What is the right way to remove a leech?

People have cooked up all sorts of ways to remove leeches over the years, but the simplest is still the most effective. Discover how to safely detach a leech using your hands in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com
where smart happens. There's a new show on Discovery Channel
called Monsters Inside Me, and it fits perfectly with today's question,
what is the right way to remove a leech? In
many parts of the world, leeches are surprisingly common. You

(00:21):
can find them in Amazon jungle, sure, but you can
also find them in the local lake. They can be
found swimming in water or crawling on land. Leeches are
also voracious feeders. They quickly attach and start sucking. They
fall off on their own eventually once they get and gorged.
But since some leeches can be as big as your finger,

(00:43):
you may not want to wait that long. So what
is the right way to remove them? There are all
sorts of home remedies for leech removal. You'll hear things
like burning them off with cigarettes and matches, poisoning them
with bug spraying insecticides, irritating them with salt or so.
These efforts often backfire and make a mess. In the

(01:04):
worst case scenario, the leach forces its stomach contents back
into your wound and it causes a bad infection. The
right way to do it is to grab the leech
properly and detach it. A leech holds onto you with
rows of tiny teeth. Your job is to rip the
teeth away from your skin. It won't hurt that much

(01:26):
because the leach has injected a numbing agent already. Basically,
you need to get your fingernail underneath the leach and
up as close to the mouth as you can, and
then lifted off. You don't want to grab the leech
in the middle and pull because that part of the
body is soft and flexible, like an earthworm or a slug.
You won't be able to get a grip or to

(01:46):
pull it without stretching or splitting the leach. You want
to get right up next to the mouth where you
have some leverage and yank. You'll be left with a small,
bloody hole that may continue leaking because of the anticoagulant
that leeches use. Apply a disinfectant in a sterile dressing
and proceed with your day. If you enjoy parasites like leeches,

(02:08):
be sure to check out Monsters Inside Me on the
Discovery Channel Wednesdays at nine pm. Do you have any
ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send
me an email at podcast at how Stuff Works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, go
to how stuff works dot com and be sure to
check out the brain stuff blog on the how stuff

(02:30):
works dot com home page