Here are some first aid tips for those annoying—and sometimes
painful—insect bites and stings from ticks to bee stings to
mosquitoes. - Depending on the species, ticks may carry Lyme
disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Colorado tick fever, or a
number of other diseases. In fact, ticks are the leading
carriers of diseases to humans in the U.S., and second only to
mosquitoes worldwide. Similarly to mosquitoes, toxins in the
tick's saliva cause the disease. - Hard ticks have a tough back
plate and tend to feed for hours to days. With hard ticks,
disease transmission usually occurs near the end of a meal. -
Soft ticks have a more rounded body and lack the back plate.
They usually feed for less than an hour and disease transmission
can occur in less than a minute. - Lyme disease is caused by
hard ticks including deer ticks. Sitting on a log in the woods,
leaning up against a tree or gathering wood are risky activities
when trying to avoid ticks. - Tick bites are generally painless
and may go completely unnotice