How to protect yourself from ticks—and what to do if you're bitten

As people get ready to enjoy the outdoors this summer, they should remember they won’t be the only ones taking advantage of the warm weather. Warmer springs and longer summers mean a longer tick season. The critters are already appearing in some parts of the country, and by May, tick season is typically in full swing, according to Thomas Daniels, co-director of the Vector Ecology Lab at the Lewis Calder Center, Fordham's Biological Field Station in Armonk, New York.

“Right now, we’re seeing the leftover adults that managed to make it through the winter, and things are warming up pretty quickly, so I’m anticipating that we’re going to start seeing the nymphal stage pretty soon,” Daniels said. “Once the nymphs come up, that’s the stage we really get concerned about.”

(What's a ghost moose? How ticks are killing an iconic animal)

The best way to avoid a tick-borne disease is, obviously, not to get bitten by a tick. “When you’re out in the wild and you see those signs that say, ‘Don’t feed the animals,’ they mean don’t feed the bear and rodents, but I think that should apply to the invertebrates too,” Lyric Bartholomay, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says. “We should just really try not to feed the bloodsuckers either.”

Here’s what to know to protect yourself from ticks and what to do if you’re bit.

How can you protect yourself from ticks?

The two keys are wearing the right clothes and using repellent when in areas with ticks. 

“If you’re walking through grassy or forested areas, wear long pants and long sleeve shirts, and then you check your clothes and skin for ticks when you come back,” Timothy Brewer, an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at the University of California Los Angeles says.

Bartholomay also recommends wearing light-colored clothing so it’s easier to see ticks, and tucking your pants into your socks so they can’t crawl up your pant leg. 

“I think there’s a little bit of a fear that ticks are going to drop out of the trees, and that’s not really how ticks work most of the time,” says Michael Reiskind, an entomologist at North Carolina State University.  

Since they’re usually looking for smaller animals, they’re often latching on somewhere from the waist down and then crawling up. A common behavior is “questing,” where ticks climb to the top of a blade of grass and wait there with their front legs extended, ready to latch on when a host passes.

Use a repellent that says it repels ticks, which includes those containing DEET. The percentage of DEET determines how long it lasts, so if you’ll only be in ticks’ home for an hour or so, a lower percentage is fine, Reiskind says. If you’ll be out longer, up to 25 percent is wise, or re-apply the repellent. 

If you’re frequently outside, consider treating your clothing with the insecticide permethrin to repel ticks, advises Daniels. Then, “check yourself as soon as you come in from outdoors,” he says. While it usually takes 24 to 48 hours for a tick to transmit Lyme disease, other diseases, such as anaplasmosis and babesiosis can be transmitted sooner. “The rates of those diseases are a lot lower, but they can make you sicker,” he says. 

When checking yourself for ticks, look around your ankles or legs if you’ve been out a short time, Reiskind said. But if you’ve been out for several hours or few days, they could have migrated anywhere, so have a friend or family member check your back and hairline as well. Some of the more common places to find ticks are in the groin, armpits, and hairline, Daniels says.

What do you do if you find a tick on yourself?

You should remove the tick, but be sure to remove the whole organism, including the mouthparts. Use tweezers to get a firm grip where it’s attached and firmly but steadily pull upward without jerking. Never crush a tick, and don’t grab the tick by the midsection or you risk squeezing its contents back into your body, Bartholomay said. She also said never to use Vaseline or a match, or any item mentioned in other old wives’ tales to remove a tick.

The CDC offers step-by-step instructions, including a Tick Bite Guide that walks you through removing a tick and seeking care. Afterward, clean the bite area and your hands with rubbing alcohol or soap and water, the CDC recommends.

How do you know you’ve been bitten by a tick?

There’s unfortunately no way to easily tell a tick bite from another critter’s bite, such as a spider or mosquito bite, Reiskind says.

