Lyme: How To Make A Poultice To Extract Embedded Tick Head

In this video, I’m teaching you how to make a clay poultice that can be applied to help your body expel a tick head.

Tick removal might leave the head embedded under the skin, causing irritation. This clay poultice can be used safely to reduce irritation and draw out the head.


TRANSCRIPT

Hi! Dr. Jill Crista here. Helping you with tick removal and protecting you from Lyme disease. 

If you’ve watched my videos with the steps of what to do if you find a tick, this is the part about if you didn’t get the tick all the way out of the skin, maybe a part was left, the head was left. This is how to make the poultice that I talk about.

All you have to do is slather this poultice on a bandaid and these are the things that you need. You need calendula tincture. This is green clay, any green clay will work, you don’t have to spend money on the fancy stuff for facials or anything. A little bit of water and some kind of mixing bowl. You don’t want to touch any of this because you don’t want to get your little hand beasties on an already compromised area.

So we’ll start by just putting a little green clay in the mixing bowl. And it takes very little. So I’m doing maybe like a full teaspoon of green clay. That’s how much I’m doing. And this will make plenty. And then you squeeze two dropper-fulls —one to two—of the calendula tincture in there. The calendula helps heal the skin and the alcohol will help a little bit if there’s anything that got transmitted in that bite. If this alone doesn’t make a good paste, that’s what the water is for. Go slowly though. You can over water green clay really easily. So I mixed this and it’s still pretty dry so I’m going to add a clean teaspoon of water. Like I said, start with the clay, go real light on your fluids and take it little bits at a time because you want this green clay to be thirsty. Well, so this is a good example. Now it’s a little too soupy. It’s not going to be thirsty enough to soak out that head. So now I’m in this game of I’ve got to go back to my green clay. This will probably happen to you. It happens to me all the time. And put a little more of the clay in there. This is like cooking. Making poultices is like cooking. 

Alright. So then you get your clay mixed up until it’s a pretty good paste consistency. And I can smear it. And you put that on a bandaid. So here’s a standard bandaid. Try not to touch any of the parts that are going to attach to the skin. You can touch the sticky part. And you take your green clay poultice and you just smoosh it on that bandaid. And because you have an alcohol-based tincture, you can set that right on the bite or the affected area.

So let’s pretend that I had a bite on the back of my hand. I just put that bandaid right on and you let that sit for two to four hours. Take it off. See if that head was able to be dislodged by your skin. If not, make another batch and reapply.

Okay. Hope this helps.


This content is health information and not intended as personal medical advice. Viewing will not establish a doctor-patient relationship. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or medical condition. The information discussed is not intended to replace the advice of your healthcare provider. Reliance on information provided by Dr. Jill Crista, employees, or others appearing at the invitation of Dr. Crista is solely at your own risk.