Preventing Lyme disease is very simple: lessen your exposure to black-legged ticks and make sure they are not allowed to transmit the B. burgdorferi bacterium to you. To this end you can:

• Avoid walking through dense wooded areas, low bushes, and tall grasses. Don’t let your dog off of the leash in these areas.
• If you do spend time in such high-risk areas, use insect repellant that contains DEET.
• Cover up exposed skin when entering such areas (i.e. wear long pants, sleeves, and closed-toed shoes).
• When you spend time in such areas, check yourself, your children, and your pets for ticks daily.
• Remove any ticks that you find with tweezers by grasping the tick near its head and gently pulling it out carefully and steadily.

There is a lot of misinformation about the best way to remove a tick. Some recommended methods include burning it, applying petroleum jelly, applying nail polish, or freezing it with ice. All of these methods tend to irritate the tick and may actually make it more likely that the tick will transmit certain diseases. The best way to remove a tick is to pluck it out without disturbing it, as described above. Leaving the head behind in your skin is not dangerous because all tickborne diseases — including Lyme disease — are stored in the tick’s body, not its head.

When possible, the removed ticks should be saved in a vial or jar labeled with the date and location. This information may aid the doctor in the diagnosis of Lyme disease or other tick-borne diseases should any illness subsequently develop.

Ticks do not transmit the bacterium that causes Lyme disease until they have finished their blood meal. This usually takes 36-48 hours of attachment to occur. If the tick is detected and removed before it becomes engorged with blood, there is very little chance of it transmitting Lyme disease. Thus, it is important to thoroughly check your family for ticks daily, especially in the summer. Check thoroughly, because some ticks may be very small and can be difficult to see.