05/03/2026
May is Lyme Awareness Month. Please share because you care!
The ticks are especially active in 2026, and we are seeing many examples of influencers and mainstream media providing terrible advice that increases your chance of chronic illness.
Not all ticks carry infections, but an increasing percentage do. In addition to Lyme disease, ticks can also transmit many other viral, bacterial and parasitic infections such as Babesia, Tularemia, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Borrelia miyamotoi, Bartonella, Bourbon Virus, Heartland Virus, Powassan disease among others. Many studies have found ticks infected with two or more of these pathogens can result in more serious symptoms and prolonged illness.
Transmission of Lyme and other bacterial, viral and parasitic infections can take place in a matter of MINUTES, particularly if the tick partially fed before biting you (so pathogens are in the tick's saliva) or if the tick is not removed properly. There is no minimum attachment time for transmission of a Lyme disease infection. The arbitrary 24-48 hour minimum attachment presumption is extremely misleading and can have life-altering consequences if an infection is not treated early.
Considering there truly is no safe harbor attachment period, prevention is critical:
✅ Take steps to prevent a tick from attaching in the first place. Avoid tick-infested areas, walk in the middle of trails, treat skin, clothing and gear with appropriate repellents (i.e. permethrin on shoes/clothes, lemon eucalyptus or DEET on skin), wear light colored clothing which makes it easier to spot ticks, and tuck pants into socks.
✅ Perform routine, at least daily tick checks anytime you are outdoors, even if your only exposure is in your own yard. Ticks can be as small as a poppy seed and may look like a freckle. Ticks like to attach around moist areas of the body, and can often be found between the toes, behind the knees, in the navel and groin areas, armpits, back of the neck, skin creases, and in hair.
✅ Carefully remove any attached ticks. Use fine-point tweezers to grasp the tick at the place of attachment, as close to the skin as possible. Gently pull the tick straight out, without twisting. Wash your hands, disinfect the tweezers and the bite site with an alcohol pad or similar disinfectant. Do not grab the body or use heat, oils or other topical agents which may cause the tick to expel potentially deadly pathogens from the gut of the tick into the host. Save the tick for testing in a small container or baggie labeled with the name, address, date and estimated hours attached.
✅ Consider prophylactic antibiotic treatment. The medical care provider and patient should carefully weigh the risks and benefits of prophylactic antibiotic treatment in the case of a known tick bite, even before symptoms appear. The Lyme bacteria can reach the central nervous system within 24 hours. A disseminated infection can be much more difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate.
