What If I Found a Tick on my Child?

Remove the tick with tweezers. Grab the tick as close to the skin as you can and begin to pull in a gentle but steady motion. Hold your pull as the tick will eventually dislike the pressure and let go. If you pull the body out and leave the head in don’t worry, the head will come out by itself with time.

Was the tick there yesterday? If not, relax, because it takes at least 48 hours for an infected tick to spread its germs. If you don’t know how long the tick has been embedded, remove it but consider saving it in case we decide to test it. If the tick is large enough for you to see it well, like the size of a match head or a pea then it’s a dog or wood tick. These kind of ticks do not carry Lyme disease. If the tick is the size of a pin head or even smaller then it is a deer tick and can transit Lyme.

If your child has fever, headache or rash in the 7-10 days following a tick bite then you should call us. If your child isn’t sick but you discover a flat, but round, red rash that looks like it came from a squirt of spray paint and is a quarter size or larger that may be the Lyme disease rash and we need to check it.