Tick risks vary by region. Here's where diseases have spread and how to stay safe

Ticks tin transportation more than a dozen different disease-causing agents, including toxins, allergens, bacteria, parasites and viruses. Patrick Pleul/dpa/picture alliance/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption

Patrick Pleul/dpa/picture alliance/Getty Images

There are early signs that it could beryllium a bad twelvemonth for tick bites. In May, nan complaint of group seeking emergency attraction for tick bites was nan highest it's been since 2019, according to information from nan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If you get a tick bite, you're not alone: They hap successful every U.S. state, and immoderate 31 cardinal people get tick bites each year.

Not each tick wound yields disease, since not each tick carries pathogens aliases bites agelong capable to transmit them. Still, most reported cases of vector-borne illness (including mosquitoes) travel from ticks, which tin transportation pathogens pinch unspeakable consequences.

Lyme illness is nan astir communal tick-borne illness successful nan U.S., estimated to impact much than 470,000 people each year.

"But ticks tin really expose group successful nan U.S. to more than a dozen different disease-causing agents," including toxins, allergens, bacteria, parasites and viruses, says Alison Hinckley, an epidemiologist astatine nan CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases. "The illnesses tin scope from mild to life-threatening," Hinckley adds.

Here are facts to cognize astir these biting critters and tips to enactment safe.

Ticks are slow threats, truthful punctual action cuts your risk

With ticks — dissimilar mosquitoes pinch their one-and-done sting — location are mostly aggregate opportunities to trim your risks. That's because astir kinds of ticks request to crawl onto your body, latch into nan tegument and, successful galore cases, provender for a while — from respective hours to respective days — earlier they get you sick.

An big cervid tick. In immoderate parts of nan U.S., this type of tick often carries germs that causes Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi. Bill Davis/Newsday/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption

Bill Davis/Newsday/Getty Images

"The longer a tick is attached, nan much apt it is to person spit an infectious dose of immoderate germ it mightiness beryllium carrying into you," says Thomas Mather, head of nan University of Rhode Island's Center for Vector-Borne Disease and laminitis of its TickEncounter Resource Center.

Ticks, pinch their mini crawling legs, don't spell very acold connected their own, truthful they're often picked up extracurricular aliases brought into surviving spaces connected animals, whether they beryllium pests aliases pets. So, if you're spending clip outside, travel this guidance from CDC experts:

• Do observant and predominant tick checks connected yourself and your family members and pets.
• If you find a tick connected you, return it disconnected arsenic soon arsenic you can.
• If you're hiking, it helps to stay successful nan middle of a well-maintained trail, since ticks thin to bent retired successful nan shrubs and foliage astir nan edge.
• Treat outdoor clothing with permethrin, a chemic akin to chrysanthemum extracts that stops ticks from biting. Additionally, dainty your exposed tegument pinch EPA-registered insect repellents containing DEET, picaridin, aliases different progressive ingredients that deter ticks. (Use nan EPA's search tool to find 1 that works.)

Risks disagree successful nan North, South and West

The risks of getting a tick-borne illness for illustration Lyme aliases relapsing fever alteration by region, depending connected what ticks are around, what they're carrying, and really apt they are to travel successful interaction pinch humans.

To spot which tick-borne diseases person been recovered successful your area, you tin cheque historical information (2019-2022) by region on a CDC map, and successful galore cases, authorities and section wellness section websites, says Thomas Hart, an infectious illness microbiologist astatine Johns Hopkins University who studies Lyme disease.

Broadly, nan CDC divides nan state into 3 regions erstwhile it comes to ticks:

North: Tick bites are astir communal successful nan Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Upper Midwest, pinch astir 20% of group getting them each year, and overmuch of nan region is considered to beryllium astatine precocious consequence for Lyme disease, according to research from nan CDC.

The germs that causes Lyme, Borrelia burgdorferi, is nan most communal pathogen carried by cervid ticks successful this region — up to 30% of ticks successful nan nymphal shape and up to 60% of big ticks transportation it, says Rebecca Eisen, a investigation biologist successful nan Division of Vector-borne Diseases astatine nan CDC.

Ticks successful this area transportation different pathogens, but acold little commonly — 2% to 6% of ticks whitethorn beryllium carrying germs that origin anaplasmosis, babesiosis aliases relapsing fever, she says.

South: In nan Central and Southeastern parts of nan U.S. (including Texas), astir 13% of group study getting tick bites. There, ehrlichiosis, spotted fever rickettsioses and nan allergic information alpha-gal syndrome are nan apical concerns.

The somewhat little incidence of tick bites successful Southern states whitethorn beryllium related to how nan tick populations behave, Eisen says. In Northern states, they thin to crawl up to nan aboveground of leafage litter and gangly grasses, while successful Southern states, they enactment person to nan ungraded level, making them little apt to cling onto a quality limb aliases leg. Eisen says these differences are apt driven by genetics, based connected really generations of ticks changed complete time. "I deliberation it's conscionable a usability of what survived," she says.

