Ticked off: Kick the tick

Wednesday, August 29, 2007 2:58 PM CDT

Until biologists work some molecular magic to make ticks fall off as soon as they touch your skin, we’re left with more mundane ways of protecting ourselves from Lyme disease.

There are two key points about ticks which you can use to help protect yourself. First, ticks climb upward, and will keep climbing until they find bare skin. Second, ticks dry out quickly so they don’t tolerate much exposure to sun or heat. Now, put those to use like this:

n When you come in from the outdoors, look at your skin and make sure there aren’t any ticks crawling on you. (If you’re intimate with someone, this can even be a team sport.) Ticks have to be attached to your skin at least 24 hours before the Lyme disease organism can be transmitted so if you get the ticks off immediately, your risk goes way down.

n The standard advice still applies: wear long-sleeved shirts and wear pants tucked into boots or socks. Light-colored clothing will make it easier to see ticks. A collared shirt is preferable to a t-shirt because the fold of the collar provides another barrier in which a tick can be trapped.

n Around your yard or north woods cabin you can create a barrier to stop ticks. Manicured lawns provide too much exposure to the sun.

n If your property abuts a wooded area, make sure the children’s swings are moved out from under the shady trees and closer to the sandbox in the sun.

n If you have a heavily used woodland trail, from cabin to dock for example, make sure it’s wide enough and trimmed so you won’t brush against grass or shrubs while walking.

n You also can create a stronger barrier between a wooded area and an area frequented by people. Clear a 3-foot-wide area of everything, including grass, perhaps substituting decorative stone. Ticks will not want to cross that because of the heat from the rock.

What’s on your clothing can also play a role. Sporting good stores now commonly sell clothes impregnated with permethrin, a synthetic derivative of the natural insecticide found in chrysanthemums. It kills ticks rather than just repelling them. There’s also DEET, the chemical found in many commercial insect repellents such as Off!

Troops at Fort McCoy, said Jim Kazmierczak, state public health veterinarian, have found that using permethrin on uniforms and DEET on exposed skin is an effective combination. And Fort McCoy is in the prime tick country of central Wisconsin.

In his book “Biography of a Germ,” which is about Lyme disease, Arno Karlen writes that the prevalence of Lyme disease is a barometer of certain environmental conditions. The irony, he writes, is that people trying to reconnect with nature are creating environments in which ticks flourish, proof that no good deed goes unpunished.

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