The Cold Didn't Save You From the Michigan Tick Epidemic

I pulled three ticks off myself last week. In early March.

Michigan just came out of one of the nastier winters in recent memory. We saw ice storms, extended cold snaps, and the kind of February that makes you question your life choices. And I still walked inside with three ticks looking for real estate on my body.

I've been making the naive mistake of telling myself these last few months, "At least the ticks are freezing to death." We've seen it get as cold as -18 degrees. If you've been making the same mistake, I've got bad news.

MSU tick researcher Jean Tsao confirmed earlier this year on Michigan Public Radio that the more important survival variable isn't winter temperature. It's summer dryness. Dry conditions push ticks down into the leaf layer where they ride it out. The cold acts like a pause button, not a kill switch.

And the numbers are getting ugly. According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Lyme disease cases in Michigan increased 168% between 2020 and 2024, from 452 confirmed cases to 1,215.

Anaplasmosis, the second most common tick-borne disease in the state, nearly quintupled in the same window. Tick populations have expanded across both peninsulas, and nearly every Michigan county now carries confirmed Lyme risk.

Those are confirmed, reported cases. The real exposure numbers are much higher, as many cases obviously don't get reported. Most people who get bit don't report it. Many who get sick never connect it to a tick they never saw.

Deer ticks and dog ticks should be what most Michigan outdoorsmen watch out for. But there's a third species that now needs to be in that conversation.

The Lone Star tick was first confirmed in Michigan in Kalamazoo County in 2022. It now has an established presence in Southwest Michigan, and Tsao said statewide spread is a matter of when, not if. 

The Lone Star tick is a big problem because it transmits alpha-gal syndrome, a condition where a single bite triggers your immune system to develop an allergy to alpha-gal, a sugar molecule found in most mammal tissue. Beef. Pork. Lamb. Rabbit. Venison.

Yes, a tick bite can make you allergic to venison.

The CDC estimates up to 450,000 Americans are living with it and acknowledges that's likely a significant undercount. What makes it hard to catch is the delay—reactions hit two to six hours after eating red meat. By then, most people aren't connecting the steak they had for dinner to the hives and stomach pain showing up at midnight. It can be misdiagnosed for years.

In late 2025, researchers confirmed the first known death from alpha-gal syndrome, a 47-year-old healthy man in New Jersey who died hours after eating beef. His wife recalled he'd had a cluster of bites around his ankles earlier that summer. They both assumed chiggers. Researchers note that many bites attributed to chiggers in the eastern U.S. are actually Lone Star tick larvae.

If you've had mystery ankle bites this past summer and written them off, pay attention.

So what do we do? For now, permethrin-treat your gear. Boots, pants, base layers, and pack, but not your skin. It kills ticks on contact, and it works great.

Do a real tick check after every trip outside: scalp, behind the ears, armpits, groin, behind the knees. Blacklegged (deer) ticks typically need 36 to 48 hours attached before transmitting Lyme. Finding them the same day matters.

Know what the Lone Star tick looks like, especially if you're hunting in West or Southwest Michigan. Don't assume ankle bites are chiggers. And if you've ever had a tick bite followed by delayed reactions after eating red meat, tell your doctor.

Michigan is still one of the best places in the country to be outside. That's not changing. But the tick situation is different from what it was 10 years ago, and the people with the most exposure are the ones spending the most time in the field.

A brutal winter didn't fix it. Check yourself.