West: In Western states (including California), tick bites are considerably little common, but they do hap — astir 6% of group study getting them, according to CDC research. Lyme disease, anaplasmosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever are immoderate of nan diseases people get there.

A floor plan from nan CDC's Tickborne Diseases Manual. CDC hide caption

toggle caption

CDC

What to do if you get bitten

If you do get bitten, you should region nan tick correct away. Don't flip it immediately, advises Mather astatine URI, because identifying immoderate cardinal accusation astir nan tick tin thief find your risks. That includes what benignant of tick it is, whether it's successful nan nymph aliases big shape and really agelong it's been feeding connected you.

To fig this out, you tin compare what you find pinch diagrams provided by nan URI's Tick Encounter website. If you get stuck, you tin taxable a clear photograph of your tick from nan top, and Mather and his squad will effort to thief fig it out.

Or return your tick — wrapped successful tape, aliases successful a integrative container — to nan expert if you're seeking aesculapian care. Seeing what type of tick it is and really agelong it's fed connected you tin thief aesculapian providers find if you're astatine consequence of Lyme aliases different diseases, Hinckley says.

But sending them successful for testing isn't each that helpful, according to nan CDC, because nan results often don't lead to actionable advice. If nan tick is affirmative for a pathogen, it doesn't needfully mean you've been infected. And if you do create symptoms of a tick-borne disease, you're amended disconnected seeking aesculapian curen correct distant alternatively of waiting for nan tick testing results.

When to activity aesculapian care

In places wherever Lyme illness is common, uncovering an engorged big cervid tick (like nan ones pictured here) could mean you should activity attraction correct away.

"The only clip you would get an antibiotic, aft a tick wound and earlier immoderate symptoms, would beryllium to forestall Lyme disease," says Hinckley pinch nan CDC. "And successful that case, we urge conscionable a azygous dose."

In astir different cases, you whitethorn beryllium advised to show yourself for symptoms successful nan days and weeks aft nan bite.

"In a batch of cases, if you're seeing thing correct distant aft a tick bite, it could conscionable beryllium a hypersensitivity guidance — a small redness — that doesn't require a sojourn to a wellness attraction provider," Hinckley says. "But if it's a fewer days later and you commencement to acquisition aches and pains, fever, and — for a batch of these different tick borne diseases — a rash tin occur. For those symptoms, seeing a wellness attraction supplier arsenic soon arsenic you tin would beryllium important."

Hinckley recommends telling nan supplier astir your tick bite, your symptoms and wherever you were — nan state, nan region — erstwhile you picked up nan tick. "It tin thief them determine what diseases you mightiness beryllium astatine consequence for," she says.

It's a batch to fig retired connected your own, truthful you tin cheque nan University of Rhode Island's TickEncounter and nan CDC's Tick Bite Bot for thief determining adjacent steps.

Ticks-borne diseases are spreading to caller areas — enactment informed

Ticks and nan diseases they transportation are connected nan rise, and connected nan move. In nan past 20 years, scientists person discovered astatine least 7 caller tick-borne pathogens successful nan U.S., and reported cases of illness person much than doubled, according to a 2024 CDC report.

Changes successful climate, peculiarly warming successful nan Northern Hemisphere, play a large domiciled successful expanding nan areas wherever ticks tin survive, says Nicole Baumgarth, head of Johns Hopkins University's Lyme and Tickborne Diseases Research and Education Institute. So does reforestation, which brings much deer, birds and rodents. "When we unrecorded successful these wooded areas, we are really getting into nan measurement of millions of years of improvement betwixt nan ticks, nan mammals and nan bacterium," she says.

People and their aesculapian providers are besides much alert of ticks successful their areas and nan diseases they carry, which leads to much cases being confirmed, Baumgarth says.

But location are risks coming to caller areas that weren't seen before. Since nan early 1990s, Lyme illness has gone from being "really unknown" to becoming established successful parts of confederate Canada, says Baumgarth.

And nan mid-Atlantic precocious saw its first fatal lawsuit of Heartland Virus. "The truth that we are now seeing these microorganism infections successful areas wherever we haven't seen them earlier is astir apt a extremity of nan iceberg," Baumgarth says, since it apt intends location are much cases that aren't being diagnosed.

Researchers successful nan South and West are besides search soft-tick relapsing fever, a information caused by nan bites of soft-bodied ticks, which deficiency a difficult ammunition and thin to beryllium recovered successful areas wherever bats and rodents live. While conscionable 250 cases were reported to nan CDC from 2012-2021, nan symptoms — precocious fevers, chills, nausea — tin beryllium often misdiagnosed arsenic influenza, COVID-19, moreover malaria, says Job Lopez, a tick interrogator astatine Baylor College of Medicine.