Achy Stiff Or Swollen Joints
Joint pain and stiffness, often intermittent, are early Lyme symptoms. Your joints may be inflamed, warm to the touch, painful, and swollen. You may have stiffness and limited range of motion in some joints .
Pain may move around. Sometimes your knees may hurt, whereas other times its your neck or your heels. You may also have bursitis . Bursae are the thin cushions between bone and surrounding tissue.
The pain may be severe, and it may be transitory. More than one joint may be affected. Most often the large joints are involved .
People often attribute joint problems to age, genetics, or sports. Lyme should be added to that list, as these statistics indicate:
- One study estimates that 80 percent of people with untreated Lyme have muscle and joint symptoms .
- Fifty percent of people with untreated Lyme have intermittent episodes of arthritis .
- Two-thirds of people have their first episode of joint pain within six months of the infection .
- Use of anti-inflammatory drugs may mask the actual number of people with joint swelling .
Summary:
Joint pain that comes and goes, or moves from joint to joint, could be a sign of Lyme.
What To Do If You Think You Have Tinnitus
The first steps to take if you think you have tinnitus is to note the details surrounding your symptoms. Did you begin a new medicine or were injured or exposed to excessive noise right before it started? Is the tinnitus in one or both ears? Does it fluctuate or is constant? Do you have a hearing loss?
Next, visit your physician or make an appointment with an ENT . Also, have your hearing checked by an audiologist.
My Experience With Hearing Loss And Lyme Disease
I was born with a severe bilateral conductive hearing loss at birth. But my hearing loss has had periods of progression throughout different points in my life, including recently when I dropped 10dBls in a years time at my last annual hearing test in August 2021.
My doctors and I always thought this was just a normal part of being born with hearing loss and to be expected. Until about a year ago, I neglected to recognize it as a potential symptom of a larger medical issue.
Then a rheumatologist mentioned that hearing loss could be associated with autoimmune disease. I was not found to have an autoimmune disease at the time after four years of many believing so. But this new recognition made me more conscious of the importance of making all doctors aware of the drop in my hearing loss. I became so identified with my hearing loss from a young age that it never felt medical to me. It just felt like a part of me.
At the time of my recent drop in hearing loss, I was not diagnosed with Lyme. My host of symptoms were a mystery to over 40 doctors and specialists.
What To Do If You Suspect Lyme Disease
If you suspect you could have Lyme disease, consult your doctor. You dont have to have to have the common bulls-eye rash associated with Lyme to have the disease. It can also occur and manifest years after being bit by a tick, even if you dont recall that you have been. It took me seven years of debilitating mystery symptoms to get a diagnosis.
Recommended Reading: What Kind Of Ticks Carry Lyme Disease
Protecting Your Hearing Is No 1 For Preventing Tinnitus
Since the biggest predictor that youll experience tinnitus is hearing loss, your best line of defense is to limit how often youre exposed to loud noises, which will keep the sensory hair cells in your ear intact.
That may involve wearing earplugs in very loud settings or turning down the volume on your headphones. Staying in good shape and keeping your blood vessels healthy can also minimize the chances that you will develop tinnitus.
What You Need To Know About Tinnitus
You dont need me to tell you that finding a cure for tinnitus can be a very challenging experience mainly because it is so hard to determine why you are hearing these crazy sounds in your head that no-one else can. It is enough to drive anyone up the wall! While finding effective treatment can be challenging, it is not an impossible task and there are some home remedies that may work. So lets get to these 10 ways on how to stop tinnitus using home remedies that you need to try right now!
Stop tinnitus using home remedies
1. Stay positive
While staying positive will not stop tinnitus, it is an important step as you seek relief from tinnitus. Staying positive will keep you trying various methods and not give up hope until you find what works to get rid of your tinnitus.
Being negative will not be productive at all and will only lead you to becoming angry, depressed, isolating yourself, developing addictions to drugs or alcohol, becoming suicidal and every negative emotion and behavior out there. It will be hard. You will want to give up but dont let tinnitus rob you of your life. There is a solution for every problem. You just need to do the work to find it and staying positive will help you get up every morning and continue fighting.
Another benefit of staying positive is that it will help with stress. Many people with tinnitus report that when they are stressed, tinnitus symptoms are much worse and once stress is reduced or eliminated, the symptoms arent as bothersome.
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What To Do If You Have A Blacklegged Tick Bite
Remove the tick by pulling it directly out with fine-tipped tweezers. Lift upward with slow and even pressure. Dont twist when removing it. Dont crush it or put soap or other substances on it. Dont apply heat to it.
Place the tick in a resealable container. See if you can identify what kind of a tick it is.
Immediately after removing the tick, wash your skin well with soap and water or with rubbing alcohol.
Not all ticks carry Lyme. The Lyme bacteria is transmitted only by blacklegged ticks in their nymph or adult stage.
Save the tick to show your doctor. The doctor will want to determine if its a blacklegged tick and if theres evidence of feeding. Ticks enlarge as they feed. Your risk of getting Lyme from an infected tick increases with the length of time that the tick fed on your blood.
