01-04-2025
Tick season has started. These 2 ticks can make you very sick.
Tick season has started. These 2 ticks can make you very sick.
Show Caption
Hide Caption
Are you risking Lyme disease? Here's how to remove ticks
Are you removing ticks correctly? Here's everything you need to know about ticks and how you can combat Lyme disease.
Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
University of Rhode Island professor Thomas Mather said that tick sightings have increased in the last two weeks.
Mather said it's currently too early yet to tell how bad tick season will be. But he did point to an alarming trend: an uptick in lone star ticks, which can cause an allergy to red meat.
To protect yourself from ticks, wear tight clothing coated with tick repellent, and tuck in your shirt and do tick checks after possible exposure.
Spring may have only just started showing signs of life in northern parts of the country, but tick season has already begun.
Nationwide, ticks can be active year-round as long as the temperature is above freezing, but ticks are most active in the warmer months of spring, summer, and early fall, according to the National Forest Foundation.
In New England, home of the dreaded Lyme disease, Thomas Mather, the director of the University of Rhode Island Center for Vector-Borne Disease and its TickEncounter Resource Center, saw an uptick in tick sightings in late March.
More on ticks: What types live in your area and how to keep them under control
Mather said it's currently too early yet to tell how bad tick season will be. But he did point to an alarming trend: an uptick in lone star ticks, which can cause an allergy to red meat.
Here's what to look out for this tick season.
What ticks to look out for
One of the primary tick species to be wary of in the U.S. is the black-legged tick, also called the deer tick or the bear tick. This type of tick carries Lyme disease, an illness that can cause a rash, flu-like symptoms, and joint pain.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the black-legged tick is mainly found in the eastern half of the U.S., along with the Midwest.
In the Northeast, Mather stressed that there's also been an 'alarming' increase in lone star ticks in southern New England areas of Rhode Island and southeast Massachusetts, especially along the coast.
Ten years ago, the ratio of black legged ticks to lone star ticks was 50 to one. Now, Mather said, the ratio has narrowed to three to one, based on data from TickEncounter.
Lone star ticks, named for a silvery-white, star-shaped spot on their backs, are particularly concerning because their bites have been associated with some people developing a red meat allergy, called alpha-gal syndrome.
Mather said that some people who have developed this allergy from a lone star tick bite have had conditions from gastric distress to spots on their skin to, in the most severe situations, anaphylaxis from eating red meat.
He said it's important for folks to get familiar with lone star ticks and be able to identify both types of ticks. (People can submit pictures of ticks they spot to TickSpotter.)
Both ticks, and their diseases, are worth avoiding.
'I don't know what's worse: you can take doxycycline for Lyme disease, but you can't take anything to if you're allergic to red meat, you just can't eat red meat,' said Mather.
How bad is tick season going to be?
While there aren't good predictors for the severity of this year's tick season yet, Mather said, one determination will be how dry it is in late May and early June.
This is because young ticks are more sensitive to drying out.
'If we have forest fire like conditions at that time because it's dry already in the woods, then those ticks will die at a faster rate than if we have humid conditions,' Mather said.
However, ticks don't all die in the winter. Adult ticks left over from last fall are emerging now as it's gotten warmer.
How to protect yourself and your pet from ticks
Mather said that if you stopped treating your pet for ticks over the winter, you should definitely start again now.
People should also do daily tick checks and make sure they wear clothing that protects them from the insects. Ticks often latch around knee height and crawl up, attach onto the back of one's arm (if they are wearing short sleeve shirts), or get stuck around bra straps.
Mather suggested following the 'three T's:' wear clothing treated with permethrin, a tick repellent spray, wear tight clothing that ticks can't crawl underneath, and tuck your shirt in.
People should be taking these precautions no matter how bad tick season is forecasted to be, said Sam Telford, a professor of infectious diseases and global health at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in North Grafton, Massachusetts.
'If the forecast is that there will be few ticks, or just normal numbers...I certainly would not want people to think that they should not take precautions,' Telford wrote in an email. 'People should take precautions (repellent, permethrin treated clothing particularly socks, showers, tick checks, seeking medical advice for any unexplained fever or rash) EVERY SINGLE DAY of tick season when they are in circumstances where they might be exposed.'
