Category: Tick Removal & Testing

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42% of Tested Ticks Are Infected: What the Data Reveals

Since 2014, TickCheck has tested ticks submitted from across the United States. As our pool of data has grown over the years, one trend has become increasingly clear: a significant percentage of ticks carry disease-causing pathogens.

In fact, our research shows that 42% of the ticks submitted for testing are infected with at least one pathogen. These findings provide valuable insight into the real-world risks associated with tick bites and help improve our understanding of tick-borne disease prevalence.

Co-Infections Are More Common Than Many People Realize

While a single pathogen can pose a serious health risk, our data also reveals that many ticks carry multiple pathogens simultaneously. This means that a single tick bite has the potential to expose a person or animal to more than one disease.

Based on the ticks tested by TickCheck:

  • 42% carry at least one pathogen
  • 30% are co-infected with two or more pathogens
  • 8% carry three or more pathogens
  • 3% carry four or more pathogens

All of TickCheck’s testing data is publicly available and updated regularly. In addition to overall infection and co-infection rates, our data includes infection rates by tick species, life stage, and individual pathogen, along with the total number of ticks tested. By making this information accessible, we hope to support research, increase public awareness, and help individuals make informed decisions following a tick bite.

How Can I Protect Myself?

As always, prevention is the best form of protection. The fewer tick bites you receive, the lower your risk of contracting a tick-borne illness. However, complete prevention is rarely possible. If you spend time outdoors in grassy or wooded areas—or regularly interact with pets that do—you may come into contact with ticks.

While vaccines are available for only a limited number of tick-borne diseases (though more are currently in development), there are several practical steps you can take to reduce your risk. Finding and removing attached ticks promptly, making your yard less attractive to ticks, and testing ticks after a bite can all play an important role in protecting yourself and your family.

Quickly Find and Remove Attached Ticks

Tick-borne pathogens are transmitted as a tick feeds. In general, the longer a tick remains attached, the greater the risk of disease transmission. A tick that has only recently attached is less likely to have transmitted pathogens, while a more engorged tick has likely been feeding for a longer period of time and may pose a greater risk.

Research has shown that some common tick-borne diseases, including Lyme disease, often require hours—or even days—of attachment before transmission occurs. For this reason, promptly finding and removing attached ticks is one of the most effective ways to reduce your risk. It’s a good habit to perform a thorough tick check after spending time outdoors, especially if you’ve been in wooded areas, tall grass, brush, or leaf litter.

Just as importantly, make sure you and your family know how to respond when a tick is found. Not all tick removal methods are safe, and some commonly suggested techniques can actually increase the risk of disease transmission. Using a proper tick removal tool and removing the tick promptly and carefully are key steps in protecting yourself after a bite.

Reduce Tick Habitat Around Your Home

One of the best ways to reduce your exposure to ticks is to make your yard less attractive to them. Keep your lawn well maintained by regularly mowing the grass, trimming trees and shrubs, and removing excess brush or leaf litter. Areas where you and your family spend the most time should be kept open, uncluttered, and well lit whenever possible. Because ticks thrive in cool, moist, and shaded environments, keeping frequently used areas of your yard sunny and dry can help discourage them.

Ticks are a common problem in many parts of the country, and the last thing you want is to create an environment where they can thrive. Regular yard maintenance can help reduce tick activity around your home, and there are additional steps you can take to make your property even less inviting to ticks.

Test the Tick for Disease

While tick testing is not a form of prevention, it can be a valuable tool for helping you respond quickly and appropriately after a tick bite. If the tick that bit you carries a disease-causing pathogen, that does not necessarily mean you have contracted the disease, but it does confirm that you were exposed to a potentially infected tick.

Tick testing is a straightforward process: save the tick that bit you and send it to a laboratory for DNA testing. The lab can determine whether the tick carries any of the pathogens known to cause tick-borne diseases. Some states, including Pennsylvania, offer tick testing programs for residents, while private laboratories also provide testing services. TickCheck is one such provider.

A positive tick test result can provide valuable information to share with your healthcare provider and may help guide decisions about testing, or treatment. This can be especially helpful in the case of Lyme disease, where diagnosing an infection is not always straightforward. While no diagnostic method is perfect, testing the tick itself can provide highly accurate information about whether the pathogen was present in the tick that bit you. TickCheck’s testing methods are 99.99% accurate, providing fast and reliable results when you need them most.

Protect Yourself by Knowing the Risks

Remaining informed about ticks and the diseases they carry is key to keeping yourself, your family, and your pets safe during tick season. Know which ticks are active in your region and understand the potential risks. Staying vigilant and prepared is the best way to enjoy the outdoors safely.

Don’t forget—TickCheck can help you identify any tick! If you’ve been bitten and aren’t sure what species it is, simply upload a high-quality, detailed photo and request a free tick identification. We’ll be able to tell you what you’re looking at. We’ll let you know exactly what you’re looking at. Once you receive your results, you can either research the potential risks yourself or call our customer service team at 1-866-713-TICK to get our opinion. We’re always happy to help!

Worried About a Recent Tick Bite?

