My cat has come back after being missing for 5 days. He has a weird white lump on his jaw which I think is a tick. I can't get him to the vet until about 5pm tomorrow. Will he be ok till then?

Anyone have any tips? We're worried about removing it and I'm probably freaked out it'll latch onto me argh.

I'm so glad your cat has come back ~ what a relief.

The lump could be a tick, they're usually greyish in colour. It won't do your cat any harm till tomorrow & the vet will probably remove it for you. It's a good idea to get your cat checked out by the vet anyway as he's been away for a few days. Don't try to remove the tick yourself unless you've got tick removers as there's a danger you could leave the head parts buried in the cat & it could become infected. But the tick won't latch onto you.

Thats good to know! I feel mean to my cat, I'm dead weirded out by bugs and things like that and I'm finding it really hard to snuggle with him. I want to so bad coz I've missed him and he's desperate for love from me but it's just so icky.

Don't worry about the tick & give your cat lots of cuddles ~ he'll need it after his adventures! You can get Frontline Combi from the vet that will kill ticks but it doesn;t stop the ticks from latching on it will just kill them after about 48 hours. You may find the tick drops off anyway if its had a good feed ~ just watch out for a pea-sized greyish ball rolling round the floor! No need to be too squeamish ~ ticks can't move very fast, if at all.

I'd already used frontline, but I'm not sure if it's one for ticks. I'll have to ring my Mum and check as she sent me her spare ones.

Luckily I've got a wood floor, so hopefully if it has fallen off I'll be able to see it. It still grosses me out though, boyfriend is on cat loving duty hehe

My Sister has moved to Canada and now lives near a forest. Apparently they have a tick season where the whole family has to check each other for ticks. They've all had then. Gross!

Your cat will be fine. Give him and his new friend a cuddle.

cousin in greece, has to check herself over and her dog every time they go for a walk in the olive groves

but the tick probably will fall off by tomorrow if it's a good size now
if it does it won;t be very mobile, so hopefully you should see it, unlike the one we had on jake as a pup (we didn;t notice it until it was huge so decided to let it just drop off)
my sister stood on it >_< that was pleasant.

Ticks before they engorge can move surprisingly fast and certainly can and do latch on to people, as others here have testified, with a real risk of passing on disease such as Lyme's disease if sheep or deer ticks.
Foreign ticks carry other diseases which is why flea and tick treatment 24-48 hours prior to coming back into Britain on a pet passport is mandatory, to protect humans as well as other pets.
However the ticks that latch on tend to be those that are still free-moving and haven't yet found a host.
Once they do latch on they tend to stay on about 10 days growing rapidly as they fill up with blood after which they drop off.
Unless removed properly they can leave ttheir embedded mouthparts behind and cause abcesses and further disease as they disgorge stomach contents into their host.
All frontline will kill ticks so long as you have the right size/dosage for your dog but antibiotic cover from the vet is still a good idea after a tick bite to help guard against infection.

Don't stand on it by accident if it drops off!!

No, stand on it deliberately before the nasty little s*d disappears off anywhere!

My dogs gets them some times and i am now an expert at removing them, (not spending £50 for a visit to the vets pay them enough as it is) Any good pet shop will have tick removers plus i use frontline but the dogs still get them.

I go to oklahoma every year to a ranch and have to check for ticks every day, they are small red ones and did do my head in the first time i found one, even brought one back to the UK last time i was there

I have a little gadget from the vet for pulling them out. You have to twist them out you see, or their little bodies will stay in there.

I usually drop a bit of alcohol on it first, to confuse it. I don't know if that makes a difference, but I have always managed to get the whole thing.

Doing it yourself will be much cheaper than booking a vet appointment. If you google ticks, you'll find images to compare it to to see if that's what he really has.