How to Remove a Tick the Right Way & Care After A Bite: Lyme Disease Prevention
We are going over the importance of knowing what to do if bitten by a tick, including practical steps for tick removal, care for the bite area, and why it could be important to keep the tick for potential testing. This episode also delves into the different stages of Lyme disease, symptoms to watch for, and preventive measures, aiming to educate you on living wisely in a tick-populated world without succumbing to fear.
In this episode you will learn about:
Tick bites and prevention
Tick removal and infection prevention
Lyme disease prevention and treatment using homeopathic remedies
Preventing tick bites and identifying tick
Click here to access our Amazon shop of tick related tools
Tick testing resource mentioned by Elizabeth: tickreport.com
Please note that transcripts may contain minor errors or inaccuracies. We hope you enjoy reading them and find them helpful.
Hey, you're gonna be okay. I'm your host, Elizabeth Mae, and my functional health practice helps people heal when they've exhausted traditional options. When no one can figure your health challenges out, my team helps you resolve symptoms and restores your health. You're listening to my podcast where we'll hear stories of healing chronic illness from a root cause approach. Hey guys. So I walked into yoga this week and I felt the universe was sending me a sign. I was checking in at a place I used to attend all the time, like getting back to it, super excited. Um, asked where I'd been, how I'd been, and I was like, hey, I had a little run-in with a tick for a while. Couldn't really do a lot physically, but better now. So I'm just getting back to normalcy for me. I literally walk in the room and these ladies are like, I have a tick in the freezer now. And the doctor doesn't tell me what to do with it. She's just like, put it in your freezer. So the enemy is in my freezer. I have not like, why would I put a tick in my freezer? My mom's sick. And went on and on. I didn't really hear it all. But that was number one. I was like, wow, I can't even just go to yoga for like my own like relaxation without the issue kind of falling everywhere. But at the same time, like the amount of cluelessness and like no shade to those ladies. This is something I teach about, talk about, deal with all the time. All the time is what do we do when we're bit by a tick? Nobody teaches us this stuff really. We've heard lots of different ways to remove them. Once the tick has bitten you, your brain seems to like go out your ear and you can't think. I've called my practitioner friends. Like I literally teach this. And when it happens, the panic is real and you cannot figure out what you need to do. So today we're gonna be talking about tick kits, what to do when you're bit. We're gonna cover after the bite, what are we looking for? Uh, what do we do with the frozen tick? Why do we why do we collect that guy and let him live in our freezer rent-free? And then also, you know, what do we do to prevent being bitten by a tick? Ticks are out there, ticks are gonna happen. Something that I firmly believe in is they're just part of life now. We don't modify our lives because they exist. We just, we just live wisely. Um, and that's really important. And I cannot tell you how many times I've answered the phone for my actual real life friends. And it's kind of a joke in our household now. Mom's on a tick call because when the tick bite happens, like you do need someone to advise, you need someone to help you think clearly. Sometimes we just need those good, clear instructions. And I just want to make a resource that you can pop back on, listen to what to do. So we're gonna start with what to do in your bit and kind of go from there. Um, but the funny part to me in this whole like universe arrangement was I leave yoga, we go fishing with my boys in a super manicured area at my parents' farm. Everything's super mod. We're like in tennis shoes and socks, like good to go on the protection side. Get home, take shoes and socks off. This kid in particular stayed super clean, didn't get in the pond, didn't do anything. Pull that sock off, and there's a tick just right on the very top of his foot and pulled it right out. It had just attached. So they're everywhere. That doesn't mean you change your life. That means you change how you support and prevent ticks. So let's just talk about what do you do in your bed? You need to have a tick kit. Um, I did not have a tick kit, I didn't put one together, and then my kids got bitten. And guess who couldn't find the tweezers? Like this can happen to you, right? So to making the kit, taking the time to do it now is super great. In the kit, we want to keep um a pair of tweezers is super important. There are other ways to remove. There are tick removal cards, there are tick spoons, and there are tick keychains. Now, I have a keychain, I love it, but it's big, so it's not going to be able to get those nymph ticks that are the size of like a poppy seed. Um, so we really want to have like a couple different options at our disposal. I really like to have all four because again, ticks happen. And