If you find a tick on yourself, remove it as soon as you can. A blacklegged tick generally needs to be attached and feeding for 36–48 hours before it can transmit the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.
Finding a tick on your body is alarming. You might wonder how long the tick has been there. And you should know that the answer to that question matters more than most people think it does.
The bacterium that causes Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi), lives in the gut of infected blacklegged ticks. The bacterium has to migrate from the tick’s gut to its salivary glands, and that takes a while. This is why it generally takes 36–48 hours of continuous feeding for a tick to transmit the bacterium.
In short, if you find a tick on yourself and remove it in the first 24 hours, you are very unlikely to catch Lyme disease, even if the tick was infected. But there are a few caveats to remember, so read on.
Lyme disease usually takes 36 hours or more to transmit, but that’s not true of all tick-borne illnesses. Powassan virus, though rare, can transmit within hours of attachment. Anaplasmosis can transmit faster than Lyme disease as well. It’s still best to remove ticks as soon as possible because it reduces your risk of all illnesses, even if it cannot entirely eliminate it.
You may wonder: how do you know how long a tick has been attached? An engorged tick, one visibly swollen with blood, has likely been feeding for at least a day. A tick that’s still flat and not yet engorged has probably attached more recently. It’s not an exact science, but it is a rough guideline.
If you find a tick on yourself, use fine-tipped tweezers and grasp it close to the skin. Pull straight up with steady pressure. After removal, clean the area with rubbing alcohol or soap and water.
If you would like to reduce the tick population on your West Michigan Lakeshore property, Mosquito Squad of West Michigan Lakeshore can help. Mosquito Squad provides tick control treatments that target the areas where ticks wait for hosts. That way, you will be a lot less likely to run into ticks in the first place.
