail polish, petroleum jelly, essential oils - all do the same wrong thing: they stress the tick into salivating and regurgitating gut contents into the wound, increasing the dose of any pathogen present. CDC explicitly warns against them. Use fine-tipped tweezers and pull straight up.
A removed tick is not biologically dead the moment you take it out - it can survive in a sealed container for weeks. CDC recommends…
Folk wisdom holds that ticks fall out of trees onto people - this is wrong. Ticks cannot jump, fly, or drop from height; they quest on…
Within 5 to 30 minutes of biting, a hard tick begins secreting a glycine-rich saliva that hardens around its mouthparts into a cement…
Mailing a removed tick to a lab for pathogen testing is useful for community surveillance but should not drive treatment decisions. CDC…
Tick saliva contains hundreds of pharmacologically active proteins that suppress the host's immune response, dilate blood vessels, prevent…
The most effective personal protection against tick attachment in field studies is the combination of permethrin-treated outer clothing…