If you’ve never had a tick, you’re lucky they absolutely suck, literally and figuratively. For those of us that have had the pleasure of a tick embedding itself in our flesh, then you’re familiar with how tough and painful they can be to pull out.
Personally, I’ve had a tick on 2 separate occasions in woods above Lake Oroville when I was a kid. The first tick embedded itself in the back of my neck, discovered after 2 days so it was in deep. My parents tried using a cigarette, but I guess hearing it sizzle (along with the skin on my neck) wasn’t an indication they might kill it? Needless to say they fried it and broke the head off in my neck which tugging on it after roasting it with the cigarette.
The 2nd tick embedded itself in my butt cheek. Parents tried using Vaseline this time and again, got impatient and pulled the thing straight out, like yanking a barbed fish hook out of your skin.
In hindsight, with the looming threat of tick-transmitted Lyme Disease and others, I feel fortunate to not have contracted anything.
Nowadays, with the Internet, people tend to be much more informed, and there’s quite a few techniques out there people have shared on how to remove a tick, some safely, some not so much.
There’s one way to remove a tick that seems to stand above the rest, using the ingenious O’tom Tick Twister.
The O’tom is a little plastic tool that’s essentially I mini crowbar that hooks near the head, not the abdomen reducing the risk of transmitting disease like Lyme disease. However, instead of prying, you simply twist the tool which spins the jagged teeth out like a screw.
To see how the O’tom Tick Removal tool works, watch the video below: