MILWAUKEE (SPECTRUM NEWS) - Just about everyone in Wisconsin has a story to tell about a certain summer nemesis: ticks, the unfriendly arachnids hiding in the woods.

On Wednesday, Brigit Brown from the Department of Natural Resources offered some tick tips as summer approaches.

“Stay away from places ticks like,” Brown said. “So stay on the trail. Ticks can crawl up and they can also drop down, so that means being careful of what’s above you, beside you and below you.”

At Riverside Park in Milwaukee, Carol Ott explained how her husband found a tick before taking shower at their Oconto County cabin last weekend. She and her husband are extra vigilant about ticks because he has contracted Lyme disease twice.

“He was having horrible headaches,” Ott said. “He went back to the doctor and, how he said it, it felt like his head was gonna blow off.”

Lyme disease comes from deer ticks, or black-legged ticks. According to the Department of Health Services, just over 3,100 people got the disease in 2018. The number of Lyme disease cases per year in Wisconsin has more than doubled in the last decade.

Brigit Brown, a recreation management chief for the DNR, offered some additional advice on checking for ticks after spending time in the woods. One should perform a standard body check just before going inside, then checking again while scrubbing in the shower. Brown also said placing clothes in the dryer for 10 minutes on a high setting should kill any remaining ticks brought inside.

Brown said deer ticks can be found in every Wisconsin county, though they have become more prevalent in the southeastern part of the state in recent years. The state has also seen an increase in the number of Lone Star ticks. That tick’s bite can cause an alpha-gal allergy, which triggers a serious delayed reaction after eating red meat.