You Shouldn't Salt a Leech That's Sucking Your Blood (2019)
Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago
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LeechesOutdoor SafetyParasites
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Leeches
Outdoor Safety
Parasites
The article discusses why salting a leech that's sucking your blood is not recommended, and the discussion revolves around alternative methods for removing leeches and other parasites.
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> Instead, he recommends using a fingernail or a credit card to break the seal between the leech's mouth and your skin quickly
Far easier said than done. If it were that easy why even go for the salt?
> Another option is to wait until the leech is done feeding so it will fall off on its own
I'm just gonna wait 30+ minutes with a leech on me? no thanks
They don't lay eggs, they don't infest you. They just suck blood and are gone.
But just nitpicking on your example. I had leeches involuntarily on me for real where I just ripped them off and I don't think I would ever considering letting them suck till they are full.
I think I could tolerate a medical leech if required. I wouldn’t love it, but you gotta do what you’ve gotta do. I would be less tolerant of one randomly taking a meal from my leg.
Bit of a difference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPSEw8XnjH8
Now that I think about it, I have no idea what hydrogen peroxide does to spiderweb material. It seems like the kind of thing one might learn during a childhood phase of mostly-unthinking cruelty to animals.
I can't even imagine how to do that correctly when I'm sitting in an air-conditioned room so the chance I'll able to "break the seal" in the wild as the expert suggests is around zero. Especially the article says one has to do it "quickly" so it doesn't have time to vomit blood back into me.
P.S.: "Would you rather fight one lamprey-sized leech, or 400 leech-sized lampreys?"
Removing the terrestrial leeches that live near me in Australia is easy. Put the edge of a credit card a few cm away, resting against your skin at a slight angle, and then quickly scrape the leech away like you're scraping paint.
I think it's more gross to pluck it out. Hence why people just pour salt on it or let it finish feeding maybe? Leeches can be really viscerally repulsive to look at and touch
How did you get them off?
"For ticks that can be seen (adult ticks), freeze the tick to kill it where it is"
"For ticks that can hardly be seen – use permethrin cream to kill the tick where it is"
You can buy tick freezing spray, which is used in a similar way to wart freezing spray.
[1] https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-11/manage...
Edit: Here is the research on which the medical advice is based. Dated 2019 by Australian researchers, so the updated practise might not be widely deployed outside Australia.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6494660/
Edit: A comprehensive resource on tick treatment, including justification for the freezing advice.
https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-01/preven...
Edit: and finally, the ABC Catalyst video segment demonstrating the technique.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j77nrTVM_j8
Maybe they took the adage literally, and tried to walk in his shoes.
A quick (horrified) web search suggests that there are no leech species that burrow into flesh.
I don't know if I'd approach within 30 feet of water after your experience! :)
Not a fan of them but where I live now they don't exist
The risk of getting a disease is apparently higher if you handle them that way, essentially making it their revenge.
Now that I know it is literal leeches and that the options are scraping them off or waiting for them to finish, avoiding areas with leeches feels like the move.
You may be surprised at how hard the tick holds on, but work slowly until it pops off, preferably into a container that you can put in the freezer.
Etick.ca can be used to identify and report the tick.
My cat has brought in three ticks this spring and summer that I found crawling about while he was on my lap. Cats grooming themselves seem to prevent ticks from embedding.
Doctors can prescribe doxycycline as a precaution.
I knew about Lyme and the meat-allergy inducing ticks, but not this one. Yikes.
Nicotine is an insecticide so I can see it repelling leeches.
https://nymag.com/vindicated/2016/11/how-leeches-made-their-...