May is Lyme Disease Awareness month, and the start of summer travel season is a good time to protect yourself from ticks that transmit the disease.
Lyme disease has become one of the fastest-growing epidemics to date. The CDC says there are about 300,000 new cases in the U.S. per year. Experts at the University of Rhode Island TickEncounter Resource Center are hearing from people that ticks seem to be more abundant than in the past. This year’s increase may be related to moist weather and an abundance of tick hosts last year. May and June are peak season for ticks.
People’s tick encounter risk stays high as outdoor activities increase in July.
“Our field surveys are indicating that nymph-stage blacklegged ticks loaded with Lyme disease are at near record levels in Rhode Island so far this spring”, says Dr. Tom Mather, professor of Public Health Entomology at URI.
Following are a few key tips for protection.
• Yard: Ticks live where yards border wooded areas, or anywhere shaded with leaves and high humidity. Place a layer of wood chips between your grass yard and the woods edge. Ticks are attracted to the wood chips because of the shade and moisture it provides.
• Tick checks: Check yourself, children and pets and carefully remove any ticks. Ticks are easier to find on light-colored clothing.
• Identify/avoid tick habitats: Avoiding tick habitats can be difficult, but when you go on a hike, bike ride, or walk try to remain in the center of a trail to minimize your exposure. Avoid sitting on the ground, woodpiles or fallen logs, where ticks love to live.
• Personal protection: Wear tick-repellent clothing. Insect Shield Repellent Apparel is EPA registered to repel ticks and other potentially dangerous insects. The repellency is odorless, invisible and long-lasting. Insect Shield apparel is available for adults, kids and even your dog.
• Remove ticks safely: To safely remove attached ticks, first disinfect the area with an alcohol swab. Next, using pointy tweezers, grab the tick head as close to the skin as possible and pull straight out. Remember to disinfect the bite site again after removing the tick.
Visit tickencounter.org for more.
Top 10 tick facts
1. Ticks crawl up; they don’t jump, fly or drop from trees. If you find one, it likely latched onto your foot or leg and crawled up your body.
2. All ticks come in small, medium and large sizes.
3. Ticks can be active even in the winter. Deer ticks in particular are not killed by freezing temperatures, and will be active any day that the ground is not snow-covered or frozen.
4. Ticks carry disease-causing microbes. Scientists are finding an increasing list of disease-causing microbes transmitted by these ticks: Lyme disease bacteria, Babesia protozoa, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, and other rickettsia, even encephalitis-causing viruses, and possibly Bartonella bacteria.
5. Only deer ticks transmit Lyme disease bacteria. The only way to get Lyme disease is by being bitten by a deer tick or one of its cousins.
6. For most tick-borne diseases, you have at least 24 hours to find and remove a feeding tick before it transmits infection. Even a quick daily tick check at bath time can be helpful in finding and removing attached ticks before they can transmit infection.
7. Deer tick nymphs look like a poppy seed on your skin And with about one out of four nymphal deer ticks carrying the Lyme disease spirochete and other nasty germs in the northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and upper mid-western U.S., it’s important to know what you’re looking for. They’re easy to miss, their bites are generally painless, and they have a habit of climbing up under clothing and biting in hard-to-see places.
8. The easiest and safest way to remove a tick is with a pointy tweezer. Grab next to the skin and pull the tick out like a splinter.
9. Clothing with built-in Insect Shield tick repellent (insectshield.com/lifestyle) is best for preventing tick bites.
10. Tick bites and tick-borne diseases are preventable. Reduce tick abundance in your yard, treat pets every month, wear tick-repellent clothing and get into a habit of doing a quick body scan every day.