How can I prevent tick-borne disease?

To prevent tick-borne disease, precautions you should take in heavily wooded areas include using repellants, wearing appropriate clothing, and doing thorough tick checks. Public health specialist Peter DeLucia, MPA, give some important tips.

Transcript

00:00

Light-colored clothing, socks, even tucking your pants into your socks. You might get a ticket from the fashion police,

00:07

but you're not going to get Lyme disease. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:17

In order to protect yourself against getting Lyme disease, you want to make sure you take some precautions. If you're going to go out and going to go hiking,

00:24

you're going to find yourself in the woods or around tall grass and things like that, you want to make sure you use proper repellents, and repellents

00:32

that contain DEET. These are the type of repellents you want to make sure you put on your clothing, you put on your skin.

00:39

Always remember, when you use a repellent, to follow the directions on the label. The label is the law.

00:46

You also want to make sure you dress properly. Light-colored clothing, socks, even tucking your pants

00:53

into your socks-- you might get a ticket from the fashion police. But you're not going to get Lyme disease. These strategies are a great defense.

01:01

But let's be realistic. It gets warm outside. You wear sandals. You wear shorts.

01:08

So it's imperative that when you get home, you do a tick check. Sometimes it takes two people.

01:15

Grab a friend to check your back and things like that. Ticks like to go to areas where it's warm. They'll go around your waistline.

01:22

They'll go in around your crotch. They'll go under your watch band, areas like that, in your hair line. You want to check all of those areas

01:29

because quick removal of the tick is very important. It takes 36 or more hours for a tick to be attached to you to transmit Lyme disease.

01:38

So the earlier you get the tick off you, the better you are. [AUDIO LOGO]