Tick pulled off of a two year old?

[Toposlonoshlep]

Hi wise mamas,

Went hiking for mother's day....Bathed my two year-old that evening and checked body for ticks (we were hiking through some brush for a while)...Didn't see any...

Now, tonight, while I was making dinner, he pulled on his ear and told me his ear hurts. I folded the top down and discovered a tick. I was able to pull it out quite easily with tweezers, head and all. It kicked and protested when I put some olive oil on it. It didn't look enlarged to me at all, so I am thinking it wasn't attached that long. 

However, if he was to get bitten when we got to the hiking trail (around 8am on Mothers Day), It has been more than 24 hours.

Do I need to take him to the ped? Should I bring the tick? Do I need to just watch for symptoms of Lyme? What to do?

Thanks for any help!

[Marnica]

I would def have the tick tested. You need to know for sure. I would call the ped and ask how to proceed in terms of testing the tick. Not much you can do until it is tested. I know some docs start abx "in case". Personally I would never do this as abx have their own set of problems and do wreck the gut of a 2 year old "in case" seems reckless to me.

[MAMom]

That happened with my DS twice, and we did have the ticks tested for Lyme for our piece of mind.  It wasn't inexpensive, but we were relieved that it came back negative.

Our ped actually didn't know how/where to send the tick for testing, so we had to do the research ourselves, but the info was quite easy to find online (this was many years ago so I don't have it still, otherwise I would post it!)

[Marnica]

I'm pretty sure most local health departments do this testing - at least they do where I live.