The itchy tick season is not over yet.
As illnesses from the arachnid spike on the East Coast, doctors in Chicago are warning people to take precautions as the city enters the yearly bump in tick-related trips to the hospital.
Staff at one of Chicago’s largest hospital systems say they are seeing increased tick bite cases, but there is not enough data to know if the city is entering a spike in cases.
“We’ve certainly seen a slight increase in tick-related concerns just within our immediate care clinics,” said Sindhu Aderson, central region medical director at Northwestern Immediate Care.
Sharing anecdotal evidence, Aderson says the pattern is consistent with the national increase in reports of Lyme disease.
Still, the local risk for tick-borne illnesses remains moderate, Aderson said.
Eastern states like New York and Massachusetts have reported a spike in tick bites and Lyme disease cases. On Monday, Michigan’s Lenawee County Health department issued an advisory on an increase in tick-borne infections.
The Chicago Department of Public Health has not seen an increase in Lyme disease cases compared to last year, according to department spokesman Jacob Martin.
“However, ticks tend to be the most active from April through September and so we’d expect that both the number of ED visits due to tick bites and the number of tick-borne disease cases to increase during the summer,” Martin said.
The health department tracks tick-related cases reported by patients’ healthcare providers. That’s usually done after a positive lab test, so the number of actual cases are likely under-reported, he said.
Tick-based infections don’t always appear the same.
Mary Wisniewski, an Avondale resident and author, was diagnosed with Lyme disease in late June and has since recovered. She did not initially have a rash — one of the most common signs of a tick bite.
Wisniewski was hiking in Door County, Wisconsin, when she was bit. She later experienced a headache, high fever and shakes before visiting a doctor’s office, where she learned she had a tick bite.
“Sometimes you can get bitten and [the tick] doesn’t stay on you,” Wisniewski said.
Emergency room visits for tick-borne infections tend to peak in May, according to the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tick bite data tracker. But hot weather can extend the active season for ticks, Aderson said.
Temperatures in Chicago have fluctuated in the past week, with the highest temperatures reaching 89 degrees Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
There has not been a spike in tick-related cases at Lurie Children’s Hospital, according to Tina Tan, an attending physician of infectious diseases at the hospital.
She warned people to take extra measures to protect themselves while hiking, camping or traveling in wooded areas. That includes checking each other for ticks after returning inside.
“They need to check themselves, their children and their pets for ticks after walking around in these areas,” she said.
Those measures include:
- Wearing an EPA-registered tick repellent.
- Tucking pants into boots or socks
- Showering soon after being outdoors
- Performing tick checks after being outside in tick habitats
- Calling your doctor if you develop a fever or rash