If you’ve removed a tick and want peace of mind, TickCheck offers fast and reliable tick testing services. Simply send the tick to our lab, and we’ll identify the species and test it for Lyme disease and other common pathogens. Knowing whether a tick was carrying disease can help you and your doctor make informed decisions about next steps.

Learn More About Tick Testing
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What to Do After a Tick Bite, Step-by-Step

Finding a tick on yourself—or on your child, a loved one, or a pet—can be unsettling. As ticks become more common, even in areas where they were once rare, concerns about Lyme and other tick-borne diseases are growing.

The good news is that acting quickly can help reduce those risks. From proper removal to monitoring for early symptoms, taking the right steps right away can make a meaningful difference.

1.How Long Was the Tick Attached?

Many tick-borne illnesses—though not all—such as Lyme disease, typically require a tick to be attached for around 24 hours or more before transmission becomes likely. Because of this, the longer a tick has been feeding, the greater the overall risk of infection. Ticks can remain attached anywhere from a few days up to a week or more before they naturally detach.

You can often get clues from the tick’s appearance. An engorged tick that has been feeding for some time will look larger, swollen, and more rounded. Its color may lighten, often appearing grayish or bluish, and its body will feel soft or squishy to the touch.

Ticks are most commonly picked up in areas with high populations of wildlife, or through contact with animals. Thinking through where you’ve been over the past few days, along with the tick’s level of engorgement, can help you make a reasonable estimate of when the bite may have occurred.

2. Safely Remove The Tick

Prevention is key to keeping the risk of tick-borne illness as low as possible. An important part of that is removing any ticks you find as quickly as possible—but just as important is doing so correctly.

Many common home removal methods actually do more harm than good. Improper techniques may leave the tick’s mouthparts embedded in the skin or, in some cases, cause the tick to disgorge into the bite area, increasing the risk of pathogen transmission.

Before you begin, make sure you’re prepared. Have a small plastic bag or container ready, along with a proper tick removal tool. TickCheck offers a range of tick removers, though fine-tipped household tweezers will also work. Avoid removing ticks with bare fingers.

To remove the tick:

  • Grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible using tweezers or a tick removal tool
  • Pull upward with steady, even pressure—do not twist, jerk, or squeeze the body
  • Place the tick into the plastic bag and seal it
  • Clean the bite area with an alcohol swab

3. Watch for Symptoms

After the tick has been removed, the next step is to stay alert for any symptoms that may develop in the days or weeks that follow. Reactions can vary widely in timing, and signs of illness may not appear immediately. It’s normal to see some mild redness, irritation, or swelling around the bite site. On its own, this is not usually a cause for concern.

It’s important to monitor the area over the next few weeks for signs of infection or illness. One common warning sign is a “bull’s-eye” or target-shaped rash, which is often the first indicator of Lyme disease. Any sort of rash or persistent pain or tenderness at the bite site should be evaluated by a medical professional.

Tick-borne illnesses can cause a wide range of symptoms that may seem unrelated at first. If you develop any unusual symptoms in the weeks after a bite—whether or not they seem connected—it’s important to mention the recent tick exposure to your healthcare provider.

Additional Ways to Assess Your Risk

If you’re especially concerned about tick-borne illness, there are a few additional steps you can take to better understand your level of risk. While none of these methods are completely definitive, they can be helpful tools in guiding your next steps and determining whether medical attention may be needed.

Perhaps most importantly, they can support early awareness if symptoms begin to develop. For this reason, it’s also a good idea to keep the tick after removal, as some of these approaches rely on having the tick available for reference or testing.

It’s important to be aware that each of these steps functions independently from one another. Tick testing is not a replacement for serological Lyme disease testing, or vice versa. In an ideal world, we at TickCheck would encourage readers to do everything on this list.

Identify the Tick Species

There are hundreds of tick species across North America, and each carries its own set of risks. Different species can harbor and transmit different bacteria, which means they are associated with different tick-borne illnesses. For example, the deer tick is the primary species known to transmit Lyme disease.

Identifying the tick can help you better understand which diseases you may have been exposed to and guide your next steps if any symptoms develop.

TickCheck offers free tick identification upon request:

  • Visit https://www.tickcheck.com/identify
  • Complete the form with your contact details and the location where the tick was found
  • Upload at least two clear photos, following the image guidelines provided
  • Receive your identification results within 1–2 business days
Identify My Tick

Test the Tick for Disease

Testing the tick itself can provide useful information about whether it carried disease-causing bacteria. Some states offer free, government-supported tick testing programs, so it’s worth checking what may be available in your area. If local options are not available, services like TickCheck provide nationwide tick testing within the United States.

To order testing through TickCheck:

  • Visit https://www.tickcheck.com/order
  • Enter your contact details and information about the tick
  • Select a testing panel (starting at $49.99)
  • Review optional add-ons such as a mailed lab report
  • Choose your payment method (credit/debit card or check/money order)
  • Submit your order
  • Mail in your tick following the included instructions

It’s important to note that a positive result in a tick does not mean infection has occurred—it only confirms exposure. If a tick tests positive for a pathogen, the next step is to contact a healthcare provider, share the report, and discuss any recent bite history and possible exposure.