“The only way you really know if you’ve been bitten by a tick is if you find the tick embedded in you, in the act of biting you,” he explains.

But ticks don’t just bite and run. They settle in to get their fill of blood, and adults stay on for a day or two before becoming fully engorged, so many people find the tick before it drops off. Nymphs are much smaller—the size of a poppyseed—so they’re harder to see and may drop off before you ever see them.

A tick bite is usually a red raised bump like a nasty mosquito bite. If a rash is present, you’ve developed an infection, though it’s not possible to tell what kind by the rash alone. The distinctive bull’s eye rash many people associate with Lyme disease can be caused by other tick-borne pathogens, Reiskind says, and it’s still possible you’ve contracted a disease if the rash looks different or if there’s no rash at all.

What should you do if you’ve been bitten by a tick, or suspect a tick-borne disease?

Symptoms of a tick-borne disease include fever, headaches, joint aches and pains, and a rash, Timothy Flanigan, an infectious disease physician at Brown University, says. If you develop a fever, malaise, or a rash after being in an area where ticks are active, Flanigan and Brewer recommend getting evaluated at your primary care doctor or an urgent care clinic.

“As long as you’re not critically ill, you probably don’t have to go to a hospital emergency room,” Brewer said. Although you can be tested for tick-borne diseases, the tests detect antibodies, which can take a few weeks to show up in your blood, he says. “If we have a reasonable suspicion for tick-borne infection, we would just go ahead and treat it. We wouldn’t wait for the test to come back.”

If you find an engorged tick on your body that’s clearly been there a while, you’re at higher risk for a disease. If it’s a blacklegged tick, you can see a doctor for doxycycline, an antibiotic which can help prevent Lyme disease from developing or treat it after it develops, Brewer and Flanigan say. Many other tick-borne diseases caused by bacteria are treated with doxycycline as well, but parasitic diseases, such as babesiosis, may require a different remedy, and viral disease, such as the Powassan virus or Heartland virus, don’t have any treatments other than supportive care. 

If you keep the tick after removing it, Flanigan noted that several companies will test it for pathogens. Though, the CDC doesn’t recommend these testing services since evidence of a pathogen doesn’t guarantee you were infected. But some people want to know what their risk is, and if symptoms do develop, you can tell your doctor what the results are.

Where in the U.S. are hotspots for ticks and tick-borne diseases? 

Ticks are found everywhere across the U.S., though “different geographic parts of the country have a different geographic pattern of disease,” Flanigan says. He recommends the CDC’s website on ticks to understand diseasesticks carry and where each type is found. 

The blacklegged tick, which transmits Lyme disease, has historically been a problem mostly in the northeastern U.S., but it’s been spreading south and west and now lives throughout the whole eastern half of the country, with increasing cases in the upper Midwest and the mid-Atlantic states.

(Lyme disease is spreading fast—but a vaccine may be on the way.)

But plenty of other types of ticks carry different diseases. Ehrlichiosis is found throughout the southeastern and south-central U.S. as far west as Texas, and the Rocky Mountain wood tick— which can transmit Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Colorado tick fever, and tularemia — is found throughout the West and Pacific Northwest. Babesiosis occurs most frequently in the Northeast and upper Midwest, but cases have occurred throughout other U.S. regions, including the West Coast. 

It’s also important to know that tick ranges are expanding, Daniels says. 

“What people need to keep in mind is that the situation is dynamic—it’s always changing,” he says. Rising temperatures are just one part of the expansion, with ticks like lone star tick making its way from the southeastern U.S. into northeastern states as those areas get warmer. The Asian longhorn tick, which is currently a threat primarily to livestock rather than people, has also been expanding its range outward since its discovery in the U.S. in 2017.

“You may have grown up in an area where ticks were not a problem, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be in five years or two years or next week,” Daniels says.

So, no matter where you are this summer, be vigilant: check your body for ticks, use a repellant, and wear appropriate clothing. And, if you are bitten, don’t panic.