if you have those things together in one place, then you're prepared. Um, also we'll be linking the Amazon store in the show notes so you can just like quickly pop over there, see all the items that I prefer to use, tweezers or tweezers. Everybody has a tweezer preference. Just have a good pair and have a pair. I don't it's like super slanted or super pointy, not always really helpful. You just want to have something that you can really get a good hold with and that you feel confident in using. Actually, like the shorter tweezers, they can be great. The little, they're like an inch and a half, two inches long, because you can really get some leverage and like get a good connection, which is important. So, other things that we want to have for carrying are alcohol wipes. You can have another sanitizing um like material. You could use alcohol, you could use hydrogen peroxide, you could use like a smart silver nano silver like product, very similar to colido silver, but not the same. We really just want like a local anesthetic. The alcohol wipes are super easy. You can keep them in a pouch, you can keep them in your purse, your kids know where they are, it's easy peasy. Um, and then we can also just like toss that away because we are dealing with bacteria, right? We're dealing with bacteria, various parasites that the ticks can carry. So we want to be cleansing and disposing of. So I love the alcohol wipes for that. And then a Lyme-specific herb to apply topically can be really helpful. Um, I also really like to, and that's just thinking about applying that antibacterial herb locally to the bite site to have those low, like antibacterial right on the spot. Another option in a pinch could be something like an antibacterial neosporin. Not my favorite for lots of other reasons, but it can be helpful in a pinch. And then I like to use a mud or a clay. I have some sort for pulling infection from the site. So let's just talk about what happens. Um, with tick removal, do not burn, do not pinch, do not twist, do not petroleum jelly it, do not put essential oil on its butt, do not put a match near the tick, do not use nail polish, do not use alcohol. The thing that we do want to do is to remove the tick as safe and quick as possible. Okay, so you want to use a fine tip tweezer. You're going to either match that or the appropriate tick removal to tool to the tick size. Again, ticks can be poppy seed sized, up to like a portion of your pinky nail, top of a pencil eraser. So pick your tool and we're going to grab the tick as close to the surface of the skin as possible. Then you're going to pull upward with steady, even pressure. So if the head of the tick is embedded, is is in the skin, right? We've already, it's already bitten into the skin. We want to grab it by the the head and pull it straight out, just like straight back out. You're never gonna turn, you're never gonna twist. But actually encourages twisting and turning, encourages the tick to vomit out its insides, which is how we transmit lineup, anyways. Um, so if the mouth parts after pulling that tick out are remaining in the skin, you must use tweezers to remove these. Be diligent with your little kids, get help, but they have to come out. Any parts of the tick must be removed from the skin after you have a full and successful removal. You want to clean the area and your hands with alcohol and soap and water. Okay. Alcohol we're sanitizing soap and water, doing the same washing away. Okay, two-part cleaning there. Then we do want to preserve the tick in a bag or container if you decide to test the tick. If you do not want to test the tick, you can drown it in alcohol and flush it down the toilet. Or if in a couple weeks you decide you didn't need to send it off, you can drown it in alcohol and then flush it down the toilet. We want tick death, okay? The purpose of preserving the tick, this is a big like, why are we keeping the enemy, the tick, in our freezer? This makes no sense. We want to keep the tick because sometimes testing and the way our bodies respond, you can get quicker, more accurate information on what infections that particular tick carries by sending it off and having it tested. Now, the tick bet you you're gonna get those infections potentially that the tick had. Why would we not just test you the way the immune system works and the amount of time it takes for the immune system to mount a response? The tick itself and Lyme, um, one of their main mechanisms for survival are they change how the immune system works. So you may take a really long time to mount antibodies so that we can see that you have Lyme or specific coinfections. If we send the tick test off, we send that actual bugger to the lab, they can look and see exactly what that guy is carrying, what you potentially were exposed to, and you have the ability to start treatment sooner and know specifically what's going on without having to rely on the body and the immune system to mount that lower, that longer, slower immune response. So we're only testing that tick, in my opinion, if we need to, if we're seeing symptoms in the person who is bitten. So if it's been a month or so since the tick bite