By remaining calm and knowing some basic first-aid techniques, you can help your child overcome the fear and the trauma of a tick bite:
- Don't touch the tick with your bare hand. If you don't have a pair of tweezers, take your child to your nearest healthcare facility, where the tick can be safely removed.
- Use a pair of tweezers to remove the tick. Grab the tick firmly by its mouth or head as close to your child's skin as possible.
- Pull up slowly and steadily without twisting until it lets go. Do not squeeze the tick, use petroleum jelly, solvents, knives, or a lit match to kill the tick.
- Save the tick and place it in a plastic container or bag so it can be tested for disease, if necessary.
- Wash the area of the bite well with soap and water, and apply an antiseptic lotion or cream.
- Call your child's physician to find out about follow-up care and testing of the tick for spirochetes, or organisms that may be carried by the tick.
Regardless of how careful you are about animals in your home, or how many precautions you take when your child is playing outdoors, tick bites are sometimes unavoidable.
