Tick Season Arrives With Spring In WA: Here's How To Avoid Bites

OLYMPIA, WA — While spring's arrival brings a lot of joy after an especially cooped-up winter, state health officials are sharing a few seasonal reminders as residents head out to enjoy Washington's parks and trails. That's because tick season is in full swing on both sides of the Cascades.

The state Department of Health says Washington typically sees a small number of tick-borne illnesses, like Lyme disease, but each year there are a few cases reported across the state. Chances for coming across the unwelcome parasites are higher when camping or walking through habitats where ticks thrive, which encompass a variety of wooded, brushy and grassy areas.

Those headed out the door should keep a few things in mind to avoid an unwanted encounter.

Here are some tips from DOH:

• Wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Tuck your pants into socks or boots, and your shirt into pants. This helps keep ticks outside your clothing so you can easily spot and remove them.
• Stay on hiking trails and out of brushy, wooded and tall-grassy areas.
• Wear light-colored, tightly woven clothing. The light color will allow you to see the dark tick more easily; the tight weave makes it harder for the tick to reach your skin and become attached.
• Use tick repellent when necessary, and carefully follow instructions. Products containing DEET or permethrin are very effective.
• Check yourself and your children and pets thoroughly for ticks. Carefully inspect areas around the head, neck, ears, underarms, inner thighs and back of knees. Look for what may appear to be a new freckle or a piece of dirt.
• Shower or bathe (preferably within two hours of being in tick habitat) to wash off and more easily find any ticks that were missed, and possibly attached to you.

Those who do find a tick on their body should immediately take the following steps:

• Promptly and carefully remove the tick using fine-tipped tweezers. Grasp the tick as close to the skin surface as possible and pull upward with steady, even pressure. Avoid removing the tick with bare hands. Don’t twist or jerk the tick — this could cause the mouthparts to break off and remain in the skin, potentially causing infection. If the mouthparts do break off, remove them with tweezers.
• After you remove the tick, disinfect the skin area and wash your hands.
• Note the date that you found the tick attached to you, just in case you become ill.
• If you develop a fever, rash, or flu-like illness within a month, let your doctor know that you were bitten by a tick.

State health officials also encourage anyone who finds a tick to submit it to the state for ongoing research efforts to identify which varieties of ticks inhabit different parts of the state.

Learn more about ticks in Washington, including how to identify and report them, on the Department of Health website.