happened, we're not seeing any symptoms. I usually toss it. You can keep it longer if you want to. Start yourself a little freezer collection of Ziploc. That's that's on you. But I usually say, like a month or so, um, we start to see some symptom load. So back to the actual bite. So we got the thing out, we put the tick in a bag in the freezer to save it, to decide if we need to send it to see what infections are there if the person starts to be symptomatic. We do not need to send every tick, in my opinion. If you want to and you have disposable income and time, send all your ticks. Go ahead. Let's just learn some stuff. But also, I would just say that's gonna create a hyper um awareness and fear, and that's not really helpful either. So tick in the freezer, store it until we have symptoms. Caring for your body now that the tick is out. We want to do a few things. We've already wiped down the surface with alcohol, we've washed with soap and water. You want to apply an andergraphis herb if you can. Um, andergraphis is great. I really like the herb farm um liquid formula. I also really love medi herb if you are able to have access to that. But as far as like bang for your buck, the herb farm andrographis is great. You want to put that on the little bite site. And we want to follow that with a little clay mask. It can be everything from like Redmond's has a clay mask. It could be bentonite clay mixed with a little bit of water. Um, any sort of like a clay uh beauty counter has a charcoal mask. You could even take a capsule of charcoal, activated charcoal, mix it with a little bit of water and put it on the site. We just want something that's gonna be pulling out bacteria, infection, pathogen. Okay, so we're just trying to sop up anything there locally, right? Next step is going to be to take five pellets of leadum. So this is, you can hear me shaking, a little um homeopathic vial. The homeopathic remedy leadum is really, really helpful for preventing the transmission of Lyme disease. Um, I like to encourage everyone to do five pellets of that several times the first day, and then do five pellets twice a day for you know a handful of days, depending on if you're seeing symptoms or not. Next, really, really important. Like relax. Ticks are part of outdoor life, they're part of living in a modern world. It's just where we are. We have wonderful ways to um eradicate and support Lyme and co-infections. Is it fun? No. Is it okay? Absolutely. Um, but another option that you can do when it comes to prevention and treatment is to grab an internal homeopathic. We actually in my house do this because we've had experience with Lyme and I'm not interested in anymore. We use a homeopathic blend remedy um called Bug Bouncer. We use that before, which is has some preventative homeopathic, um, it's a multi-homeopathic, so it's got multiple remedies in there just to help um with bug bites of all sorts. I find that when we use this, we have much smaller bug bites. We don't have itch, things like that. And then if we are bitum, we'll use the leadum and or we'll use um a homeopathic multi-called insect bite. I really prefer this and enjoy it. Um, letum is great. It actually contains letum and several other remedies in there, and it just really helps the body to purge any of that pathogen. Now, as far as what do we do after that, if you've had a bite, if you're concerned, you are always welcome to book a hey, hey, sick day call. You can DM us, you can message us. Um, if you're interested in either of those multi-remedies, we do sell them. You're welcome to just message and we can ship them to you with short directions. But the big thing here is right, you're removing with tweezers, you're pulling straight out. We're not twisting or turning, we're sanitizing the site with alcohol, soap, and water, and then we're gonna care for the body. If we can, if we have andrographos, we're gonna apply it locally. That's great. We're gonna try to do some sort of clay or um charcoal pulling mask to the site. We're gonna use leadum at minimum, that leadum homeopathic five pellets several times a day. And then we're gonna see what happens. Okay, so proper tick removal is key to lowering our exposure to Lyme and other bug-borne infections. Um, my best advice truly is not to live in denial. We can't we can't act like we're never gonna get bit. We can't act like they're not out there, we can't act like we know that we never got bitten. Other bugs transmit Lyme and Kos as well. There are other vectors, so things like um lice, bed bugs, mosquitoes, like it's a growing issue. If you look into growing stats of Lyme, it's real, it is what it is. We're all out here dealing with it. So we can't really live in denial that doesn't help us to quickly support a body that has had exposure. So ticks are gonna happen, tons of bugs carry the infections. That does not mean that we change our lives and live scared. No, we know that we're always working on healthy immune function, balanced immune systems. Um, you're gonna take five minutes to put a ticket together so you're prepared, you're gonna feel more capable, you know what to do now. Ticks are gonna happen and you're