Tick season is here and Marshfield Clinic Research Insititute is looking for any you find

MARSHFIELD, Wis. (WSAW) - This warm weather has all the bugs crawling around central Wisconsin, especially ticks. This year, they made an earlier appearance. It’s good news for the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute, as they’ve been studying them for the last two years.

Two things the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute team is hoping to provide the people in central Wisconsin about ticks include education and disease prevention.

“By asking people to send us their ticks, we map them so people can go on our interactive map and they can look and see where ticks what, what species of ticks that they had, where like other ticks in their neighborhood, other ticks in their county,” Dr. Jennifer Meece, the Executive Director of the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute, said.

Dr. Meece said this can hopefully reduce how many are infected with Lyme disease.

“The CDC estimates nationally, it’s between 40,000 and 400,000. So it’s a pretty wide range, which makes it some of the work we’re actually doing around Lyme disease is trying to get a better case count of actual cases,” Dr. Meece said.

She says Lyme disease cases in Wisconsin can vary between 4,000 and 7,000 per year. If you notice a tick on you, she recommends following these steps.

“Use a forceps or something to, you know, make sure that if the ticket tick is attached, that you get the mouth parts out. Because if you leave those behind, they can cause the local infection and or localized reaction,” she said.

After that, it’s all about cleaning it to avoid further infection. As for avoiding getting ticks on you, she says insect repellent should be your best friend.

“The other really simple things are after you are out in the woods, take a shower, make sure you do a thorough tick check, head to toe. They like some of the life stages can be very, very, very small and they like to hide in places we might not look,” Dr. Meece said.

She adds that you should make sure you’re checking your pets and loved ones, especially kids, for any ticks when you’re heading indoors.

The Marshfield Clinic Research Institute is always looking for more tick submissions. Click here for more information on how to send one in.