Nothing funny about the growing Lyme Disease problem

This is one time I would rather make jokes and tell funny stories.

It's not happening today because the information I'm supplying here could help many avoid the agony and tragedy a particular disease can present, sometimes permanently.

I have a close friend living in McHenry who discovered he was bitten by a deer tick and subsequently found himself infected with Lyme disease. This scourge is a big concern for outdoors lovers, as the CDC estimates the number of U.S. cases at 300,000 a year.

Here's some advice from insectshield.com on what you should know to stay protected:

First of all, ticks crawl up. Ticks don't jump, fly or drop from trees onto your head and back. If you find one attached there, it most likely latched onto your foot or leg and crawled over your entire body.

All ticks (including deer ticks) come in small, medium and large sizes. Ticks can be active, even in the winter. Deer ticks are not killed by freezing temperatures and will be active any winter day that the ground is not snow-covered or frozen.

Ticks carry disease-causing microbes, and a variety of tick-transmitted infections are more common now than in past decades. With explosive increases in deer populations that extend even into semi-urban areas, there is an increasing abundance and geographic spread of deer ticks and Lone Star ticks. Scientists are finding an increased list of disease-causing microbes transmitted by these ticks: Lyme disease bacteria, Babesia protozoa, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, and other rickettsia, even encephalitis-causing viruses, and possibly Bartonella bacteria.

In the past, tick bites were more of an annoyance. But now a bite is much more likely to make you sick. Only deer ticks transmit Lyme disease bacteria, so the only way to get Lyme disease is by being bitten by a deer tick or one of its close relatives.

For most tick-borne diseases, you have at least 24 hours to find and remove a feeding tick before it transmits an infection. A daily tick check at bath or shower time can be helpful in finding and removing ticks before they can transmit an infection.

Deer tick nymphs look like a poppy seed on your skin. And with about 1 out of 4 nymphal deer ticks carrying the Lyme disease spirochete and other nasty germs in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and upper Midwest, it's important to know what to look for. They're easy to miss, their bites are generally painless and they have a habit of climbing up (under clothing) and biting in hard-to-see places.

The easiest and safest way to remove a tick is with a pointy tweezer, making it possible to grab even the poppy-seed sized nymphs next to the skin. The next step is to simply pull out the tick like a splinter.

Wearing clothing with built-in tick repellent is a great way to prevent tick bites.

Tick bites and tick-borne diseases are completely preventable. Reducing tick abundance in your yard, wearing tick repellent clothing every day, treating pets every month and getting into a habit of doing a quick body scan are all steps to prevent tick bites.

• Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, catch his radio show 7-9 a.m. Sundays on WGCO 1590-AM (live-streamed at www.1590WCGO.com) and get more content at mikejacksonoutdoors.com.