As summer adventuring kicks into gear, it’s important to stay apprised of the risks of tick bites.

Dr. Meegan Leve, a pediatrician with Colorado Mountain Medical, said she receives calls from concerned parents about ticks every spring and summer.

“We’re a very active community, people are out in wooded areas hiking and such, and you can get a tick bite,” she said.

Most are concerned about Lyme disease because they see it in the news, Leve said.

“The good news is we don’t have Lyme disease in Colorado. We don’t have the type of ticks that carry and transmit Lyme disease, so we’ve never had a case of Lyme disease acquired in Colorado,” Leve said.

Lyme disease is carried by the blacklegged tick and the Western blacklegged tick. Both ticks transmit the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme disease. Neither tick has been found in Colorado to date.

Colorado is home to about 30 species of ticks, including the American dog tick, the brown dog tick, the winter tick, and ear ticks.

The tick most often found to bite people in Colorado is the Rocky Mountain wood tick. According to Colorado State University Extension, this tick is most active in spring and goes dormant in the warm summer weather.

Tick-borne illnesses to be aware of in Colorado

While there have been a handful of cases of Lyme disease diagnosed in Colorado in recent years, the illness was always contracted out of state.

However, there are some tick-borne illnesses to look out for in Colorado.

“The biggest one is something called Colorado tick fever. It’s probably underdiagnosed. It is a viral illness, so it looks like many other viral illnesses,” Leve said. “You can have fever, headaches, body aches. Sometimes you’ll get better for a few days and symptoms will reemerge.”

Colorado tick fever is relatively uncommon. Between 2003 and 2022, 223 documented cases of Colorado tick fever were reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, originating from 10 states, including Colorado.

“Probably, many (cases of Colorado tick fever) go under the radar, because it often resolves on its own,” Leve said. “Maybe people don’t report mild viral symptoms or connect them with recently having been out on hikes or a tick bite.”

“It’s still pretty uncommon, but it requires a pretty specific test,” Leve added. “My guess is that most people aren’t tested if they have some mild viral symptoms and it goes away on its own.”

Rocky Mountain spotted fever is “the most severe tick-borne illness that doctors worry about,” Leve said.

Symptoms include a high, sudden onset of fever, severe headache, muscle pain and a rash that often starts on the wrists and ankles before spreading to other parts of the body. The illness can be fatal if not treated early with antibiotics, particularly in children.

But it is not common in Colorado.

“Despite its name, Rocky Mountain spotted fever is not common in Colorado,” Leve said. “If you look at a map, it’s really in the southeastern part of the United States. It can happen, but it’s rare here.”

What to do if you find a tick on you

While the risk and consequence of getting a tick bite are lower in Colorado than in other parts of the country, Leve recommended people still take precautions against ticks.

“Preventative measures like light long sleeves are important,” she said. “The fashionable wearing your socks pulled up over your pants, because that’s a common place to get bit by ticks. One easy thing to do is do a tick check after you’ve been out on a hike. If you’re wearing light colors, it’s easier to see if there’s a tick on your clothes or a tick on your skin.”

Ticks are commonly found in “wooded and brushy areas with high grass and leaf litter,” according to the U.S. Forest Service. A thorough tick check should include a full-body examination, with particular attention paid to underarms, ears, belly buttons, behind the knees, between the legs, around the waist and in the hair.

If people find a tick on themselves or their child, “removal is best,” Leve said. “The mouth of a tick is barbed, and so you do carefully have to try and remove it without crushing it. You can use tweezers, holding them as close to the skin as possible, and pulling upward.”

Following removal of the tick, wash the bitten area.

Leve said she does not typically recommend that ticks removed from a child be sent for testing.

“Testing is available, but it’s really not necessary in most cases, and just too slow if you really had something severe, anyway,” Leve said.

If a doctor suspects Rocky Mountain spotted fever in a patient, they will begin treatment without waiting for testing on the tick to return.

“Within about a week of getting a known tick bite, if you do develop symptoms such as fever or rash and you are concerned, it’s reasonable to get evaluated to see if your symptoms could be related to the tick bite,” Leve said.

There is one caveat: If the person with the tick may have been bitten in an area with a high Lyme disease incidence.

Lyme disease, not found in Colorado, can be contracted while traveling

While Lyme disease cannot be contracted in Colorado, there are times that people who have traveled out of state return to Colorado, having unknowingly been bitten by a tick carrying the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.

Lyme disease, if caught and treated with antibiotics soon after the tick bite, does not have long-term effects. Early signs and symptoms of Lyme disease include a gradually expanding bull’s-eye ring on the skin around the bite, fever, chills, headache, fatigue, muscle and joint aches and swollen lymph nodes.

If not caught and treated early, Lyme disease can trigger an autoimmune response in patients that is lifelong, with potential symptoms including severe headaches, rashes, facial paralysis or palsy, heart palpitations or an irregular heartbeat, episodes of dizziness or shortness of breath, inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, nerve pain, numbness in the hands or feet and arthritis.

Leve recommended that those who travel to areas known for ticks that carry Lyme disease-causing bacteria, like the East Coast of the United States, and then have symptoms of a tick-related illness, tell their doctor about the travel. 

This story is from VailDaily.com.