Who writes them
A Guide to Tick Country is written by people who live in tick country. That includes a working Vermont farm, where part of our team has spent fifteen years pulling ticks off dogs, kids, and themselves, and watching a species arrive that wasn’t much of a problem here when they started.
We think that matters, and we also think it has limits. Living with ticks teaches you what the questions are. It doesn’t qualify anyone to answer the clinical ones. So the division of labor on this site is deliberate: the people who know the landscape write about the landscape, and everything touching diagnosis, treatment, or risk goes to a physician before it goes to you.
Who reviews them
Every guide is reviewed for clinical accuracy by a licensed physician at Tickortreat Medical P.A. before publication. Nothing in the Guide goes live without that review.
We don’t put a reviewer’s name on individual articles. Clinical roles change, and a byline frozen at the moment of publication tells you less than it appears to — it says who held a job once, not who stands behind the page today. What we do instead is show our work: every clinical claim in the Guide is sourced, and the sources are linked so you can read them rather than take our word for it.
We record internally who wrote each guide, who reviewed it, and when. We don’t publish bylines on individual articles, because the Guide speaks for Tickortreat rather than for any one of us, but the accountability behind each piece is documented and we can account for it on request.
When we re-check
- At least once a year, whether or not anything has changed.
- Whenever national guidance changes. Our clinical content follows the current joint Lyme disease guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Academy of Neurology, and the American College of Rheumatology. When those are revised, the affected guides are re-reviewed before the next tick season.
- Whenever someone tells us we’re wrong and turns out to be right.
Where the information comes from
Every clinical claim we make is linked to its source. Not a reading list at the bottom of the page, but a link at the point the claim is made, pointing at the guideline, the surveillance data or the paper it came from. Where a question is genuinely unsettled, we say so and show you the studies that disagree.
Clinical guidance comes from published national guidelines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the peer-reviewed literature. Regional information comes from state health departments across our planned launch area. Where a guide rests on a specific source, we cite it and link to it so you can read it yourself.
We try to be clear about the difference between three things: what the evidence establishes, what the guidelines recommend, and what we think. The first two are sourced. The third is our opinion and we say so when we’re giving it.
We don’t publish content generated by an AI system and passed off as our own writing, and we don’t publish articles produced to fill a keyword gap. If a guide exists, it’s because somebody here thought the question was worth answering properly.
Our commercial interest, stated plainly
Tickortreat is a business. We charge $75 for an online visit, and some people who read these guides will decide to start one. That’s an obvious incentive to tell you that more bites need care than actually do, and you should read us knowing it exists.
Here is how we try not to do that:
- Our guides describe the criteria accurately even when that disqualifies readers. Most tick bites don’t need treatment, preventive antibiotics apply to a narrow set of circumstances, and we say so in the same words a clinician would.
- We say when online care is the wrong choice. If a situation needs an in-person examination, our guides send you to one.
- The pre-screen is free and comes first. You find out whether you’re eligible before you pay anything, and if the answer is no, you keep your money.
- No affiliate revenue, anywhere in the Guide. When we recommend a product, such as a repellent or a pair of tweezers, we earn nothing from it. We recommend it because it works.
- No advertising, and no sponsored content. Nobody can pay to appear in these guides or to change what they say.
Our tick identification tool
The photo identification tool at identify.tickortreat.com is deliberately kept separate from our clinical service. Nothing you submit there reaches a clinician, enters a medical record, or affects whether you can be seen. It’s free, it will tell you honestly when it can’t identify a tick, and your eligibility for care never depends on what it says.
Corrections
We will get things wrong. When we do, we fix the article and note what changed and when, rather than quietly editing and moving on. Substantive corrections to clinical content are reviewed by our Medical Director before they publish, the same as the original.
If you find an error, tell us. We would much rather hear it from you than leave it standing.
What this site is not
The Guide is general health information. It is not medical advice, it cannot account for your particular situation, and reading it does not create a clinician-patient relationship. Care is delivered through a visit with a licensed clinician, not through these pages.
Tickortreat does not handle emergencies. If you’re having a medical emergency, call 911 or go to an emergency department.
About the illustrations
Every illustration on this site is by Louisa Conrad of Big Picture Farm, painted for Tickortreat.
Tell us we’re wrong
Corrections, questions about sourcing, or anything else about how these guides are made.
guide@tickortreat.com