ready. Now, if you decide to send your tick off for testing, um, one of my favorite places is tickreport.com. That's probably my go-to. The other option that I like to um share is Igenics Incorporated, they have some great options too. Tick report's probably pretty straightforward, pretty easy peasy, fees pretty low. Um, but if you, you know, really start to deal with like some acute, severe symptoms, I might lead towards hygienics um just because their testing methods can be more sophisticated. There's more option there. So that's really the deal. If you get bitten, great, we know how to deal with it, we support it. Uh develop your ticket, like don't live in denial. If you act like it doesn't occur, exist, etc., when it does occur, it's gonna take longer for you to figure out how to get it out, to round up those materials. And the amount of time that the tick is attached to the body is part of increasing or decreasing the risk of Lyme transmission. Now, say you've been bitten, we want to know what do we do after the bite? Well, we live in peace and we don't live in fear. Number one. Next, we kind of ask, you know, like, was my tick bite a problem? What do I look for? Okay. When it comes to Lyme and co infections, I want you to remember you've been taught little. So let's just start here. We're just learning. There are three stages to infection. First, you have acute local disease. So that's gonna pop up pretty quick. Somebody's gonna get pretty sick. Um, I always like to say, you know, if you ever had a summer flu, if you've ever had a cold in the middle of summer or an acute GI, something or other, particularly after outdoor activities, like let's maybe let's consider Lyme. Let's consider tick exposure. It doesn't have to be Lyme, it can be a co-infection. Second stage, subacute or disseminated disease. This can last from weeks to months. It may be more of a progressing thing. You've got chronic, air-latent, persistent infection. This is the third part. This is where we see a lot of our clients. So let's just kind of break them down. That first acute local phase is during, you know, hours to days. We know a bite occurred. We know that the tick had been feeding maybe 24 to 48 hours. I really want you looking now. The key bullseye rash may or may not develop within one to four weeks after being bitten. A large portion of those with Lyme never had that urethrine migraine's round circular bullseye rash. I want you to know that. If you have the urethrine migraine's round circular rash, that is as good as diagnostic. What does that mean? If you had the rash, you likely have Lyme. Look into that. But if you didn't have the rash, that doesn't mean you don't have Lyme. So other symptoms in this stage may include swollen lymph nodes, fatigue, fever, general malaise, that flu vibe, like I'm tired and worn out, stiff neck, headache, all those things. Okay, so that's what we're looking for in hours to days. If this is occurring, this would be where I'd say, I might go ahead and send out that tick if I have plans to treat. This is also when I'm gonna say, hey, if you have that acute local situation, please go to the doctor. Please request a doxycycline prescription. Please use an antibiotic at this time because you can, not always, but you can stop the Lyme NCO infection at that point. Okay. So that is gonna be what we're doing for that acute local disease. Second stage, subacute and disseminated. This next phase is that weeks to months, may or may not include progressing, fading, shifting, bullseye rash. Um, symptoms in this stage can be like ongoing headaches, it can be fainting, you may have just like increased symptom load all around. You might see shifting memory or increased brain fog, um occasional heart palpitations, just some real weird stuff going on, right? Some are going to experience more neurological symptoms like pain, numbness, weakness in the arms and legs. We can have facial paralysis that shows up like a balls bell's palsy episode, um, where we either just have that facial palsy where you can't like move your face, or it can be something like swallowing difficulties, trouble in trouble with your vocal power, not really being able to have enough of a voice. Lots of things like that can materialize in this phase when it comes to facial paralysis or infection of that transgeminal nerve is where that's gonna stem from. Now, pain may increase during this time too. You may have episodes or migrating episodes of pain, you may have some swelling. Sometimes we see kids where they're having in their joints or they're having swelling in their lymph nodes, as big as like a golf ball, tennis ball, softball, we've seen um to that size. You may have redness in large joints, often the knee joint is gonna be affected. And so in this time of subacuter disseminated disease of weeks to months, these are the symptoms you're looking for. And this is where I say, hey, if you start seeing symptoms in that first month, keep that tick in the freezer. And if we're seeing symptoms in a few months, keep the tick in the freezer. You could send it off at that point. I'm gonna encourage you to test the person after a month or so. Um, our our antibodies