LYME DISEASE - prevention
Myrrh beads they played with.......but Rose Geranium oil they RAN FROM. Whether I painted it on an index card straight, or mixed it with water, they LEFT. The final test (and remember, I was a FIVE TIME LYMER at the time!) was to spray the Geranium Oil and water on my arm and dump the collected ticks on my skin. They ran. Nobody hung around to bite ANYBODY. So there you have it. Off to the health food store with you, find a bottle of GERANIUM oil (it smells like roses) mix about 50 drops with 8-10 oz of water (enough to fill one of those small spray bottles) and hose yourself down before you go out to play. This seems to work SPLENDIDLY on the pets too. If your cat goes into conniptions over spray bottles, spray it on your hands and rub the face. It really works. But hey, do try it on your own inner arm first just to see if you're one of the very FEW folks who might be allergic to it, OK?
And what about all this pants-in-the-sox-stuff. Oh please, look at those pictures again. You mean to tell me a tick that small can't get through the holes between the stitches of a stretched sock? That's not why we do it. During that same episode of Desperation being the Mother of Research, I WATCHED the ticks I plucked off Poozik the cat very carefully. They were waving at me. (what?) Actually they were hitch-hiking. I waved a match-stick over the waving tick-arm and sure enough, it grabbed right on. Eccccch. So that's how they GET us and we tuck the pants in the socks to keep the pants from FLAPPING.
Next time (April 8th) I'll talk about the disease itself and some of the things that can be done to get better.
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