What Are the Treatments for Seed Tick Bites?

Seed ticks are the larval form of ticks. Seed ticks are smaller than adult ticks and have six legs instead of eight. Like adult ticks, seed ticks attach to humans to feed on their blood. Seed ticks can pass diseases to their human hosts. These diseases must be treated with antibiotics.

Removing Seed Ticks

• If you find a seed tick attached to you, do not assume it has infected you. Most seed ticks do not carry diseases, and those that do often take up to four hours to transmit the disease to a host. Typically, the only treatment necessary for a seed tick bite is the removal of the seed tick.

  To remove a seed tick, cover the area of your skin that it is attached to with a piece of masking tape. The tick should stick to the tape, and as you gently pull the tape from your skin, the seed tick will come with it. Sometimes the tick has too firm a grasp for the masking tape to remove it. In this case, you must purchase body lice shampoo, which works to remove seed ticks.

  Do not attempt to remove a seed tick with tweezers like an adult tick, because it is too small, and you can accidentally squeeze part of the tick into your body. Trying to remove it with your fingernails leads to the same problem. You should also not use a flame or any creams to remove seed ticks, as these often only make the tick more difficult to remove.

Treating Infections

• You do not need to see a doctor for every seed tick bite, because most bites do not harm you significantly, but you should monitor your health after a tick bite. If any health problems develop in the following two months, you should contact a doctor. Watch for fevers, muscle aches and rashes, in particular. Rashes may occur at the site of the seed tick bite, but they sometimes occur elsewhere. Describe your symptoms to your doctor and explain that you were bitten by a seed tick. He will be able to tell you whether or not you should schedule an appointment to see him.

  If you have been infected by the seed tick, you most likely have Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme disease or tularemia. All three of these diseases are treated by antibiotics, and your doctor will help you decide which antibiotic is best. Antibiotic treatment works best when begun soon after identifying the disease, so call your doctor as soon as you suspect that you may have been infected. You can typically cure the diseases easily when you treat them early.