YouTubeMove aside pimple porn – tick removing porn is here and it’s here to stay. However that isn’t to say that it’s not incredibly dangerous.
In the past month the below video was posted to Facebook and has since garnered up a collosal 30 million views – it’s easy to see why.
The short clip shows a woman with a tick clearly visible burrowing into the skin on what appears to be her arm.
She then coats the tiny hole in peppermint oil and within 20 seconds the tick has forced its way back out, according to the Daily Mail.
Despite the tick coming out entirely in one piece, meaning that the mouth parts, which put people at risk of infectious diseases, had left the body too, a tick expert has warned others never to try the same technique.
Dr Neeta Connally, assistant professor of Biology at Western Connecticut State University, explained that drowning a tick in oils such as peppermint can do far more bad than good.
She explained that the oil could easily aggrivate the tick – prompting them to spread disease quicker than usual.
More specifically, Dr Connally said:
We don’t want to agitate the tick at all because many carry all sorts of diseases.
Those are actually salivated into the body when the tick attaches and so we don’t want to agitate the tick in any way that is going to make it salivate more and thereby be more likely to transmit anything into you that may make you sick.
Whilst this method may cause the tick to drop off, it may also increase the risk of disease-causing organisms entering the bloodstream of the person or animal the tick is attached to.
Typically a tick can cause anything from Lyme disease to spotted fever – and in extreme cases can even result in abscesses and even septicemia.
If you’ve got a tick you want removing then the safest method of action is heading to your local GP.
