PERSONAL PRECAUTIONS: Use the following personal precautions to avoid exposure to ticks:

1.      Wear light-colored clothing with a tight weave to spot ticks more easily and prevent contact with skin

2.      Always wear enclosed shoes or boots

3.      Wear long pants tucked into socks, long-sleeved shirts tucked into pants (spot-check clothes frequently)

4.      Apply a DEET -based insect repellent, like CutterŪ, to exposed skin. An effective repellent will contain 7% to 30% DEET (N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide).

5.      Spray clothes with insect repellent containing either DEET or Permethrin (only DEET can be used on exposed skin; follow the manufacturer's directions)

6.      Keep long hair pulled back

7.      When gardening, pruning shrubs, or otherwise handling soil and vegetation, wear light-colored gloves, spot-checking them for ticks frequently

8.      Avoid sitting directly on the ground or on open stone walls (which attract small mammals, susceptible to ticks)

9.      Stay on cleared, well-worn trails whenever possible

10.   During any outing, spot-check yourself and others frequently for ticks on clothes and skin; if you find one, there may be others - check thoroughly

11.   Remove clothes after leaving tick-infested areas and, if possible, wash and dry them to eliminate unseen ticks

12.   Shower and shampoo

13.   Check yourself, your children and any pets from head to toe for ticks each night before going to bed

Take note: Nymphal deer ticks are the size of poppy seeds; adult deer ticks are the size of sesame seeds.

Any contact with vegetation, whether bushwhacking through dense brush or simply playing in the yard, can result in exposure to ticks, so careful daily self-inspection is necessary whenever you engage in outdoor activities and the temperature exceeds 40 degrees F (the temperature above which deer ticks are active). Systematic, whole-body examination each night before going to bed is perhaps the single most effective current method for prevention of Lyme disease.

HOME PRECAUTIONS: Use the following precautions to reduce the tick population around your home:

• Keep lawns mowed and edges trimmed
• Clear brush, leaf litter and tall grass around houses and at the edges of gardens and open stone walls
• Stack woodpiles neatly in a dry location and preferably off the ground
• Clear all leaf litter (including the remains of perennials) out of the garden in the fall
• Keep the ground under bird feeders clean so as not to attract small mammals
• Use a permethrin-based mosquito spray, such as CutterŪ Bug Free Backyard, on your lawn, trees, shrubs and flowers