Lyme disease is caused by bacteria but spread by the bite of the tick. The prevention of Lyme disease focused on two aspects, one is to avoid the tick bite and second to avoid infection once a tick bites. The article explains how you can do this.

Prevention of Lyme disease
The prevention of Lyme disease can be done in two ways. One is by ensuring that you are not bitten by the tick, which is a vector. The second involves taking preventive measures to avoid being infected by bacteria after a tick bite.

• Pre-tick-bite prevention
  You need to take precautions to avoid a tick bite. Preventive measures to take include:
• Fence your outdoor areas to keep away deer. Avoid rats by not allowing places for them to stay.
• You can use tick pesticides in your yard as a preventive measure.
• Cover yourself completely to avoid being bitten when you go outdoors to areas frequented by deer and wild animals.
• Use an insect repellent cream with DEE or oil of lemon eucalyptus to keep ticks away.
• Shower after coming from outdoors and check your body carefully for ticks.
• Check your pets as they can carry ticks on their skin/fur.
• Post-tick bite prevention
  In case you find a tick on your body or have experienced a tick bite, don’t worry. You may not yet be infected. The tick needs to remain on your body for at least 36 hours to infect you. If you can remove the tick before this period, you avoid getting infected. The following are post-tick bite preventive measures to avoid an infection:
• The moment you spot a tick on your body, remove it. Use tweezers to remove the tick from your body.
• Wear gloves and then grasp the tick with tweezers at the skin level. Avoid crushing the tick and hold gently. Pull the tick out gently, so that the entire tick is removed. This is important, since if you do not pull out the entire tick, the mouth-parts may remain, causing an infection.
• If you don’t have tweezers, dip a cotton ball in soap solution and put it on the tick. After a few seconds remove the cotton ball, the tick would have stuck to it. Make sure the tick has come out completely.
• Don’t throw away the tick, keep it in a box or jar and show it to the doctor in case you experience signs of an infection. Watch out for rashes and swelling in the area where you were bitten.
• Check your body thoroughly as ticks can get into areas like armpits and groin. Ensure every single tick is removed from the body.
• Wash the bitten area thoroughly with antiseptic soap and hot water.
• There are many other methods suggested like burning the tick, avoid all such unscientific methods as they could cause the tick to release fluids into your body.

The two aspects related to the prevention of Lyme disease have been explained herein. The information mentioned above can help you understand how you could avoid a tick bite and how to prevent infection in case a tick bites you.