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Men's Health: How Not to Get Bitten by Ticks This Summer


The best tick repellent you can use.


The last thing you want to bring home from a long hike or a quick dog walk is a case of Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted fever, or even a single one of the ticks that carry these (and more) diseases.

So you need a good tick repellent. Especially since the number of tick-borne diseases continues to climb in the U.S., according to the CDC. Ticks are pretty much everywhere in the U.S. right now, and the CDC says that especially in the northeast, we can expect every year to be a "bad" year for ticks.

But to protect yourself properly, you’ve got to get the right tick repellent. “Many people have the perception that anything that sucks blood can be repelled similarly,” says Thomas N. Mather, Ph.D., founder and director of the Tick Encounter Resource Center at the University of Rhode Island. But mosquitos, ticks, and fleas have different ways of finding you—“mosquitos fly to you, and ticks don’t fly, and they don’t have eyes,” he says. “So there’s no reason to think that the same product that would work for a mosquito would work against a tick.”

Which repellent to use? "We always recommend that someone wears the repellent they're most comfortable with," explains Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, coordinator of community Integrated Pest Management at the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program. "If you have one less tick on you, there's one less chance of your getting a disease," she says.

See the full article from Marty Munson on Men's Health's website here.

LAST UPDATED

December 3, 2023

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With 25 print editions in 35 countries and more than 21 million readers across its social and digital platforms, Men’s Health is the world’s largest men’s magazine brand, and the number one source of information for and about men. It’s the brand for active, successful, professional men who want greater control over their physical, mental, and emotional lives. We give men the tools they need to make their lives better through in-depth and expert-backed reporting, covering everything from fashion and grooming to health, nutrition, fitness, weight loss, as well as cutting-edge gear, the latest in entertainment, science, and more.

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