should be producing well. And so we're gonna be able to see indication of infection in the body, and we want to look at the body first, but we can keep that tick information, that frozen tick, to um allow us more info if we need it at that point. The final phase, that third phase or stage of infection is gonna be chronic or late persistent infection. This is where we meet most of our clients in my practice who have late-stage Lyme or chronic Lyme. This is where we see more um severe immune dysregulation. We see ongoing damage to infected areas of joints, brains and nerve symptoms. Um, joint pain really is most commonly affecting the knees, but we see it affecting lots of other parts of the body. Um, I would ex I would explain the joint pain specifically as like a very bizarre, new, acute sort of feeling, particularly in the knee. You can have joint pain throughout the body that's just like achy-bricky, like this is new for me. I've never felt this achy in my joints, but the knee pain is kind of a weird, like you go to step on your leg and all of a sudden the knee is like really intensely hurting. Sometimes people say, Oh, I just thought I hurt my knee and then it kept coming back over and over again. It's that kind of a vibe. Now, arthritis may build with shifting and reoccurring episodes of swelling, redness. Some people have fluid buildup in joints. Some people come to me and say, Oh, I'm good if I just do a steroid shot every six or so months and then my joint pain's fine. While a steroid is interacting with your immune system and putting that Lyme infection into a calm place. So these are kind of flags for me, right? The thing with Lyme is that symptoms are persistent and they change location in the body. So sometimes you can see these arthritis and pain episodes last up to six months at a time and then they go away. Neurologically, in this late stage, we can see numbness, tingling. Parts of the body may feel as if they're burning. Um, often it's enhanced, feet, the back at varying times with no clear cause. It may move around the body. That is a key Lyme symptoms, the pain and nerve pain, neurological symptoms moving around in different areas. These people may have extreme fatigue at times. It can be bedbound days, they may just have severe brain fog or memory issues. It can be short-term memory, it can be long-term memories are no longer acquirable. It may be a lot of word-finding issues. So, again, you may have a whole host of symptoms in this chronic or late stage line. Some will have trouble controlling their facial muscles at this point. Speaking may be really different. You may have um profound problems with memory, mood, sleep, sensitivity to sound, light, chemicals, smells, and EMF will continue to increase and ebb and flow. You may notice you feel worse when you fly. It may um create a lot of jittery symptoms. You may feel a real big sensitivity to being in really densely populated areas where there's a lot more EMF, wireless, um, cell phone communication, people, those sort of things can be really, really stimulating to a body that's carrying Lyme and Co. infections. Um in this final phase, environmental substances and materials of particular fabrics may be bothersome to touching the skin. They may bring about odd responses and sensations. The key with late stage line is a whole host of random symptoms. They may or may not have been explained away by various diagnoses at this point, but they're there sometimes, they're not there always, they move around, that they hit different body systems. These are these complex patients. Okay. So these are the kind of folks who've seen all sorts of specialists, they've seen all kinds of different people, but nobody really has a clear answer. And no one has really made a big shift for them as far as providers helping shift their symptoms. So again, late stage line, not really something that we're thinking about when we're talking about tick removal or what do we do. But I want you to know those three phases so that you can kind of understand and know, like, when do I send this tick off that's in my freezer? When do I notice that something's going on and it could be connected to my tick or bug bite? And also look, if you can't figure it out, again, connect with a practitioner who has success with getting Lyme into dormancy and clients who are recovering and consult with them. Like there's no expectation for you. And honestly, at this point, unfortunately, there's no expectation for our primary care providers, um, even some infectious disease doctors, depending on where they're geographically located, have little to no training on Lyme. They have little to no training on um what symptoms look like and how it occurs. So it's important to find a practitioner who has success with getting Lyme into dormancy and helping clients reach a full recovery to help you understand and consult with your situation. I always say clients get so frustrated because their PCP and I am in this, but my experience was my PCP was not helpful. And one day I'll share that story about how it was really harmful and things to look for, but ultimately, like, she's not trained in it. I'm barking