Lyme Disease Pa

Insect Spray

• Use a good insect spray. Read the labels carefully. Many of the sprays need to be reapplied frequently. Also, they help but they are not foolproof. You can still get bitten even if you just sprayed yourself.

Inspections

• Check yourself and your family when they come inside. You have to look very carefully to find the lyme ticks. Remember that they are smaller than the usual dog ticks. The nymphs are even smaller. You have to look carefully through the hair for them as well. Check behind the knees and under the armpits as well as the groin.

•  Don't come into the house with your outside clothes as you might be bringing ticks in. Of course, if you live in a densely populated area with a lot of neighbors you might not be able to remove all of your clothes outside..

• Ticks sometimes take a while before they burrow in. You might want to take a shower as soon as possible after you have been outdoors.

Tick Removal

• Removing ticks with a match or lighter is supposed to be bad. The tick regurgitates and you get a dose of whatever is inside it. You also have to be careful how you remove it so you don't squeeze the tick. Be careful handling the tick as you can get diseases that way.

• Many doctors send the ticks out for testing. Some labs simply identify the tick as a lyme tick and others will test for the actual disease

Critters

• Try to discourage small animals such as squirrels, groundhogs, and raccoons. They can host the ticks. If you do trap animals, check your game laws and local ordinances. When handling animals, you need to be thoroughly aware of the danger of rabies.

• If you have a cat, hopefully it's a good mouser. Keeping the mouse population under control will also help