Lyme Disease Prevention

The best approach to Lyme disease is to prevent the disease in the first place

If you’ve been following along with this series of blogs, you might be feeling weary about this particular bacterial infection and your potential risk. We do not want to scare you with this information, but knowledge is power. As with all chronic illnesses, the best approach is to prevent them in the first place. Our hope is that greater awareness around Lyme disease can lead to increased prevention as well as increased early identification, which can save you or your children from long-term health complications.

Tick Bite Prevention

The National Institute of Health (NIH) recommends the following for tick bite prevention:

• Use a chemical repellant with DEET, permethrin, or picaridin
• Wear light-colored protective clothing
• Tuck pant legs into socks
• Avoid tick-infested areas.
• Check yourself, your children, and your pets daily for ticks and carefully remove any ticks

Essential oil tick repellant:

• Lavender, peppermint, citronella, lemongrass, cedar, rose geranium, and citrus
• Add to a carrier oil like sweet almond oil or olive oil; 12 drops EO per ounce.
• Spray or rub into skin

References

Lantos PM. Chronic Lyme disease. Infect Dis Clin North Am. 2015;29(2):325-340.

Rahlenbeck S, Fingerle V, Doggett S. Prevention of tick-borne diseases: an overview. Br J Gen Pract. 2016;66(650):492-494.

Shor S, Green C, Szantyr B, et al. Chronic Lyme disease: an evidence-based definition by the ILADS working group. Antibiotics (Basel). 2019;8(4).

Van Hout MC. The controversies, challenges, and complexities of Lyme disease: a narrative review. J Pharm Pharm Sci. 2018;21(1):429-436.