up the wrong tree, right? I want you to look for somebody who can really help you if you're in this situation. But our team would love to talk with you. We would love to help you discern next steps for care. We would love to help you discern next steps for what's going on in your body or your child's body if you have experienced a bite and you think lime and co-infections are at play. Now, all of this probably feels overwhelming at this point. And I want to go back to my little anthem that ticks happen. You're gonna get bit. We live in a world where they are. We don't need to be afraid, we don't need to modify our behavior in enjoying outdoor activities and avoiding ticks. We do need to work on our Lyme prevention. So let's just talk about this. What do we do to avoid getting Lyme? What do we do to avoid getting bitten? Well, avoiding getting bitten does avoid Lyme, but again, we know that mosquitoes carry Lyme bacteria, so it's not that easy. Let's walk through some tips. Knowing that Lyme and coinfections have endemic areas, the northeastern US, uh, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona, Maine, those are big areas. So if you're from there, I want you to be wise. I'd probably throw in Pennsylvania, Maryland, like some specific areas we see quite a lot. Um, just to kind of note that too. Just know, like if you live in those areas, like let's just be aware. It's gonna be more common. If you don't have a ticket together, get it together. Tennessee, I want to toss in there too. There's quite a bit there. But um, truly, ticks have been found in all 50 states at this point. Lime has been found in all 50 states. So these are more concentrated areas. These are areas too for visiting. Um, we want to be wise. If I'm traveling to the northeast, I want to take a ticket with me, even if I'm from an area that maybe isn't as concentrated. When you're outside, we want to wear light-colored clothing. You want to wear tall white socks, light shoes to spot ticks easily. They're all dark, right? So we can see those easier on light-colored clothing and um wearing a tall sock as opposed to an ankle sock where they can slide right on your in your shoe. To be honest, my little boy who had a tick on the top of his foot this weekend was wearing a shorter sock. It wasn't, it was just like an ankle sock inside of a sandal, and the tick got inside of there um and was on the top of his foot. So again, that tall white sock can really be helpful. You can see them, flick them off. That's that. When we're in more endemic areas, if you're hiking, things like that, um, you can tuck your pants into your socks, choose the long sleeve shirts. Like the more skin you're covering up, right? The tick cannot just like walk through the fabric of your shirt. So covering more skin is gonna be important. And ticks, like they just crawl up the top of some grass and they're just hanging out there looking for a ride. Like they just want to host. So if you're walking along, you brush up on a tick on top of some grass, it's just gonna hop on your leg and climb up north till it gets to some skin where it can get in. So for covering that skin, we have less, we have less ability to have a bite, even though we may have exposure. You do want to protect your pets before outdoors time. Again, in that Amazon link, I love things like Wonderside, has great flea and tick colors. I have a little white doggy. We have plenty of ticks around here. We've not seen a tick on her ever since we brought this in. Um they also have, you know, the traditional tick treatment, but Wonderside also has um a spot treatment that is um essential oil based, and I find it works really great. They have a dog wash, um, and we use that. So we'll wash our dog normally. And then the last shampooing will be this dog wash. I'll let it sit. We lightly rinse her, it's very peppermint and rosemary smelling, so she smells amazing. Um, but that can be really helpful. I also really, you know, encourage you to just like give your dogs a once over before they come in the house and can carry anything in. So really just like protect your pets before outdoors time. Now, remember how the tick functions, right? We want to we want to think about where are they going. They're trying to go to the to the underarms, to your hairline, to the groin, to behind your ears, to in your ears. So we want to look for those areas closely. I always tell my kids, you have to check your privates. If you can't check your privates, get somebody who can look and just visually identify if there's something there because there's plenty of crevices, there's warm areas, you can't see it all yourself. Just facts, facts of the matter. Ticks are trying to find a place where they can latch on to excess skin, be warm, um, and get into that blood supply. So you can also use natural blood spray. We really like the science here behind the flick the tick spray. It does not have any dangerous chemicals in it, it is um largely essential oil um composed. It's made by some folks in Maine who have a lot of experience and a lot of data behind it. So I really like that. But if I'm really going on um an outdoor excursion, let's just talk about