When I lived in Scotland there were deer ticks and sheep ticks. Now in Australia we have kangaroo ticks and, oh joy, ticks that wait in trees and drop on anyone that walks underneath.

It doesn't matter where on the planet you are though. The risks of disease and infection from a tick bite, and the best way to remove ticks, are universal.

Ticks need a feed of blood to survive and produce the next generation. When they bite you, they insert their jaws into your skin and anchor themselves there very tightly while they suck your blood.

The first rule of tick removal is don't just pull it out. If you do, the body of the tick will break away leaving the jaws stuck under your skin, and very difficult to remove. They can then become infected and leave you with a sore, itchy lump. It should be pointed out that the risk of disease (like Lymes disease), comes from the body of the tick. This means that if the body does break away leaving the jaws behind, the risk of disease has gone.

You first need to convince the tick to let go and loosen it's grip in your skin. There are a variety of methods that all work.

1. Apply heat to the ticks body, either by holding a flame near it, or by grasping it with a pair of tweezers that have been heated in a flame. This does work but you run the risk of burning yourself.

2. Apply alcohol. In Scotland we used whisky obviously! I'm not sure if this drowns them or makes them drunk, but it certainly works. Makes you smell like an alcoholic though, and my father would tell you it's a waste of good whisky!

3. Apply Vaseline. This is the one I use because I find it works easiest and doesn't have any of the "side effects" of the above two! Apply liberally and wait a couple of minutes - you are in fact suffocating the tick.

When the tick has had a chance to let go, use tweezers to carefully pull the tick out. Remember do this gently and slowly and if there is resistance from the tick, put more time into getting the tick to release its jaws. When a tick bites you, it inserts its jaws clockwise into your skin. Therefore when you pull the tick out with tweezers, twist in an anticlockwise direction.

Prevention is better than cure though, so if you are going walking somewhere tick infested, spray yourself with insect repellent, making sure you spray plenty round your ankles (stops them climbing up you!)

Learn more about this author, Branwen Smith.
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