Lyme Disease Prevention

When walking or hiking in wooded or grassy areas, tuck long pants into socks to protect the legs, and wear shoes and long-sleeved shirts. Ticks will show up on white or light colors better than dark colors, making them easier to remove from your clothing. Spray your clothes with insect repellant.

Check yourself and your pets frequently. If you find ticks, remove them immediately by using tweezers, pulling carefully and steadily.

Ticks can be fairly large -- about the size of a pencil eraser -- or so small that they are almost impossible to see. After returning home, remove your clothes and thoroughly inspect all skin surface areas, including your scalp. Ticks can quickly climb up the length of your body. Some ticks are large and easy to locate. Other ticks can be quite small, so carefully evaluate all spots on the skin.

Lyme Disease Prevention by Minimize risk of exposure

Precautions to avoid contact with ticks include moving leaves and brush away from living quarters. Most important are personal protection techniques when outdoors, such as:

• Using repellents containing DEET
• Wearing light-colored clothing to maximize ability to see ticks
• Tucking pant legs into socks or boot top
• Checking children frequently for ticks.

In highly tick-populated areas, each individual should be inspected at the end of the day to look for ticks.

Lyme Disease Prevention by Minimize risk of disease

The two most important factors are removing the tick quickly and carefully, and seeking a doctor's evaluation at the first sign of symptoms of Lyme disease. When in an area that may be tick-populated:

• Check for ticks, particularly in the area of the groin, underarm, behind ears, and on the scalp
• Stay calm and grasp the tick as near to the skin as possible, using a tweezer
• To minimize the risk of squeezing more bacteria into the bite, pull straight back steadily and slowly
• Do not try to make the tick back out by using vaseline, alcohol, or a lit match
• Place the tick in a closed container (for species identification later, should symptoms develop) or dispose of it by flushing
• See a physician for any sort of rash or patchy discoloration that appears 3-30 days after a tick bite.

Medical studies to date do not support the preventative use of antibiotics after a tick bite, even if the tick has been identified as a deer tick. The risk of Lyme disease after a deer tick exposure appears to be quite low.

Lyme Disease Prevention Vaccines

An approved vaccine may be available quite soon. Two vaccines are being tested and are similar in that they both require three injections, the first two given a month apart; a third injection given a year later. In 1997, the early results from a very large study of 10,000 adults in many locations showed strong promise of a safe, effective vaccine. Until then, the best prevention strategy is through minimizing risk of exposure to ticks and using personal protection precautions. There is also research into vaccination against the tick vector to prevent the tick from feeding long enough to transmit the infection.