Test My Tick

Get Tested for Lyme

If you believe you may have been exposed, getting tested for Lyme disease may seem like a logical next step. Testing is widely available through most major laboratories. However, it’s important to understand that current testing methods have meaningful limitations.

TickCheck provides a hand-selected list of serological testing options via our partner, Ulta Lab Tests.

How Lyme testing works

The standard approach is a two-step process involving an ELISA test followed by a Western blot if results are positive. These tests do not detect the Lyme-causing bacteria (B. burgdorferi) directly. Instead, they look for antibodies your immune system produces in response to infection.

In most cases, if the the ELISA test results are negative, no further testing is recommended. The problem is that the ELISA test is only documented to be around 75–89% accurate, with false negatives almost half the time.

False negatives

False negatives are most common when testing is done too early. It takes time for the body to produce detectable levels of antibodies, about 2–3 weeks after infection. If the test is taken before this immune response develops, the result can be a false negative, even if infection is present.

False positives

False positives can also occur for a few reasons. One is the presence of “memory antibodies” from a past Lyme infection, which may remain in the body for years and trigger a positive result even without an active infection.

Another factor is cross-reactivity. The Western blot test measures reactions to specific proteins associated with Lyme bacteria, but other infections can produce similar proteins, potentially leading to misleading results.

The limitations of testing

Because of these challenges, serological testing should not be used as the sole basis for diagnosis or treatment decisions. Clinical factors—such as symptoms, geographic location, tick exposure risk, and tick identification—should all be considered alongside test results.

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Protect Yourself by Knowing the Risks

Remaining informed about ticks and the diseases they carry is key to keeping yourself, your family, and your pets safe during tick season. Know which ticks are active in your region and understand the potential risks. Staying vigilant and prepared is the best way to enjoy the outdoors safely.

Don’t forget—TickCheck can help you identify any tick! If you’ve been bitten and aren’t sure what species it is, simply upload a high-quality, detailed photo and request a free tick identification. We’ll be able to tell you what you’re looking at. We’ll let you know exactly what you’re looking at. Once you receive your results, you can either research the potential risks yourself or call our customer service team at 1-866-713-TICK to get our opinion. We’re always happy to help!

Worried About a Recent Tick Bite?

If you’ve removed a tick and want peace of mind, TickCheck offers fast and reliable tick testing services. Simply send the tick to our lab, and we’ll identify the species and test it for Lyme disease and other common pathogens. Knowing whether a tick was carrying disease can help you and your doctor make informed decisions about next steps.

Learn More About Tick Testing
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Tick Removal: What NOT to Do

Good Tick Remover Tools Matter

When it comes to ticks, speed is important- but using the right tool, and using it correctly, is just as critical. A good tick remover is designed to safely extract the tick without leaving parts behind or unduly stressing the tick – all of which can increase your risk of infection with Lyme or other tick-borne diseases.

Unfortunately, outdated advice and home remedies still circulate widely. Here’s what not to do when removing a tick, and why the right tool (even a pair of bathroom tweezers- makes all the difference.

❌ Don’t Smother It

One of the most common myths is that you should smother a tick with substances like petroleum jelly, essential oils, nail polish, or rubbing alcohol to make it “back out” on its own.

Why it’s a problem:
While this method may cause the tick to release, these substances can stress the tick and cause it to regurgitate saliva and/or stomach contents into the bite site. If the tick is carrying the pathogens that cause Lyme or other diseases, this increases the chance that the pathogen may be transmitted.

❌ Don’t Burn It

Another old trick: burning the tick off with a hot match or lighter. It sounds quick and decisive, but it’s neither safe nor effective.

Why it’s a problem:
This method can lead to burns, fire hazards, and more stress on the tick- again, increasing the risk of it regurgitating into the wound. Even if the tick dies, it won’t necessarily detach on its own, and the result may simply be a scorched, embedded tick.

❌ Don’t Twist It

A common method of tick removal includes twisting the tick, to encourage the barbs on the mouth-parts to release.

Why it’s a problem:
Twisting can apply to much pressure to the tick’s mouthparts, causing them to break off and remain embedded in the skin. Not only is this irritating, but it also raises the risk of local infection.

❌ Don’t Use Your Fingers

When you spot a tick, it’s tempting to grab it and pull. But using your fingers is one of the least safe ways to remove a tick.

Why it’s a problem:
You’re likely to squeeze the tick’s body, which can force the tick regurgitate into your bloodstream. Plus, it’s harder to remove the tick cleanly, increasing the chances of leaving parts behind.

The Right Approach Starts with Avoiding the Wrong Ones

Removing a tick may seem simple, but small mistakes can have serious consequences. Ticks are becoming more and more common in North America, and as the tick population swells, so too does the chance of infection with Tick-borne disease. The best way to protect yourself is to stay informed:

  • Avoid unsafe removal methods
  • Use tools like fine-tipped tweezers or a tick removal tool
  • Remove the tick steadily and carefully, without twisting or squeezing
  • Clean the area afterward and monitor for symptoms

A few seconds of proper technique can make all the difference.