Summary:
Pull the tick out with tweezers and save it in a resealable container for identification.
General Signs And Symptoms Of Lyme Disease:
The clinical course of Lyme begins with a skin lesion , several days after a tick bite. After this, neurological, cardiac, chronic skin, or joint involvement develops. Similar to the situation with syphilis, Lyme is divided into several stages — an acute localized one, with later dissemination divided into early and late stages.
In the late stage , there may be chronic encephalomyelitis. Patients present with spastic paraparesis, ataxia, cranial nerve palsies such as facial weakness and deafness, bladder dysfunction, and cognitive impairment.
According to Garcia-Monco , the most common clinical presentations are painful radiculitis, cranial palsy , and headache. Thus these are symptoms primarily of nerve damage. In the US, lymphocytic meningitis is the most common and single early manifestation. Headache is the main complaint.
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Autoimmune Inner Ear Disorder
The autoimmune disease most directly connected to hearing is autoimmune inner ear disorder . In this rare disorder, immune cells attack the inner ear, leading to progressive hearing loss that may fluctuate. The hearing loss can be sudden, but according to an article in the Hearing Journal, the onset of AIED is usually slower, taking days to months.
It can occur on its own, but data shows that about one-third of AIED patients also have a systemic autoimmune disorder, such as lupus or RA.
How Is Tinnitus Caused By Lyme Disease Diagnosed
Lyme disease in itself is a hard disease to diagnose. This is because its symptoms mimic other diseases and disorders like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, lupus and some autoimmune diseases.
Struggling to SLEEP with Tinnitus?
Poor sleep aggravates stress and anxiety which in turn aggravates Tinnitus. It’s a vicious cycle you must stop.
These Bedphones let you do exactly that!
But, if you have already been diagnosed for Lyme disease, your Tinnitus caused by Lyme disease might be confirmed with a Auditory Brainstem Response test. Other tests that may be used to confirm your Tinnitus diagnosis could be imaging studies, ear inspections or even a thorough investigation into the history of your Lyme disease and Tinnitus.
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How Is It Treated
Facial palsy is treated with oral antibiotics and Lyme meningitis/radiculoneuritis can either be treated with oral or intravenous antibiotics, depending on severity . Most people with Lyme disease respond well to antibiotics and fully recover. Varying degrees of permanent nervous system damage may develop in people who do not receive treatment in the early stages of illness and who develop late-stage Lyme disease.
Otologic Signs And Symptoms Of Lyme Disease
Sporadic case reports associate Lyme infections with sudden hearing loss, autoimmune inner ear disease, and bilateral vestibular loss. It seems likely that the damage of Lyme to the ear is through injury to the eighth nerve, rather than through damage to hair cells or inflammation within the inner ear.
Sowula et al reported that otological symptoms occurred frequently in tick-borne diseases. They reported in patient’s with Lyme in Poland, “The most common complaint was tinnitus accompanied by vertigo and dizziness , headache , unilateral sensorineural hearing loss . The patients also had tick-borne coinfections, among them the most common was Bartonella henselae and Bartonella quintana .” Others have reported hearing loss accompanied by cochlear inflammation and polyneuritis , as well as isolated sudden hearing loss . According to Bakker et al , “Neuroborreliosis seems to be a rare cause of sudden SHL, and routine screening of patients for borrelia antibodies in serum should therefore not be recommended.”
While it has been suggested that Lyme can cause vestibular loss, the evidence is slight. In areas where Lyme is endemic, positive blood tests for Lyme can wrongly be used to infer that Lyme caused vestibular loss. When vestibular loss occurs, it is presumably from vestibular nerve radiculopathy .
Rare findings are infectious vasculitis, including for example, MRI enhancement of the basilar artery.
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The Initial Causes Lyme Disease Ringing In Ears
There are many causes of hearing loss. These include loss of hair cells , damage done to the brain stem due to disease or an infection, and a buildup of wax in the ears. Any combination of these can cause the brain to send wrong signals to the ears causing them to lose hearing. Oftentimes, there is no way to know whether or not you are suffering from hearing loss without having your ears checked. The only way to make sure is to undergo a hearing test.
Many people believe that they are going crazy or having a break out when they have a constant ringing, buzzing, screaming, or hissing sound in their ears. They think it is going to come and go. But, the truth is that it can take weeks or even months to go away depending on the underlying medical condition causing it. Once you know for sure what is causing your hearing loss, you can find a good treatment to fix it so you can once again enjoy great quality hearing.
Tinnitus isnt actually a disorder in and of itself its more of a symptom for another underlying condition. In many instances, tinnitus simply is a sensory reaction in the inner ear and hearing system to damage to these systems. While tinnitus can be caused by hearing loss alone, there are about 200 other health conditions which can produce tinnitus as a result. This condition is different for each person, although common symptoms include high-pitched ringing, pulsing noises, or continuous clicking or whirring.
