Preventions
Like all serious illnesses, the best way to deal with Lyme disease is to prevent it. The following guidelines, provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, can help you do so. Be sure to especially follow them between the months of May through September, which is when most cases of Lyme infection occur.

Avoid tick-infested areas.

When outdoors, wear light-colored clothing so ticks are clearly visible. Smooth materials such as windbreakers are harder for ticks to latch onto, and are therefore preferable to clothing such as knits.

Wear long-sleeved shirts, pants, and a hat, and closed shoes and socks. Be sure to tuck pant legs into socks or boots, and tuck shirts into pants.

Apply insect repellent to pants, socks, shoes, and exposed skin.

Walk in the center of nature trails to avoid overgrown grass and brush.

After being outdoors in tick-infested areas, remove, wash, and dry clothing.

Inspect your body thoroughly and carefully remove any attached ticks. Also check pets for ticks.

If you find a tick, tug gently but firmly with blunt tweezers near the head of the tick until it releases its hold on the skin. Grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible and pull straight out. To reduce the risk of infection, try not to crush the tick's body or to handle the tick with bare fingers. Don't attempt to dislodge ticks using heat or chemicals, as this can cause them to inject more pathogens into your skin.

Swab the bite area thoroughly with an antiseptic to prevent bacterial infection.

Remove woodpiles, rock walls, and bird feeders, since these attract tick-carrying small animals and can therefore increase the risk of Lyme infection.

Property should be treated with Damminix, which consists of cardboard tubes containing cotton balls that have been dipped in insecticide. Lace tubes around wooded areas and below shrubs. "Mice, which are a key link in the propagation of Lyme disease, find the cotton and bring it back to their burrows to be used as nesting material, with the result being a big decrease in the number of ticks in the area," Dr. Burrascano explains.

After two years, the tick population may once again increase as other small animals that do not gather cotton become tick hosts. Therefore, using Damminix alone is not enough. You should also use liquid or granular insecticides, such as Tempo, permethrin, and sevin. If liquid insecticides are used, apply by fogging (not by coarse spraying) in a strip a few feet wide at the perimeter of the lawn at any areas adjacent to woods and underbrush. Also treat any ornamental shrubs near the house that may serve as a habitat for small animals. The best time to apply these products is in late spring and early fall.

Tick repellents that contain permethrin, such as Permanone and Permakill, can also be sprayed directly onto clothing before you wear them (let dry fully before you put them on). Avoid having such products come in contact with your skin, however.

Upon returning home from outdoor activities, place your clothes in a dryer for ten minutes. This will kill any ticks that may be hidden in your clothes.

Treatments
In the initial stage of Lyme disease, a four-week course of antibiotic treatment can often be enough to eradicate the Bb pathogen and prevent it from spreading through your body. However, such a course of treatment can only work if it is started immediately following infection, something that many times is not possible, given how difficult Lyme disease is to detect. Even when it is possible, the following natural cures should be used in conjunction with antibiotics in order to protect yourself against the side effects of such drugs, and to boost your recovery once the Bb pathogen is eliminated.

For cases of Lyme disease that escape early detection and have spread past the infection site to other areas of the body, a much more comprehensive treatment plan is required. Alternative physicians agree that the primary treatment for Lyme disease is antibiotics. They caution, however, that the accepted "standard" antibiotic therapies are insufficient, both in terms of the duration of antibiotic treatment (often four weeks is not enough) and the type of antibiotic employed. According to Dr. Joanne Whitaker, a former Lyme disease patient herself, the type of antibiotic used must be one that is capable of penetrating through the blood brain barrier and specific to the cell wall of the organs that are affected by Bb.

Other Lyme experts advise that there is no adequate conventional treatment model. Proper treatment must be tailored to the specific needs of each patient and devised according to the severity of symptoms and the spread of Bb. In many cases, antibiotics administered intravenously are necessary, and often for a duration much longer than the standard four weeks of antibiotic treatment recommended by conventional physicians. Each stage of a patient's treatment must also be properly monitored so that the health care practitioner can best determine what to do next. Overall, the success or failure of the treatment program depends on a number of factors, including when treatment begins, the strength and amount of Bb that has been disseminated in the body, the areas of the body in which infestation occurs, and the potency of the antibiotic in comparison to the sensitivity of the strain of Bb that it is treating.

While alternative physicians agree that antibiotic therapy should be the first step in treating Lyme disease, they do not rely on antibiotics alone. Natural cures employed by alternative physicians in conjunction with antibiotic therapy for Lyme disease include:

Diet: Healthy eating is of primary importance. Avoid any and all alcohol and sugars, including sugar replacements such as maple, agave or brown rice syrup, and all other types of sweeteners with the exception of stevia or mesquite meal powder.  Sugar in all its many forms feed the bacteria associated with Lyme disease, and also contributes to candidiasis, a co-factor illness that is often found in patients with Lyme disease.

