Your risk of encountering a tick increases considerably the minute you leave your house. These tiny, 8-legged parasites hang out in the great outdoors, latching onto an animal or human passerby for a meal of blood. Through its bite, a tick can transmit diseases known to escalate into severe illness, especially in those with a weakened immune system or who are 65 or older.

• Tick bite prevention starts with preparation.

• Wear long-sleeves and pants that have been treated with a repellent containing the active ingredient Picaridin or DEET.

• Avoid wooded, brushy areas with high grass or leaf litter when possible.

• Once indoors, shower and do a thorough full-body exam, paying extra attention to your armpits, groin, behind your knees and hairline.

• Always check children and pets for ticks after time spent outdoors.

Immature ticks resemble a poppy seed, and one that is actively feeding looks like a watermelon seed. To remove a tick, grasp it close to your skin with tweezers and pull it straight up, then dispose it in the toilet or sealed in a plastic bag. Ignore bad advice that involves Vaseline, a lighter or waiting for it to fall off, which are ineffective and potentially dangerous.

A typical tick bite site is a small red spot that may develop a rash. Tick-borne disease symptoms usually start with flu-like fatigue, fever, chills, headache and stomach upset. Early detection and proper antibiotic treatment are essential to halting progression of the disease, so it’s important to see a physician sooner rather than later.

Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne pathogen, transmitted by the black-legged or deer tick. More than 89,000 Americans were diagnosed in 2023, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Lyme disease has increased 16-fold in the past two decades, presumably due to climate changes creating longer, hotter summers and extending the tick’s reproduction cycle.