A 'tick explosion' could happen soon in DMV, here's how to keep you and your family safe

WASHINGTON (7News) — Ticks can be active almost any time of the year and that means cases of Lyme disease any time of the year, with the next few months being the most active to be on your guard.

"It's gonna tick up, no pun intended, in May, June, July, August. And then we'll begin to tail off again through the summer months. With warmer winters and moist winters, we are starting to see more ticks throughout much of the entire year in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia areas.

Climate Central says Lyme disease, an illness whose incidence has doubled over the past two decades to 30,000 cases per year, is primarily transmitted by the black-legged tick.

But right now, it's very important when people go outdoors to be aware of ticks and learn basically how to avoid, inspect and remove those ticks so you don't wind up with a tick-borne illness."

Here are the ticks to watch out for.

"The tick we're most concerned about here in the DMV is the black-legged tick, says entomologist Michael Raupp from the University of Maryland.

"That is the vector of Lyme disease," Raupp says. We also have the American dog tick that is very common. They don't carry Lyme disease but do carry other illnesses such as a rash, southern tick-borne rash illness, and also ehrlichiosis."

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"One of the things that really concerns us right now is the arrival of new invasive species here in the U.S., In 2017, we had the arrival of a new tick from Asia," he says. "It's called the Asian longhorn tick. "

"It was first discovered in New Jersey, but has now spread to Maryland and several adjacent states," Raupp adds.

So how can you keep you and your family safe?

One way to remember this is with a little acronym: A-I-R.

1) Avoid - Avoid ticks by staying in the center of the trail.

2) Inspect - It means when you get home within the first 24 hours, you're gonna do a full-body inspection.

3) Remove - This means to take a pair of forceps, tweezers, try to get as close to that tick as possible with a slow steady pull. You remove it from your skin. Get that tick off within the first 24 hours, your chances of getting a tick-borne illness go way down.

The symptoms of Lyme disease can be very vague and sometimes the diagnosis of Lyme disease missed says James Ditaranto a family physician with Inova.

"It's really when people come in with a general malaise or fatigue, joint aches and pains, headaches, sometimes difficulty concentrating, low-grade fevers, and in children an isolated, swollen joint like a knee or an ankle with no injury," Dr. Diataranto says. "Some people present with a droop on the side of their face, which sometimes is confused with Bell's palsy, which is an inflammation of the facial nerve, but very frequently, that's also a symptom of Lyme's disease."

Dr. Diataranto says people need to be diligent and look for any symptoms if they were out on trails or even in their backyard "secondary and tertiary stages which could then infect the central nervous system and the brain and then it's very hard to treat."

"You know, our first lines of treatments are antibiotics like doxycycline, amoxicillin, Ceftin, or Cefzil, and if those are not given at the correct time or it's not really attacking the aggressive type of Lyme's you may have co-infections. Then some people end up going on antibiotics for several months," he says.

For more on tick surveillance and staying safe head to the CDC for tick identification.