Matchless strategy for tick removal; 6 steps to avoid tick bites

There are several folk remedies for removing a tick. Touching it with a hot match is a common one. Others include covering it with petroleum jelly or nail polish (in theory to suffocate it), or freezing it off. These are all supposed to make the tick “back out” of the skin on its own. But they often have the opposite effect, forcing the tick to hold tight, burrow deeper, and possibly deposit more of its disease-carrying secretions into the wound, which increases the risk of infection.

New Tricks for Removing Ticks & Avoiding RMSF & Lyme Disease

Many of us feel it’s best to inject Lidocaine under the tick using a small bore insulin style syringe/needle, then pull it out.

'Not Just Lyme Disease Anymore': 7 New Reasons To Fear Ticks This Summer

At the risk of being accused of scaremongering, here are seven new reasons to fear, loathe and avoid ticks more than ever this summer, based on news about these more acute infections:

10 Ways To Avoid Tick Bites This Summer

It's summertime, which means outdoor play, hiking, gardening — and tick bites. The creepy crawlies tend to latch on during the summer months and these arachnids are ubiquitous throughout the U.S.

8 Tick-Borne Illnesses That Aren’t Lyme Disease

The more you know about tick-borne illnesses and where they’re most common, the more you can help your doctor parse your symptoms if necessary. Here are a few non-Lyme tick-borne illnesses you should keep on your radar.

Be Very Afraid of Ticks

The threat of tick-borne diseases is serious and growing. And you’re probably not doing enough to protect your family.

Can Ticks Make You Allergic to Red Meat?

Over the next two years, Platts-Mills and his colleague Scott Commins screened twenty-four patients with red-meat allergies, and found that more than eighty per cent reported being bitten by a tick.

Dangerous Ticks

Residents of the Northeast and the Midwest know that ticks can carry the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. What most don’t know is that the same family of black-legged ticks can also cause other diseases that are even more dangerous.

Eight things you need to know about Anaplasmosis

Anaplasmosis is spread by the same ticks that spread Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme Disease). This means that people with Lyme can have a coinfection with Anaplasmosis (and some of them don’t know it).

Getting A Bite From This Tick Can Make You Allergic To Red Meat (RIP, Hamburger Life)

According to science, getting bitten by a lone star tick might cause you to become allergic to red meat — which, uh, really puts a damper on all those backyard barbecue plans you might have had this season.

Here’s What Happens When A Tick Bites You

When a tick bites, it does more than just stick you with the pointy end. Here’s what happens, in far more detail than you ever cared to know.

Is climate change causing a rise in the number of mosquito and tick-borne diseases?

Exposure to ticks and mosquitoes is the single greatest risk factor for emerging vector borne diseases, and the introduction of these vectors to new geographic areas has been a key contributing factor in the emergence of these diseases. Mounting evidence now suggests that climate change is facilitating the geographic expansion of mosquito and tick vectors of public health importance.

LOOK: What's Really Inside Your Bug Spray?

The bad news: there's no sure, completely safe way to prevent bug bites. All bug repellents have pros and cons. The good news: some repellents are effective and relatively low in toxicity -- provided you take precautions when using them, particularly on children.

New Tickborne Infection, More Common Than Once Believed, Circulating In Northeastern U.S.

Borrelia miyamotoi disease (BMD) was first reported in the Northeastern US in 2013. It has been seen in high numbers among deer ticks, and because of this, it is clear that human exposure has been occurring. But the symptoms associated with BMD are nonspecific, making it difficult to distinguish it from other tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease, Anaplasmosis, and Babesiosis.

Oh, Lovely: The Tick That Gives People Meat Allergies Is Spreading

A rare meat allergy used to be limited to places the lone star tick calls home. But recently it's started to spread.

The Global Search for Education: The 300,000 - Ticks

According to the CDC, there are 300,000 individuals who are affected annually by Lyme disease. How to treat patients who are misdiagnosed or diagnosed late has created decades of debate between doctors, patients and scientists trying to determine why many patients remain seriously ill long after the standard antibiotic treatment for this disease.

The Growing Global Battle against Blood-Sucking Ticks

Scientists have no shortage of ideas about how to stop tick-borne illnesses. What is holding them back?

This Could Be The Worst Tick Season In Years. Here’s What You Need To Know.

Experts say warmer winters caused by climate change are allowing ticks to expand into new regions of the U.S.

Tick-ing Time Bomb? Why Protection Against Parasites is Essential for People and Pets

Here in the Northeast, checking for ticks after a walk in the woods is fairly commonplace, mostly because of the prevalence of Lyme disease -- a potentially debilitating disease spread to humans by the nefarious deer tick. If you live in the Northeast and you have pets, checking for ticks isn't just commonplace -- it's second nature.

Ticks spread plenty more for you to worry about beyond Lyme disease

When it comes to problems caused by ticks, Lyme disease hogs a lot of the limelight. But various tick species carry and transmit a collection of other pathogens, some of which cause serious, even fatal, conditions.

Forget Ebola, Sars and Zika: ticks are the next global health threat

Ticks carry a wide array of pathogens – and environmental changes mean they are spreading.

It's Tick Season -- Know Your Enemy

Any time it is above freezing is a risk, but April-September is prime time for the buggers. There are many different types of ticks, but the one we need to be most careful to avoid is the blacklegged or deer tick, Ixodes scapularis (or Ixodes pacificus on the west coast) because it transmits Lyme disease, often difficult to diagnose and treat, and a number of other infections.

