Stay Safe This Tick Season: Protect Yourself from Bites and Diseases

It is tick season. National reporting is showing this as the most active tick season ever with more emergency room visits for tick related attachments and disease.

Ticks carry a host of bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases. They are able to transmit those diseases to people as they attach and burrow into skin. It typically takes at least 24 hours from the time a tick attaches to a person until they are able to transmit a disease. This gives us an opportunity to avoid tick born illness by doing a daily skin check for ticks. They are notorious for hiding in skin creases and skin folds, so a thorough check is important.

You should immediately remove any tick you find. This is easily done with a tweezer, pulling the tick straight out, without a twisting motion. Applying Vaseline, alcohol or other agents is not recommended. If you are not sure if you removed all of the tick or if you have any other issues you should contact your primary healthcare provider.

Ticks can transmit Lymes Disease, Alph-Gal syndrome, Ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted fever and a variety of other less common diseases. Fortunately, only a very small portion of ticks will transmit diseases (less than 3%) Importantly, if you have had a tick attachment and develop a fever, rash or other symptoms you should be seen by your healthcare provider promptly. Most of the tick born diseases are easily treated with antibiotics. In some cases, a prophylactic treatment may be indicated even in advance of any symptoms.

As in most cases, prevention is better than treatment. The best prevention is avoiding tick attachment. This can be done by wearing as much covering clothes as possible when walking in tick infested areas such as woods and fields. Clothing can be treated with permethrin for further protection and you can use FDA approved insect repellants topically.