Lyme Disease Prevention
In addition to using an insect repellent with 20% to 30% DEET, Lyme disease prevention usually focuses on:
- avoiding tick infested areas, including any woody or bushy areas with high grass, that is away from a trail
- wearing a long-sleeved shirt, that they tuck into long pants, that they tuck into long socks, when they are walking or playing in any area that may be infested with ticks
- doing daily tick checks so that you can find and remove any ticks that are biting your children
- wearing light colored clothing to help make finding ticks easier
- control ticks around your home by removing leaf litter, clearing tall grass, and mowing the lawn frequently
It is usually not recommended that children take antibiotics following a tick bite. A single dose of doxycycline might be used to try and prevent Lyme disease if it hasn't been more than 72 hours since the tick was removed, if the tick was on for at least 36 hours, the bite occurred in an area that where at least 20% of ticks are infected with the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, the child is at least eight years old, and not allergic to doxycycline.
What You Need To Know
- Lyme disease is caused by the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, which spread to people from infected deer ticks (Northeast and Midwest U.S.) and Western black-legged ticks (Pacific states), who become infected when feeding on infected mice, squirrels, and other small mammals.
- Most cases of Lyme disease occur in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
- Lyme disease is most common during May, June, and July -- the months when the ticks that transmit Lyme disease are most active.
- The American dog tick and the Lone star tick do not transmit Lyme disease.
- Lyme disease is thought to be often over-diagnosed, both because many Lyme disease symptoms are non-specific and because tests for Lyme disease often give false positive results, especially if done very early in the course of the infection.
Sources:
Gershon: Krugman's Infectious Diseases of Children, 11th ed.
Infectious Diseases Society of America Guidelines. The Clinical Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention of Lyme Disease, Human Granulocytic Anaplasmosis, and Babesiosis. Clinical Infectious Diseases 2006;43:1089–1134.
Long: Principles and Practice of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, 3rd ed.
