There are early signs that it could be a bad year for tick bites. In May, the rate of people seeking emergency care for tick bites was the highest it's been since 2019, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If you get a tick bite, you're not alone: They happen in every U.S. state, and some 31 million people get tick bites each year.
Not every tick bite yields disease, since not every tick carries pathogens or bites long enough to transmit them. Still, most reported cases of vector-borne disease (including mosquitoes) come from ticks, which can carry pathogens with terrible consequences.
Lyme disease is the most common tick borne disease in the U.S., estimated to affect more than 470,000 people each year.
"But ticks can actually expose people in the U.S. to more than a dozen different disease-causing agents," including toxins, allergens, bacteria, parasites and viruses, says Alison Hinckley, an epidemiologist at the CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases. "The illnesses can range from mild to life-threatening," Hinckley adds.
Here are facts to know about these biting critters and tips to stay safe.
Ticks are slow threats … so prompt action cuts your risk
With ticks – unlike mosquitoes with their one-and-done sting – there are generally multiple opportunities to reduce your risks. That's because most kinds of ticks need to crawl onto your body, latch into the skin and, in many cases, feed awhile – from several hours to several days – before they get you sick.
"The longer a tick is attached, the more likely it is to have spit an infectious dose of whatever germ it might be carrying into you," says Thomas Mather, director of the University of Rhode Island's Center for Vector-Borne Disease and founder of its TickEncounter Resource Center.
Ticks, with their tiny crawling legs, don't go very far on their own – so they're often picked up outside or brought into living spaces on animals, whether they be pests or pets. So, if you're spending time outside, follow this guidance from CDC experts:
- Do careful and frequent tick checks on yourself and your family members and pets.
- If you do find a tick on you, take it off as soon as you can.
- If you're hiking, it helps to stay in the middle of a well-maintained trail, since ticks tend to hang out in the shrubs and foliage around the edge.
- Treat outdoor clothing with permethrin, a chemical similar to chrysanthemum extracts that stops ticks from biting. Additionally, treat your exposed skin with EPA-registered insect repellents containing DEET, picardin, or other active ingredients that deter ticks. (Use the EPA's search tool to find one that works.)
Risks differ in the North, South and West
The risks of getting a tick borne disease like Lyme or relapsing fever vary by region, depending on what ticks are around, what they're carrying, and how likely they are to come in contact with humans.
To see which tick-borne diseases have been found in your area, you can check historic data (2019-2022) by county on a CDC map, and in many cases, state and local health department websites, says Thomas Hart, an infectious disease microbiologist at Johns Hopkins University who studies Lyme disease.
Broadly, the CDC divides the country into three regions when it comes to ticks:
North: Tick bites are most common in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Upper Midwest, with nearly 20% of people getting them each year, and much of the region is considered to be at high-risk for Lyme disease, according to research from CDC.
The bacteria that causes Lyme, Borrelia burgdorferi, is the most common pathogen carried by deer ticks in this region – up to 30% of ticks in the nymphal stage and up to 60% of adult ticks carry it, says Rebecca Eisen, a research biologist in the Division of Vector-borne Diseases at CDC.
Ticks in this area carry other pathogens, but far less commonly – 2% to 6% of ticks may be carrying bacteria that cause anaplasmosis, babesiosis, or relapsing fever, she says.
South: In the Central and Southeastern parts of the U.S. (including Texas), around 13% of people report getting tick bites. There, ehrlichiosis, spotted fever rickettsioses and the allergic condition Alpha-gal syndrome are the top concerns.
The somewhat lower incidence of tick bites in Southern states may be related to how the tick populations behave, Eisen says. In Northern states, they tend to crawl up to the surface of leaf litter and tall grasses, while in Southern states, they stay closer to the soil level, making them less likely to cling onto a human arm or leg. Eisen says these differences are likely driven by genetics, based on how generations of ticks changed over time. "I think it's just a function of what survived," she says.