Lyme Disease Awareness: More Americans At Homeexposure Is Greater
- In the News
May is National Lyme disease Awareness Month and, with more Americans at home, infection exposure is greater.
Although the Centers for Disease Control does not receive reports on everyone contracting Lyme disease, the CDC estimates that there are approximately 329,000 cases per year. The American Academy of Audiology, working closely with the CDC, warns the public to be vigilant in preventing tick interactions.
In addition to the many diseases and symptoms brought on by tick-born illnesses, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, has studies including one that points to a connection between Lyme disease and sudden hearing loss.
A study published in February 2018, Otolaryngological Symptoms in Patients Treated for Tick-Borne Diseases, found tinnitus as one of the most common symptoms. Tinnitus is a symptom that causes ringing or buzzing in the ears. Its ironic that May is both National Lyme Disease Awareness Month and National Better Hearing Month.
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Treatment For Lyme Disease Symptoms
Doctors say the sooner you notice symptoms, the better your outcome. People treated in the early stages of Lyme generally make a full, rapid recovery, the CDC notes.
Antibiotics are recommended for most people with Lyme disease, but what that regimen looks like varies widely from person to person. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says a short course of an oral antibiotic, such as doxycycline or amoxicillin, can clear up Lyme infection in most cases. However, the particular drug, dosage, and duration your doctor recommends may depend on factors such as:
- Whether you are pregnant
- Allergies to medications
Even after treatment, some people report lingering symptoms. They may have persistent pain, muscle and joint aches, unexplained numbness, and fatigue, for example. Brain fog and sleep disruption are also common, says Dr. Flanagan. These sputtering symptoms can stretch over a few months, he says, but they will get better graduallyit can take time: two steps forward, one step back.
Symptoms that persist for more than six months may lead to what the CDC calls post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome . The CDC says people with PTLDS can get better in time, but it can take months. Some doctors recommend prolonged antibiotic treatment. However, CDC cautions that long-term courses of antibiotics can actually be dangerous.
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Lyme Disease And Tinnitus: New Danger New Treatment
By Barry KeateBarry Keate, has lived with tinnitus over 40 years and has published 150+ research articles on numerous aspects of tinnitus. He is an expert on the condition and a well-known advocate for those with tinnitus.
Lyme disease is a tick-borne malady common in the Northeast and Upper Midwest of the United States and in some areas on the West Coast. Thirty thousand cases are reported each year to the Centers for Disease Control, but the CDC estimates that far more cases perhaps 300,000 per year go unreported. New data show that the incidence of Lyme disease is growing rapidly.
As many as 48% of untreated patients develop hearing loss, tinnitus, hyperacusis, and other neurological conditions. We previously published an article on Lyme disease and its side effects. Now there is evidence of a promising new treatment, which will help cure the condition and relieve the tinnitus it causes.
Lyme disease is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. It is found in mammals such as mice and deer, but 95% of cases are transmitted by the white-footed mouse. Ticks that feed on this mouse transmit the disease to humans. They are most likely to transmit the infection after one or more days of feeding on a person.
Early stage Lyme disease causes a red, circular rash. After four to six weeks, flu-like symptoms appear, including sore throat, head and neck aches and fatigue.
Spread of Lyme Disease
Progress Toward Better Treatment
Feel better and sleep better.
Reduce stress.
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Will Tinnitus Caused By Lyme Disease Go Away After Treatment
The answer is yes and no. In some cases, Tinnitus resolves after Lyme disease is resolved. In many cases, it can permanently persist if the damage to the auditory nerve is permanent. Tinnitus is usually permanent if the patient has also suffered partial or full hearing loss. It is also more likely to be permanent or chronic if Lyme disease wasnt treated in the first few weeks after it was contracted.
Many symptoms of Lyme disease including Tinnitus can continue to persist even up to 6 months after successful treatment. This is a phenomenon that is called Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome .
Tinnitus and You is a Tinnitus information blog with advice on treatment, management, identification of causes and latest news on Tinnitus.
Why The Link Between Hearing Loss And Lyme Disease Is Important To Understand
Although hearing loss is all too common in individuals with Lyme disease, its still not widely recognized. It can be so easy to feel overtaken by the other host of debilitating symptoms that Lyme can cause. These symptoms include crippling pain and fatigue, brain fog , neurological symptoms, mobility challenges, and much more. As a result, hearing loss can become secondary or overlooked.
Hearing loss in general can feel overwhelming, especially when it comes to medical settings, communication, and so forth. When a medical condition can be a contributing factor in your hearing loss, it can become even more overwhelming. Trying to grasp all of the different information that comes with a Lyme diagnosis or treatment plan in general is a lot to take in and process. With hearing loss, processing that information will be much harder. It can lead you to feel as though youre missing out on critical information about your health and condition.
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Therefore, its crucial for doctors and patients to understand the implications that Lyme has on hearing loss. This way adjustments can be made whether its interpreters, clear communication, hearing assistive technology, etc. This way patients have equal access to the care they need and can focus on their condition at hand.
its crucial for doctors and patients to understand the implications that Lyme has on hearing loss.
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