All good information here. Some advise that one can follow is to always do your best to wear clothing that protects you from ticks. I always wear a long sleeve shirt, pants, and a wide brimmed hat when out in the woods. Unlike popular belief, ticks cannot jump, but rather they fall onto us when brushed off of leaves or disturbed from their current spots. After being outside, always check yourself for ticks, and make sure to look in intertriginous zones (places where skin folds) as these are places that ticks seem to like. If you can have someone check your hair, back, and other places that you can't see that's ideal, otherwise use a mirror to take a look.
If you are bitten by a tick, remove it with a pair of tweezers by pinging with firm pressure as close to the skin as possible. Don't rip it out, as you may leave the head or other parts behind. By applying firm pressure the tick will release itself and you can pull it out. Don't worry about squeezing the tick or bad things into you either. That is also a misnomer. It takes 36 hours of a tick to transfer the bacteria that causes lyme disease, so if you can remove the tick within that time frame you shouldn't need antibiotics. Lyme disease is definitely the most common of the tick-borne illnesses, but some of the others (anaplasmosis, erlichiosis, babesiosis, etc.) as mentioned above may be transmitted sooner than this 36 hours.
If you have any concerns that you may have contracted one of these, I'll just repeat what has been said, definitely see your doctor. Most are curable with a course of doxycycline, but others (such as babesiosis) require a different antibiotic. The CDC has some good information out there on tick-borne illnesses and their symptoms and treatments, although it is in a slightly more scientific language. If you are looking for a tick-borne illness specialist, you should ask your primary care provider to refer you to an infectious disease doctor. Early treatment is the best course here too. Using lyme disease (the most prevalent that we deal with here in PA) as an example, there are some complications that can arise, such as muscle aches, heart problems, and Bell's Palsy (loss of muscle tone/facial droop on one or both sides of the face) if it goes untreated. Some of these do resolve, and some may not. The scientific literature is still equivocal on some of this.
So to make a very long story short, make sure you protect yourself when you're out, check yourself when you get home, be familiar with signs/symptoms of common tick-borne illnesses, and visit your doctor if you have any questions!
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