this. It's like a little different level of care. What we've talked about so far is kind of everyday awareness. If I'm going and spending time outdoors, we're bathing or showering within two hours of coming inside. Okay, the sooner the better because you can wash them off. Base, you're gonna get naked, so you can see more areas than you would when you have clothes on. You want to choose essential oil soaps for cleansing your body, things like lip and eucalyptus, citronella, eucalyptus rose, geranium, um, peppermint, which can be controversial on your skin. So be mindful about how much. But those things are gonna help to cleanse off and just be another agent that is going to defer the tick from trying to basically hang it on your body. Also, lint rolling the body. I have my boys do this a lot if they don't have someone around who can check them in their privates and look for areas they can use a lint roller in areas they can't see to try to stick and pull a tick off, especially after you've just been outside. Super great option because the likelihood that you've gotten the bite yet is less and you can actually just lint roll that guy right off there. You want to always examine clothing, you want to examine children, they're not looking, they have no idea what to look for, and you want to examine pets. I think of a particular client who was the family examiner and she had Lyme. So I want you to remember that if you're the examiner, you must be examined. Sometimes, as a solo parent, like my kids check me for ticks, and that's great, that's really helpful and they know what to look for. We talk about how it's just a real part of life. It's normal conversation for us, so it's not a scary thing, and we're all equipped to look for them. That's really important. If we're really doing outside time, I'm gonna probably reach for pyrethrin spray, which is definitely toxic. So we just kind of want to like lay a couple ground rules out here. If I'm going hiking in Maine and I'm not from there, I'm absolutely spraying all of my clothes. I might consider spraying my body for a one-time hike exposure, you know. But like I want to use that toxic repellent on my gear, definitely on my tents, on my hiking materials, anywhere, like my shoes, my socks, all those sorts of things. You know, toxins should be reduced, but truly, if you're in a high-risk area, um, using them once or twice because we're on a camping trip and a really high concentrated area, no big deal. Okay. Some tips for actually being out. You want to walk the center of the trail, you want to wear a hat that covers the neck. Remember, they can fall out of trees on you as well into hair. Um then when you get back, you want to dry your clothes in high heat to kill any ticks not found. Wash them as well, but the high heat can really help to um dry them up. They can separate from the clothing and they get purged there in the laundry. So, some products or things that you want to think about. Again, that lamp roller, maybe a pyrethrin spray spray, flick the tick spray is fantastic as far as just like a day-to-day bug um spray. The wonder side products are wonderful. I'm sure there are others. These are just ones we've had great experience with and really, really like. And then again, all the tick kit um materials are going to be in that same list for you to kind of grab and see and just get familiar. There are new tick removal tools all the time, and truly, like everyone's different. How your hands work, different how my hands work, size of person you're trying to remove things from. And I really, really encourage you just to be familiar. We can't live in denial. The rates of Lyme and co-infections are climbing all the time. The better and increasing of your odds is to be prepared, to be aware, and to be calm, cool, and collected dealing with tick bites. You can do it. You can avoid Lyme. And if you can't avoid Lyme, then you at least know what to do to recognize so that you can get the help that you need. But I hope this has been really helpful. I really don't ever want to walk into another yoga class where no one knows what to do. I think everyone should know what to do. It's so empowering. I think it frees us up to enjoy the outdoors again, though we know. I'm sure many of us know people who have been infected by Lyme and co-infections. The existence of Lyme does not change our behavior when it comes to enjoying our life, being outdoors, just living life and enjoying it. It means that we change our preparedness, we change our awareness, and we change our prevention. Once you know how to remove a tick, what to look for, how to care for yourself, you are free again to enjoy the outdoors without worry. Hope this was helpful. I hope you're leaving encouraged, curious, and hopeful. If you learned something, I'd love for you to share this episode with a friend. Hey, we're all healing together. You can learn more about my practice, our team, and what it's like to work with us at heyheymae.com. I teach lots on Instagram and answer questions each Monday. My Instagram handle is @HeyHeyElizabethMae. And my cookbook, Hey Hey Everyday, is available on heyheymae.com and Amazon. Happy healing.
