Local ERs are already seeing lots of visits for tick bites. Here’s what to know.

This year’s tick season could be unusually bad. New data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that in the Northeast, there have been more emergency room visits for tick bites so far this year than any other year in the past decade.

“It seems like the season’s off to a brisk start, if you will,” said Dr. Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease physician at Mass General Brigham. But he said the high number of ER visits doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a higher number of infections this year. “It’s a little early to know whether it’s bad — worse — or better, about the same than previous seasons,” he said.

Zooming in, Massachusetts also saw a sharp increase in ER visits early this season, according to Dr. Catherine Brown, the state epidemiologist for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

No matter how bad this season ends up being, experts say the basics of tick prevention this year are the same: Do regular tick checks, and wear clothing and repellants to keep ticks off your body. And if it seems likely you were exposed to Lyme disease, reach out to your primary care doctor, who may recommend preventative antibiotics before an infection takes hold.

The best way to avoid tick-borne diseases is avoid getting bitten in the first place. Wear long sleeves and pants, put on bug spray with DEET, and do tick checks when you come in from outside.

If you find one on your body, observe it before pulling it off. The longer a deer tick is attached to you, the more likely it is to spread Lyme disease. That means if it’s swollen or engorged, it’s more likely to have spread Lyme disease.

“A tick is flat, normally. It’s like if you think of a sesame seed on a bagel,” said Dr. Jonathan Edlow, a professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School. “When a tick bites, It’s basically sucking blood, and it becomes less flat and more spherical.”

No matter what species of tick, prevention is still the same. With the rising prevalence of alpha-gal syndrome — a disease transmitted by lone star ticks that can cause an allergy to dairy and red meat — health experts warn the only way to be safe is to keep them from biting you.

“Just the bite of the tick can cause alpha-gal syndrome, which is [an] allergy to red meat,” Dr. Robbie Goldstein, Massachusetts’ public health commissioner, told GBH’s Morning Edition on Friday. “That means there’s no treatment. There’s no way for us to give an antibiotic or to give a medication. Instead, the best way to prevent it is to prevent the tick bite in the first place.”

Prevention methods have been the same for a long time. But one thing’s changed in the last few decades: More ticks, and more diseases.

“Thirty years ago, we were only really talking about Lyme disease. And now that same tick, the one that spreads Lyme disease, spreads five different diseases in Massachusetts,” said Dr. Catherine Brown, the state epidemiologist for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. “So if you paid attention to your parents back then, and actually were doing things to prevent tick bites, now there are just four more reasons to do that.”

A bad tick season is caused by a huge combination of factors, from the acorn crop to the deer population to the amount of snow over the winter.

But the number of ticks — and the range of tick-borne diseases — has gone up notably in Massachusetts in recent decades.

“Whether this year is a little bit better or a little worse than the last one is almost irrelevant,” Brown said. “There are a lot ticks every year. Please take steps to avoid getting bitten.”

Doctors have one more piece of advice: Don’t panic.

Dr. Rakhi Kolhi, an infectious disease physician at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, says people shouldn’t stay indoors because of ticks.

“I wouldn’t be an alarmist here. We definitely want people to go outside, get fresh air, enjoy the good New England weather,” Kohli said. “That’s very important for wellbeing. And I think there’s just very simple things one can do to protect themselves.”

And simply getting a tick bite isn’t a reason to rush to the emergency room.

“You could call your primary care doctor,” Edlow said. “My experience is that people tend to really freak out — and I don’t mean this in a pejorative way — but overreact to a tick bite. And you really don’t need to do that.”