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Ticks attach to your skin and feed for several days before falling off.

Ticks are more than annoying – they can be a health risk! They’re known for carrying several diseases that affect people and pets. In fact, Lyme disease, babesiosis, anaplasmosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever are just a couple of the horrible-sounding things can be transmitted through the bite of an infected deer tick, lone star tick or American dog tick. (These three species are responsible for the majority of tick-transmitted diseases to humans.)

The good news is that only a low percentage of ticks are actually infected. What’s more is that an infected tick must remain attached to its host for hours before disease transmission can occur. For example, deer ticks infected with Lyme disease have to be connected to a person for at least 36 hours before the germs move from the tick to the human. (Note also that ticks don’t actually “bite.” Rather, they pierce the skin with a daggerlike mouthpart – the hypostome – and sip blood for several days before they pull out and drop off.)

It’s critical to remove ticks promptly and correctly, should you ever find one on you or a loved one. Because ticks may pass disease microbes through their fluids, the tick should not be squeezed, crushed or killed while affixed to a person. And never use solvents, cigarettes, fingernail polish, petroleum jelly or matches to kill the tick or make it “back out.”