Lyme Disease Safety
Summertime for many people is the time to be outside as much as possible. The warm weather makes you want to get out and do things that you couldn’t have possibly done in the colder months especially when there was snow on the ground. But now that it’s warm enough for you to be outside, it is the perfect temperature for ticks as well.
Lyme disease prevention can be tricky because you normally can’t feel a tick bite and ticks are very small and are hard to see. But as tricky as it may be, it is very important. Blacklegged ticks are the ones that typically spread Lyme disease. They live in moist and humid environments such as wooded or grassy areas. When walking through areas with tall grass or woods areas, make sure to walk in the center and avoid contact with the grasses and woods around you.
Wearing the right clothing can be just enough to avoid getting bit by a tick and getting Lyme disease. Make sure to wear light-colored clothing so that if a tick does happen to bite you, it’s easier to see. Long sleeves, pants, and high socks should be worn too and your pants should be tucked into your socks, this will ensure that the tick can’t climb up your leg if it does happen to latch onto your pants. Tick repellent should be used as well and not should not only be applied to your skin but your clothing too.
After you get back from being in an area where ticks most likely live, it is very important to do a thorough check of your body. Make sure to check under your arms, in and around your ears, inside your belly button, the back of your knees, in and around all hair, between your legs, and around your waist especially, because these are more common places that a tick would latch on to.
You should also make sure that if a tick did latch onto your clothing, that it won’t be able to leave those clothes and end up on your body or anywhere else. To do this, after you get back from a wooded or grassy area, throw all of the clothes you were wearing into the dryer on high heat. This will make sure that if any ticks did make it onto your clothing, that they aren’t making it off of them.
Lyme disease can become a very large health issue if it is not taken care of immediately. If you do happen to see a tick on your body, use a fine-tipped tweezer to remove it. If the tick has been on your body for less than 24 hours, the chance of you getting Lyme disease is very low.
If you want to be extra sure, you can perform daily tick checks of your body every time you are exposed to a moist or humid environment, this way if you do need medical help you can do so as quickly as possible and avoid Lyme disease.