West: In Western states (including California), tick bites are considerably less common, but they do happen – around 6% of people report getting them, according to CDC research. Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever are some of the diseases people get there.
What to do if you get bitten
If you do get bitten, you should remove the tick right away. Don't toss it immediately, advises Mather at URI, because identifying some key information about the tick can help determine your risks. That includes what kind of tick it is, whether it's in the nymph or adult stage and how long it's been feeding on you.
To figure this out, you can compare what you find with diagrams provided by the URI's Tick Encounter website. If you get stuck, you can submit a clear photo of your tick from the top, and Mather and his team will try to help figure it out.
Or take your tick — wrapped in tape, or in a plastic bag — to the doctor if you're seeking medical care. Seeing what type of tick it is and how long it's fed on you can help medical providers determine if you're at risk of Lyme or other diseases, Hinckley says.
But sending them in for testing isn't all that helpful, according to CDC, because the results often don't lead to actionable advice. If the tick is positive for a pathogen, it doesn't necessarily mean you've been infected. And if you do develop symptoms of a tick-borne disease, you're better off seeking medical treatment right away instead of waiting for the tick testing results.
When to seek medical care
In places where Lyme disease is common, finding an engorged adult deer tick (like the ones pictured here) could mean you should seek care right away.
"The only time you would get an antibiotic, after a tick bite and before any symptoms, would be to prevent Lyme disease," says Hinckley, with CDC, "And in that case, we recommend just a single dose."
In most other cases, you may be advised to monitor yourself for symptoms in the days and weeks after the bite.
"In a lot of cases, if you're seeing something right away after a tick bite, it could just be a hypersensitivity reaction – a little redness – that doesn't require a visit to a health care provider," Hinckley says. "But if it's a few days later and you start to experience aches and pains, fever, and – for a lot of these different tick borne diseases – a rash can occur. For those symptoms, seeing a health care provider as soon as you can would be important."
Hinckley recommends telling the provider about your tick bite, your symptoms, and where you were – the state, the county – when you picked up the tick. "It can help them decide what diseases you might be at risk for," she says.
It's a lot to figure out on your own, so you can check the University of Rhode Island's TickEncounter and the CDC's Tick Bite Bot for help determining next steps.
Ticks-borne diseases are spreading to new areas — stay informed
Ticks and the diseases they carry are on the rise, and on the move. In the past 20 years, scientists have discovered at least seven new tick borne pathogens in the U.S., and reported cases of disease have more than doubled, according to a 2024 CDC report.
Changes in climate – particularly warming in the Northern Hemisphere – plays a big role in expanding the areas where ticks can survive, says Nicole Baumgarth, director of Johns Hopkins University's Lyme and Tickborne Diseases Research and Education Institute. So does reforestation which brings more deer, birds and rodents. "When we live in these wooded areas, we are really getting into the way of millions of years of evolution between the ticks, the mammals and the bacterium," she says.
People and their medical providers are also more aware of ticks in their areas and the diseases they carry, which leads to more cases being confirmed, Baumgarth says.
But there are risks coming to new areas that weren't seen before. Since the early 1990's, Lyme disease has gone from being "really unknown" to becoming established in parts of southern Canada, says Baumgarth.
And the mid-Atlantic recently saw its first fatal case of Heartland Virus. "The fact that we are now seeing these virus infections in areas where we haven't seen them before is probably a tip of the iceberg," Baumgarth says, since it likely means there are more cases that aren't being diagnosed.
Researchers in the South and West are also tracking soft-tick relapsing fever, a condition caused by the bites of soft-bodied ticks, which lack a hard shell and tend to be found in areas where bats and rodents live. While just 250 cases were reported to the CDC from 2012-2021, the symptoms – high fevers, chills, nausea – can be often misdiagnosed as influenza, COVID, even malaria, says Job Lopez, a tick researcher at Baylor College of Medicine.
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