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Hi, I'm Gary McDougall.
(Penticton, B.C. and Area Lyme Group)

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I wanted to show you one of the best methods for 
removal of a tick once it's embedded in your system.

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Let's pretend that this balloon is a tick

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that's worked its way down in via its mouth parts

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into your skin.

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So this is its body out here, and this is its mouth.

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Now, hopefully you'll never find a tick this large in you,

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because of course you'll have some problems.

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But people come up to me and they say

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"Y'know what I've done is, I've used a hot match,

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or I've used Vaseline to get rid of it".

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The thing is, you don't want to do that

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because remember

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this is its mouth parts inside your skin,

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and if you did that to it, they tend to vomit.

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What then happens is

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it then comes out in your system.

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So its stomach contents will eject into your system.

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You also don't want to grab it by the top

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and pull it off with your fingers

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because you've just squeezed

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a dirty hypodermic needle into your system.

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The best way to do it

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is to get some small very sharp pointed tweezers.

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These are very large for this demonstration,

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but they'd be much smaller than this.

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You work it in underneath the tick's body

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because its head is down in your skin there.

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And you squeeze it, and that cuts off its throat,

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so it can't regurgitate into your skin to begin with.

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And then very carefully

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without twisting and turning, just pull straight up.

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And the interesting thing is

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it'll look just like this, as its head pulls out.

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And hopefully it'll come out clean and in one piece,

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and then you put on an antiseptic on there,

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and you're done, that's all there is to it.