Be sure to drink plenty of fresh, filtered water throughout the day. Emphasize a diet of organic, whole foods, with plenty of fresh vegetables. Include a wide variety of antioxidant rich foods, such as bell peppers, carrots, celery, dark-green leafy vegetables, such as kale, collards, mustard greens, cilantro, parsley, spinach, tomatoes, and yellow squash. Choose fruit carefully and if you have Candidiasis, only eat green apples and an occasional grapefruit. You can eat seasonal fruit in moderation, and enjoy cherries, mangos, melons, plums, red grapes, and berries of all types, along with fiber rich apples and pears.

Complex whole grains are recommended, as are almonds, yams, lentils, and squash, because of their ability to help balance internal pH levels. Choose organic free-range meats, poultry and wild caught fish, and eat plain, organic yogurt to help supply your gastrointestinal tract with healthy intestinal flora. Organic egg yolks are good because they are rich in carotenoids, a class of antioxidants.

Avoid all commercial, processed, fried, and non-organic food, as well as coffee, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, food dyes, milk and dairy products (with the exception of organic, preferably raw, yogurt or kefir), wheat and wheat products, and refined carbohydrates. Do not eat saturated, trans-, hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated fats and oils. Instead choose from virgin coconut butter/oil, extra virgin olive oil, high lignin flax seed oil, and unrefined hemp seed, walnut, and sunflower oils.

Herbs: Other herbs that can help speed recovery from Lyme disease include astragalus, gingko biloba, ginseng, and maitake and reishi mushrooms. Cordyceps, a Tibetan herb noted for its high antioxidant properties and ability to increase stamina and overall energy, is also highly recommended. Another helpful herb is Laryx, which can boost immune function.

Lifestyle and Stress Reduction: It is essential that people with Lyme disease get plenty of rest and minimize stress. Avoid overwork and personal interactions that can cause you to feel stressful. At the same time, try to exercise regularly throughout each week, at least three times a week for 30 minutes each session. One of the easiest and most enjoyable forms of exercise is brisk walking. Not only does walking provide physical health benefits, it can also soothe away daily stress and improve your mood.

To further improve your ability to manage stress, consider making relaxation exercises a daily part of your life. These include prayer, meditation, guided imagery and visualization, and breathing exercises. Counseling and joining a support group can also be highly beneficial.

Nutritional Supplements: Useful nutrients for dealing with Lyme disease include vitamin A, beta-carotene, vitamin B1, biotin, inositol, B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, essential fatty acids (especially omega-3 oils), calcium pantothenate, magnesium, and zinc, in addition to a daily multivitamin/multimineral formula. Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is also recommended due to its ability to improve stamina, energy levels, and resistance to infection. (Avoid CoQ10 if you are taking the medication atovaquone, also known as Mepron.) Other helpful nutrients include acidophilus, to counteract the side effects of antibiotics within the gastrointestinal tract, the amino acid L-carnitine, and thymus gland extract.

Some holistic physicians report that high doses of vitamin C administered intravenously can be very effective in dealing with Lyme disease. Such treatment must be administered by a skilled, nutritionally-oriented physician.

Transfer Factor: Transfer factors are tiny protein molecules that are much smaller than antibodies. They act as messengers for the immune system's production of white blood cells in response to attacks on the body by invading microorganisms, including Bb. More importantly, transfer factors can literally teach the immune system to recognize such pathogens, so that they can be dealt with more effectively. In the case of Lyme disease, the recognition of Bb by the immune system is vitally important, because if Bb is not recognized, it is able to spread more easily throughout the body, making its eradication immeasurably more difficult. According to Dr. Joanne Whitaker, antigen-specific Transfer Factor is the most effective type of transfer factor for dealing with chronic Lyme disease. Taken orally, it can quickly improve the immune system's ability to track and eliminate Bb.

Alternative Professional Care: The following professional care therapies can also be useful for treating Lyme disease: Acupuncture, Biofeedback Training, Bodywork (especially Bowen Therapy because of its ability to balance and restore proper function of the autonomic nervous system, thereby improving the function of all other systems of the body), Detoxification Therapy, Energy Medicine, Environmental Medicine, Naturopathic Medicine, Orthomolecular Medicine, Oxygen Therapy (ozone therapy, intravenous hydrogen peroxide therapy, and ultraviolet blood irradiation), and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).