How Do I Know if I’ve Been Bitten by a Tick?

Here’s a primer on how to identify their bites, what to do about a bite if one is discovered, and precautions to prevent tick bites from occurring.

Detecting tick bites can be tricky. Unlike the bites of mosquitoes and other insects, tick bites do not tend to cause itching or immediate skin irritation.

“Every blood-feeding arthropod and insect introduces saliva into the wound,” explains Jonathan Day, PhD, an emeritus professor of medical entomology at the University of Florida.

In the case of mosquitoes and some other biting insects, the saliva contains proteins that prevent the bite wound from clotting. These proteins also trigger your immune system, which causes redness, swelling, itching, and other skin irritations, Dr. Day says.

But tick bites are different. “Ticks suppress that reaction with immunosuppressants in their saliva,” says Richard Ostfeld, PhD, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York.

What a Tick Bite Looks Like After the Tick Drops Off

While tick bites don’t immediately itch like other bug bites, they can still cause a red welt or itchy lesion to rise on the skin after the tick has dropped away, Dr. Ostfeld says.

The size and quality of these lesions can vary a lot from person to person, he says, and so it may be impossible to differentiate a tick bite from a mosquito bite. If the tick that bit you was not carrying Lyme disease or some other infection, the bite is likely to resemble a mosquito bite and quickly fade away.

How to Tell a Tick Bite From Other Common Bug Bites

Since bug bites can look similar, it’s important to differentiate tick bites from other common bug bites.

You should talk with a doctor if you notice a bull’s-eye rash or a bite (either from a tick you found or from an unknown source that you know isn’t a mosquito).

“If the rash is any bigger than a highly localized red spot — like a mosquito bite — then go see a doctor,” Ostfeld says.

• Intense headaches and neck stiffness
• Rashes appearing on other parts of the body
• Loss of muscle tone or a droop on at least one side of the face (facial palsy)
• Arthritis with intense joint pain and swelling (namely in the knees or other large joints)
• Irregular heartbeat or heart palpitations
• Periodic tendon, muscle, joint, and bone pain
• Brain and spinal cord inflammation
• Dizziness
• Shortness of breath
• Numbness, tingling, or shooting pain in the feet or hands
• Nerve pain

If you’ve found a tick on your body or think that you’ve been bitten by one, here are some helpful tips to heal the bite and keep you healthy in the months to come.

Safe Tick Removal Steps

If you find a tick on your body, it’s important to remove it properly.

“Grasp the head as close to the mouthparts as possible with fine-pointed forceps, and extract the head and body with a slow, steady pulling motion,” says Day.

It might also be beneficial to take a photo of the tick so that it can be identified if additional treatment is needed in the future. If you feel that you haven’t successfully removed the tick, talk with your doctor.

Treating the Tick Bite Area

When to Seek Medical Attention

• Pain or oozing around the bite
• Muscle or joint pain
• Fever
• Headache
• Bull’s-eye-shaped rash

Also make sure to check whether the tick is a deer tick. If it is, antibiotics may be necessary.

Ticks can thrive in a variety of environments. Ostfeld says that it’s important to remember that different species of ticks use different types of habitats, so just because you don’t find yourself on a forest walk doesn’t mean you can’t be exposed to ticks.

“Black-legged (deer) ticks can be found in thickets and coastal areas, or in grasses and herbaceous vegetation,” Ostfeld says. “But they’re predominantly forest creatures.”

These ticks are also crawlers — and slow ones at that, says Ostfeld. To get onto your body, ticks like to climb over low plants, foliage, logs, or other close-to-the-ground objects.

From there, they grasp the object with their back legs while reaching out with their front legs, which researchers call “questing.”

“When they get on your clothes or body, they tend to crawl upwards to find an ideal spot to embed their mouthparts and attach,” Ostfeld says. “These spots are often in the armpits, groin, back, or neck.”

Brushy and heavily wooded areas are prime real estate for ticks. Being aware of your risk in those environments is your best defense, Ostfeld says. When you do venture into such areas, use repellents, wear long pants and boots, and take them off as soon as you get home.

Ostfeld recommends throwing any clothing you were wearing into the dryer — turned to high heat — as soon as possible. Ticks love humidity, and they’ve been shown to survive washing and drying. But if you toss your clothes in the dryer without wetting them, the dry, hot conditions should kill them off, he says.

You can also use bug repellents to effectively keep ticks away, he says. A chemical called permethrin is available as a spray, and when applied to your boots or hiking pants, it can kill ticks on contact.

• The prevalence of Lyme disease is increasing across the United States, making it crucial to avoid tick bites.
• Ticks can attach to your skin from low foliage and can possibly infect you, but checking your skin after potential exposure and safely removing any ticks promptly will reduce your risk of disease.
• To protect yourself, always wear long pants and use tick repellents when venturing into wooded or grassy areas.