.
You’re hiking in the woods.
Suddenly, you feel something
extremely itchy.
You scratch it,
and find a rash
like a red bull’s eye on your body.
Looking closely,
you see a small hole.
And it’s painful.
If you don’t act quickly,
your life could be in danger.
There are about 850 tick species
in the United States.
In 2018,
the CDC reported almost 50,000
cases of tick-borne diseases.
Ticks are parasites that feed on your blood.
They wait on tall pieces of grass,
and when you come by,
they latch onto you
and start feasting.
Most likely, you won't feel the bite.
And a tick's body is small and relatively flat,
so it's easy for you to miss seeing it.
Hours could pass before you notice
that something has attached itself to you.
The problem is, before they bite you,
ticks could have fed on an animal
that's infected with Lyme disease,
or other diseases.
And once it starts feeding on you,
the tick’s saliva can transmit
diseases to you.
If you're going into an area
that's likely to be infested with ticks,
it's a good idea
to wear light-colored clothing.
Then it'll be easier to see
if there's a tick on you,
as they often look like a little bit of dirt.
Also, wear long sleeves, pants,
and tuck your pants
into your socks or boots.
On top of that,
you can spray your clothing
with an insect repellent containing DEET.
And always wear work gloves
if you’ll be working in your yard.
If you're on a hike, or gardening,
look for tick bites every two or three hours.
It generally takes four hours
for a tick bite to make you sick.
Since tick bites are painless,
and not filled with fluid
like other insect bites,
you'll need to search for them.
Ticks usually bite the back of the neck,
the scalp, and any exposed parts
of your arms and legs.
These insects will stay latched onto
you until they finish feeding,
which can take from a few hours to days.
And ticks can also make animals sick too.
So make sure you check
your outdoor pets regularly,
especially if they're scratching.
If you do find a tick on you, don't panic.
The best way to remove a tick
is to use a pair of tweezers.
Grasp the tick where it's attached to your skin,
then pull the tick straight out.
Make sure to pull slowly and firmly.
And don't jerk or twist the tick,
as its mouthparts are like
barbed wires digging into you.
And if you squeeze its body,
the little sucker may vomit its infected
blood into your bloodstream.
Who wants to be walking around with infected
tick vomit in their body?
After you remove the bug,
wash the area with soap and water.
Once you get the tick off,
save it in a plastic bag.
If you start to get a rash
that looks like a bull’s eye,
you might have Lyme disease.
But ticks can carry various diseases,
including Rocky Mountain spotted fever
and the Powassan virus.
So saving the tick will help the doctors
identify the bacteria or virus that the tick
has transmitted to you.
Tick bites can be serious,
so watch out for a rash,
chills, fever, joint pain,
or any red streaks or yellow fluid
oozing from the bite.
A tick bit Jennifer Sloane.
When she went to the emergency room,
she had a fever of over 40 °C (104 °F)
and flu-like symptoms.
Luckily, she told her doctors that
she had removed a tick a few weeks earlier,
which helped them treat her properly.
She was suffering from meningitis,
a liver problem, and sepsis,
a dangerous infection in her bloodstream,
and received three blood transfusions.
She was in the hospital for 11 days.
You don't need to be nervous about
going outside though.
You can check for a tick infestation
on your property by dragging a white,
rough-textured cloth through areas
where ticks might be.
If the cloth collects lots of ticks,
you have an infestation.
A good rule of thumb is that the neater
your yard appears,
the less likely it is to be infested with ticks.
And if you treat your property with a pesticide,
focus on shrubs, tall grass, and overgrown
areas you can't reach with a lawnmower.
You'll probably want to get your pets
treated as well.
Ticks are arachnids,
so they belong to the same family as spiders.
Yup, spiders.
But what if you have arachnophobia?
You can learn what to do right here