How to Identify the Symptoms of a Tick Bite

Ticks usually cause no pain when they bite and suck blood. If you notice that the bitten spot looks like a black mole that suddenly appeared, or that there is obvious redness and swelling around the bite, or that the skin surface at the bite feels hard to the touch, it means you have been bitten by a tick. After discovering the bite, find a way to remove the tick, then disinfect the area with iodine tincture or alcohol. If symptoms such as fever, inflammation, ulceration at the bite site, or erythema appear, seek medical attention promptly.

1. What Are Ticks?

Ticks are also called wall ticks, flat ticks, dog beans, grass ticks, cattle ticks, and so on. They are mainly divided into two types: hard ticks and soft ticks. Hard ticks are mostly found in open natural environments, such as forests, shrublands, grasslands, and semi-desert areas; soft ticks mostly live in livestock sheds, wild animal caves, bird nests, and cracks in human dwellings.

Ticks like to suck blood. Larvae, nymphs, and both female and male adults all suck blood. Hard ticks mostly attack hosts during the day, and their blood-sucking time is relatively long, generally requiring several days; soft ticks mostly attack hosts at night, and their blood-sucking time is relatively short, generally from several minutes to 1 hour. When not sucking blood, the small ones are only as big as a shriveled mung bean, and some are extremely thin, like a grain of rice; after being full of blood, some are as plump as a soybean, and the large ones can reach the size of a fingernail.

2. How to Identify a Tick Bite?

1. A black mole: After a tick bites into human skin, it will keep biting tightly and not let go, and may even bite into the dermis and subcutaneous tissue, with only a black rear end exposed outside the skin, looking just like a black mole that has grown there.

2. Obvious redness and swelling: Ticks bite and devour the skin and blood, and obvious redness and swelling will appear around the bite.

3. Hard texture: Ticks have a beetle-like nature, and the skin surface at the bite feels hard to the touch.

3. What to Do After Being Bitten by a Tick?

First, apply alcohol to the tick's body to make the tick's head relax or die, then remove the tick with pointed tweezers, or gently burn the part of the tick exposed outside the body with a cigarette butt or incense tip so that its head slowly withdraws on its own. Do not pull forcefully, so as to avoid injuring the skin or leaving the tick's head inside the skin.

Then, disinfect the area with iodine tincture or alcohol. If symptoms such as fever, inflammation, ulceration at the bite site, or erythema appear, seek medical attention promptly to diagnose whether you have contracted a tick-borne disease.