More Ticked Off - The Growing Threat of Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases

The range of ticks is expanding, more diseases spread by ticks are being identified, and new species are being introduced to the US by global trade and travel. What’s a person to do?

New Effort for Lyme Disease Vaccine Draws Early Fire

Efforts to bring a vaccine for Lyme disease to the market have run aground amid heated debate over the years. Now, a European company is in the early stages of creating a vaccine for the increasingly common tick-borne disease. Lyme disease patient-advocacy groups—who disagree with the protocols used by most doctors for the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease—are already raising concerns.

The Terrifying Unknowns of an Exotic Invasive Tick

The Asian longhorned tick showed up in the US last year and has flourished in unexpected places. And it's biting humans.

Ticks Carry More Than Just Lyme Disease

Lyme hogs the limelight, but tick species carry and transmit a collection of other pathogens, some of which cause serious, even fatal, conditions.

Ticks Creep Into Canada, Bringing Lyme Disease (and Confusion) With Them

Ticks carried by migratory birds have been raining down on Canada for years. But it’s only in the last 10 to 15 years, amid a changing climate and the creation of new habitats in the north, that populations of deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) have been able to establish a permanent beachhead in Canada. They have brought with them a variety of tick-borne diseases, the most common of which is Lyme.

What Tick Saliva Does to the Human Body

Ticks use their saliva to create a “lake of blood” inside their hosts.

A tick detective wants to understand what drives tick abundance

I want to understand what drives blacklegged, or deer, ticks’ abundance and infection rate with the Lyme disease bacteria. We broadly understand what is necessary for the tick to live in an area, but have a harder time explaining why there are such tremendous differences in tick abundance in certain locations and during certain years.

Emerging Tick-Borne Illnesses: Not Just Lyme Disease Part 1

Tick-borne disease surveillance studies have shown increasing prevalence, transmission, and disease burden over the last decade. Tick-borne illnesses remain a public health threat and the true incidence remains unknown and is thought to be underrepresented. Although Lyme Disease is the most frequently reported tick-borne disease in the United States, the incidence of four other tick-borne diseases is noted to be increasing in the United States:

Emerging Tickborne Illnesses: Beyond Lyme Disease

Tickborne diseases in the United States are a significant public health problem, and in the past 50 years scientists have detected at least a dozen new such infections.

Here Is A New Disease That You Can Get From Ticks

Just when you think you've mastered the Jeopardy! category of "Things that Ticks Can Carry," along comes something else. And, spoiler alert, this new thing is not a briefcase.

Here’s where dangerous ticks are spreading across the US — and what to do about them

There are two main ticks to watch out for, and both are on the move.

How to avoid ticks and the many diseases they transmit

You're probably already a little afraid of ticks. Sure, there are plenty of more existentially upsetting creatures dwelling deep in the ocean or lurking in dank caves. But you're unlikely to have to actually deal with any of them, and you're certainly not going to run into a deep sea nightmare monster while you're just strolling around minding your own business. Ticks, on the other hand, are everywhere. Ticks carry over a dozen diseases, literally inflate with blood, drill tiny holes in your skin, and oh, did we mention that actually actively hunt for you? So there's that.

It’s High Time for Ticks, Which Are Spreading Diseases Farther

With the expansion of the suburbs and a push to conserve wooded areas, deer and mice populations are thriving. They provide ample blood meals for ticks and help spread the pests to new regions.

Lyme Disease Isn't The Only Tick Borne Illness You Need to Worry About

When it comes to problems caused by ticks, Lyme disease hogs a lot of the limelight. But various tick species carry and transmit a collection of other pathogens, some of which cause serious, even fatal, conditions.

Lyme Isn't the Only Disease Ticks are Spreading This Summer

At some point along its manifest destiny tour, Ixodes scapularis, the blacklegged, or deer tick, seems to have picked up POW. Maybe it was in a skunk burrow or a badger den—historically, POW is carried around by a different kind of tick that prefers members of the weasel family.

Tick Talk: Facts and Fiction

“Based on my experience, I’ve realized that providing an accurate tick forecast is nearly impossible. I suspect it is because ticks are far more clever than we are and there are still basic aspects of the life cycle that remain undiscovered. This is why I am highly skeptical about all the hand waving on climate change and how we will have ‘Tick Armageddon.’ It could be that we will have the ‘Great Decline’ of ticks. We just don’t know enough. This is why I still work on ticks after having spent 35 years studying them.”

Tick-Borne Illnesses: Identification and Management in the Emergency Department

This issue reviews the emergency department presentation of 9 common tick-borne illnesses and evidence-based recommendations for identification, testing, and treatment.

With a Tick Boom, It’s Not Just Lyme Disease You Have to Fear

Everybody knows about Lyme disease. But experts say the Northern United States may be in for a bad tick season this summer, raising concerns about Lyme and other scary tick-borne diseases, including the Powassan virus, which causes encephalitis and can leave people with permanent neurological damage.

You’re less likely to get a tick bite if you steer clear of these spots

We know that dense, shrubby patches of vegetation tend to be tick magnets. But scientists are only just starting to understand how different plants and features of the landscape amass or repel ticks. If you want to minimize your chances of encountering these disease-ridden pests, though, there are a few things you can watch out for.