I went to the Appalachian mountains. I left 2 days ago. Just now, I found a tic in a crevice of my ear. It was alive, but wasn’t full of blood. It was still thin. I also don’t feel any bite marks.
I don’t know much about tics or Lyme’s disease. Is there anything I should do or watch out for?
The fact that it had no blood in it is a sign that it likely wasn’t there long, so the odds of you obtaining a tick-borne disease are very low. A tick needs to be embedded for a decent length of time to really have any odds of spreading a disease (I’ve heard anywhere from 10-24 hours although this is likely affected by multiple factors), and even if embedded long enough, the odds are still pretty low.
Lyme disease is only carried by one genus of ticks that I’m aware of (Ixodes), so if you have a picture of the tick or remember what it looks like clearly enough, you can try to find out whether it was Ixodes or not. Even if it’s not Ixodes, other ticks can carry other types of tick-borne disease (Rocky Mountain fever, Ehrlichiosis, etc).
The only thing to keep an eye out at this point is to see if symptoms form. The main things you’re looking for are fever and/or rash/inflammation in the affected area. If you do get symptoms, it could also just be a regular infection, but nonetheless you should see a doctor and explain about the tick and when/where you might have gotten it. If there are symptoms, all that you’ll have to do generally is to go through a round of anti-biotics if you catch it quickly enough (usually more severe complications don’t start occuring til a couple weeks in).