How to avoid tick bites in your yard or while hiking in the woods, and what to do if one starts feasting on you

Ticks are small, and you might not notice when they bite, but the diseases they carry can dramatically harm your health.

Each year, deer ticks alone cause an estimated 476,000 new U.S. cases of Lyme disease, which can do long-term damage to a person’s joints, heart and nervous system. You may be hearing about the lone star tick, as well – it can trigger Alpha Gal syndrome, which can leave infected people allergic to red meat and its byproducts, including certain vaccines, medications and products with gelatin.

Several other tick-borne illnesses, including Heartland virus disease, Powassan virus disease, babesiosis and anaplasmosis, can cause serious health problems and, in severe cases, even death.

2026 has been a tough year, with emergency room visits linked to tick bites running high going into summer.

So how can you avoid getting bitten, and what preventive measures actually work? I’m the co-director of the Tick-Borne Disease Center at Binghamton University. Here are some of the questions my team hears – and some advice:

1. Why should I worry about ticks, and how do I know if I’ve been infected?

Ticks can really pack a punch when it comes to how sick they make you. Lyme disease and anaplasmosis, both caused by bacteria that deer ticks can carry, are the most common tick-borne diseases we see in the U.S.

About 70% to 80% of people with Lyme disease will see a rash develop that often looks like a bull’s-eye, and they’ll experience flu-like symptoms, such as a fever, chills, body aches and fatigue. Antibiotics can control the infection, but only if the disease is quickly treated.

As Lyme disease progresses, a patient can get severe headaches; Bell’s Palsy, involving loss of muscle tone or droop in one or both sides of the face; severe arthritis; heart palpitations; and episodes of dizziness or shortness of breath. Some people who are diagnosed with acute Lyme disease and treated still develop chronic symptoms.

Anaplasmosis symptoms can be similar to those of Lyme disease, including fever, headache, fatigue, lethargy, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. A rash is very uncommon for anaplasmosis infections, however. Severe cases can cause tingling sensations in the hands and feet, and without treatment the disease can progress to respiratory or kidney failure.

Infection with a tick-borne disease can result in debilitating fatigue and chronic pain. Patients often miss work and have trouble keeping up with daily tasks in their everyday lives while they’re fighting off an infection.

Avoiding a tick bite in the first place is the best way to prevent infection.

2. What can I do to keep ticks away?

Ticks typically hang out low to the ground, often on the tips of grass blades or vegetation. They are attracted to your thermal signature – the heat your body produces – and the carbon dioxide from your breathing, which tells them that you have blood they want to feed on.

As you walk by, they’ll reach out and grab onto your clothing or shoes or backpack. This is called “questing.” They typically crawl around on your skin for a little while, around 30 minutes to an hour, before deciding to bite. When they do bite, their saliva, which can carry disease-causing bacteria, parasites or viruses, connects with your blood.

Ticks can be hard to spot. Deer ticks, for example, can range from the size of a pinhead as larvae to a poppy seed in the nymph stage, to a sesame seed as adults. Only 30% to 50% of Lyme disease patients remember having a tick bite at all.

However, ticks need moisture to survive, so they thrive in environments that retain a lot of moisture – think wooded areas. To keep ticks off, you can:

• Wear long sleeves and long pants when you’re in tick habitat. Ticks don’t bite through clothing, and less skin exposure means fewer places for them to attach.

• Wear light colors so you can spot ticks when they get on your clothes.

• Wear a repellent, but make sure it will work on ticks. Many bug sprays don’t. DEET is one chemical that has been shown to deter ticks.

• Use sprays that kill ticks on contact. Permethrin is a spray that works on clothing and gear to keep ticks from grabbing you, but do not put it directly on your skin! The concentration in sprays can cause burning and tingling, and it can harm cats. This is what I use to treat my clothing when I’m doing research in tick-infested areas. After collecting over 7,500 ticks for my research, I have been bitten only once.

• Change your clothes after outdoor activities, including gardening and hiking, and put the clothes in the dryer on high heat for about 20 minutes. Without moisture, ticks cannot survive.

• Do tick checks! If you find a tick before it bites you, it’s not a risk to you. Be sure to check in and around your hair, ears, belly button, groin area, behind the knees and armpits. Take a shower after outdoor activity – it will also be easier to spot ticks.

• Check your pets for ticks, as well. It takes time for disease transmission to occur, so the faster you remove a tick, the better. I take my dog hiking in the woods every day, and I keep a lint roller in the car to run over her and me to pick up ticks that may be crawling on us before getting back in the car.

3. What can I do to keep ticks out of my yard?

Ticks like areas that retain moisture, such as leaf litter and overgrowth. Keeping your lawn mowed, gardens maintained and removing leaf litter can reduce tick habitats.

Creating a wood chip “buffer zone” between manicured lawn and overgrowth or woods can help, particularly if you use cedar chips. Keeping gardens, play sets and other areas where people hang out away from wilder areas can also limit exposure.

Yard sprays, such as bifenthrin and permethrin, can help to reduce tick populations in your yard, but it’s recommended to hire a licensed professional to do this. Typically, perimeters and shady areas would be sprayed, while generally open, sunny lawns don’t need treatment.

We all love our bird feeders, but the farther they are from the house, the better. Bird feeders can attract rodents, which often serve as reservoirs for the pathogens that ticks pick up and can transmit to you.

4. If I find a tick on me, what should I do?

The first thing you want to do is remove the tick. Use fine-tipped tweezers and grab as close to its head and your skin as you can and pull up. Do not use Vaseline, essential oils or dish soap. Deer ticks secrete a gluelike enzyme when they feed, so if they’re in that stage of feeding, they cannot back out and may regurgitate, which can speed up disease transmission.

Clean the bite site as you would any other cut. If you can, save the tick so you can identify the species. This will help you know what signs or symptoms to look for. Different tick species carry different diseases. The American dog tick doesn’t carry Lyme disease, for example, though it can cause other health problems.

If you start to feel off, see your doctor and mention that you’ve recently had a tick bite. Many tick-borne diseases have very generalizable symptoms that can feel like the flu, and not all infections have telltale signs like a rash. Your doctor can run tests and figure out the right course of treatment.