Tick season in the Midwest does not end with summer. Deer movement picks up in the fall, adult ticks stay active until a hard freeze, and hunters, hikers, and people raking leaves keep meeting them well into November.
For households across the Kansas City metro and the wider Kansas and Missouri region, the tick worth understanding this fall is the lone star tick. Its bite can cause the usual bacterial infections. It can also cause something stranger: a lasting allergy to red meat that shows up hours after a meal, often long after the bite has been forgotten.
