For most people, any thought of tick-borne infections starts and stops with Lyme disease, an illness that afflicts about 40,000 Americans each year. But ticks are much more infectious—and much more pernicious—than that. The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists 22 diseases carried by multiple species of ticks across the country.

Never heard of alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to red meat that can be triggered by a tick bite? Up to 3% of all Americans may carry alpha-gal antibodies, indicating they’ve been infected (at least asymptomatically). Then there’s anaplasmosis. Spread by the black-legged tick, it can lead to fever, headache, muscle pain, chills, and, in an unlucky few, encephalitis, or brain inflammation, requiring hospitalization. There’s also babesiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Powassan virus disease, and many more. After reporting on tick-borne diseases this week, here are my takeaways:

• Don’t think you’re safe just because summer hasn’t arrived yet; tick season has gotten longer due to climate change, which is causing hotter springs and milder winters.
• Where you live is no guarantee against tick-borne illnesses; Lyme disease and a few others may be most common in the Northeast, but the sheer number of tick species that carry disease means that no place in the country is completely safe.
• What to do if you decide to go for a ramble in the woods: protect yourself with insecticide containing DEET; tuck your pant legs into your socks; do a full body check of yourself and your pets for ticks when you get home; shower well; and wash the clothes you wore and dry them on high heat to kill any ticks.

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