Ticks are as common as the housefly and if you keep any animal, then you can be sure that a tick will soon follow after. Ticks also love people apart from any four legged creatures. Generally their bites are harmless but this is not the case for some ticks.
Ticks are small, blood-sucking bugs. They can range in size from as small as a pin’s head to as large as a pencil eraser. Ticks have eight legs. They are arachnids, which means they are related to spiders. The different kinds of ticks can range in color from shades of brown to reddish brown and black.
As they take in more blood, ticks become larger and larger. At their biggest, ticks can be about the size of a marble. After a tick has been feeding on its host for several days or weeks, they become engorged and can turn a greenish blue color.
Sourced from: http://www.healthline.com/health/tick-bites#Ticks2
If you notice a tick on you all you need to do is remove it and wash the area it bit. Afterwards watch out for any infections. You can even go for a tetanus jab just to be sure. For those with allergies, the reaction might be stubborn but not too irritating unless yours is a special case.
Some people may have an allergic reaction to a tick bite. This reaction may be mild, with a few annoying symptoms. In rare cases, a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) may occur.
Many of the diseases ticks carry cause flu-like symptoms, such as fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, and muscle aches. Symptoms may begin from 1 day to 3 weeks after the tick bite. Sometimes a rash or sore appears along with the flu-like symptoms. Common tick-borne diseases include:
Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
Colorado tick fever.
Tick paralysis is a rare problem that may occur after a tick bite. In some parts of the world, tick bites may cause other tick-borne diseases, such as South African tick-bite fever.
Check your symptoms to decide if and when you should see a doctor.
Many tick-borne diseases have signs and symptoms that are quite identical. There are three factors that determine the course of treatment that you will undergo namely, the geographic region where you were bitten, your symptoms and diagnostic tests.
The most common symptoms of tick-related illnesses are:
Fever/chills: With all tick-borne diseases, patients can experience fever at varying degrees and time of onset.
Aches and pains: Tick-borne disease symptoms include headache, fatigue, and muscle aches. With Lyme disease you may also experience joint pain. The severity and time of onset of these symptoms can depend on the disease and the patient’s personal tolerance level.
Rash: Lyme disease, southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI), Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF), ehrlichiosis, and tularemia can result in distinctive rashes:
In Lyme disease, the rash may appear within 3-30 days, typically before the onset of fever. The Lyme disease rash is the first sign of infection and is usually a circular rash called erythema migrans or EM. This rash occurs in approximately 70-80% of infected persons and begins at the site of a tick bite. It may be warm, but is not usually painful. Some patients develop additional EM lesions in other areas of the body several days later.
The rash of (STARI) is nearly identical to that of Lyme disease, with a red, expanding “bulls eye” lesion that develops around the site of a lone star tick bite. Unlike Lyme disease, STARI has not been linked to any arthritic or neurologic symptoms.
Sourced from: http://www.cdc.gov/ticks/symptoms.html