GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Tick season is in full swing in Michigan. While there may be a variety of ticks out there, health officials told Fox 17 there’s only one type that people need to be concerned about: the deer tick.
“When we talk about tick bite prevention for humans, we're mostly talking about the black-legged or deer tick, not the dog tick, which are large and very obvious to see,” said Dr. Rosemary Olivero, pediatric infectious disease expert at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. “So, by far and away, when we're talking about tick bite prevention, we're talking about deer tick prevention.”
Dr. Olivero said the deer tick is the one that carries Lyme disease. They’re as small as a poppy seed, so they’re harder to spot.
“Now to about June or July, that's when most of the nymph black-legged ticks are up,” said Entomologist Emily Dinh with MDHHS. “The nymph black-legged ticks are a lot smaller than the adult ticks. So, they are more likely to stay on a person and go on notice.”
She said the more they go unnoticed the longer they can remain on a person, increasing the chances of that person getting Lyme disease.
However, should someone get infected, health officials said to get rid of it quickly.
“You want to use tweezers and you want to get as absolutely close to the skin as possible,” Dr. Olivero said. “You want to use your tweezers at that head that's kind of biting into the skin. And you want to gently press down and gently pull back with enough tension that you can get their mouthpiece out.”
Dr. Olivero said transmission can happen within 48 hours. The bite mark first turns into a pink bump that later turns red and then becomes a bullseye. However, there is treatment for it.
“Most pediatricians or family medicine doctors, urgent cares, emergency rooms, if we have good evidence that it was a deer tick on for greater than two days, they're going to offer a single dose of antibiotics that can actually help prevent Lyme disease from occurring,” Dr. Olivero said. “The earlier you can take that single dose of antibiotics, the better. It's a strategy that has been proven in New England to actually reduce the rate of Lyme disease from happening by a pretty significant amount.”
Dr. Olivero said tick repellent may work. However, the best tick bite prevention is wearing appropriate clothing in wooded or tall grass areas, like long-sleeve shirts and pants.
Dinh added that its best the yards around people's home are kept tidy.
“I definitely recommend getting rid of things like brush piles and leaf piles,” said Dinh. “That has been the relatively consistent variable that can contribute to ticks around the home that I can tell from the science."
