I’m not sure I’m completely tracking this article on how to stay safe from Lyme disease.

Don’t get me wrong, I totally get that she’s writing an article about how to stay safe, but the problem is, I didn’t see what her tips were? Did you?

I do agree with her 110% about climate change being the likely culprit of the rapid increase in cases (300,000 annually) across the United States. And hopefully, one day, naysayers comprised mainly of conservative Republicans and Donald Trump supporters will have a change of heart because climate change is REAL.

But for now, anyway, that’s another topic to save for a rainy day.

So, yes, I agree with her that taking precautions to avoid getting Lyme disease is super, uber important. After all, there’s now evidence from a recent clinical trial, known as the PLEASE study, that shows that people infected with Lyme disease and treated (protocol antibiotics) did just as poorly as those given a placebo as it relates to symptom relief.

But if you are new to all of this—especially if you’re just looking for safety against the disease in hopes of NEVER catching it, here are some tips:

1. Always, always wear protective clothing when walking or playing outdoors. This includes wearing long pants with socks, long sleeves (light fabrics are suitable for hot weather).
2. Spray your clothes down with insect repellent—especially on your shoes, feet, ankles, arms, neck, and while you’re at it—your head and neck. Oh shoot… take a deep breath of fresh air and spray your entire body down!
3. Avoid going into the deep woods and brush, but if you have to, TRY to avoid brushing up against bushes and trees.
4. When you come inside, remove your clothes before sitting down on the sofa as ticks love to hang out there, too!
5. Put your clothes into the dryer on high heat for 6 minutes. Almost all ticks survive washing, more than half survive washing in hot water and it takes a full hour on high to kill them wet.  So dry your clothes – and then you can wear them again, or wash them. Do not put them back into your pile and then pull something ELSE out to wear. [C’mon! You know who you are! “Just say no” to wearing your gently worn clothes unless you dry them. You do not want a home invasion]
6. Now that you’re naked, stand in front of a full length mirror and check yourself for ticks. Use a hand-held mirror too, for those hard to reach places—but look EVERYWHERE on your body. Then, take your hands and run it through your hair and scalp.
7. Take a shower and use down strokes to push any small ticks (that you can’t see with the naked eye) down and away from your body. Wash your feet last.
8. Wash your hair and scalp.
9. Put on clean clothes and continue on about your day!
10. Check your cats and dogs regularly for ticks and vacuum frequently as ticks crawl off of Fido and Fifi onto the carpet and sofas. Using tick collars or applying a treatment like “Frontline” as prescribed by your vet has been shown to help. Fewer ticks will get into your home if you use it regularly.
11. Always, ALWAYS… When you feel something crawling on your body, check it out! It could easily be a tick.
12. Remember: Ticks are tough! Unless you kill them, (you can choose your weapon of choice) they can crawl back out of the trashcan and latch right back on to you. So be merciless! I follow a plant based diet and hate to kill animals, but I draw the line at ticks, spiders, fleas, and mosquitoes!

So what’s your preferred way to kill ticks? Go ahead. Make my day! Spill the beans! Do you prefer drowning them in the toilet or tossing their bloody carcass in the trash? Got a better way?