Can You Donate Blood If You Have Had Lyme Disease

How To Remove A Tick

A tick must remain attached to the skin for at least 36 hours to spread Lyme disease. The best way of preventing Lyme disease is to remove a tick as soon as possible.

The blacklegged tick that spreads disease-causing bacteria resembles a tiny spider. Young ticks are around the size of a poppy seed, while adult ticks are around the size of a sesame seed. Ticks of all ages are reddish-brown.

Below are some steps for tick removal.

• Step 1: Use fine-tipped tweezers to gently grasp the tick near its head or mouth. Avoid squeezing the tick.
• Step 2: Using the tweezers, pull the tick carefully and steadily away from the skin. Avoid yanking or twisting the tick, as this could cause its mouthparts to remain in the skin.
• Step 3: After removing the tick, dispose of it by putting it in some alcohol or flushing it down the toilet.
• Step 4: Apply antiseptic to the tick bite.

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Basic Qualifications:

Is There A Blood Test For Lyme Disease

If your doctor suspects that you have Lyme disease, they may order two blood tests. These will look for signs that your body is trying to fight it off. The results are most precise a few weeks after youâve been infected.

These tests are:

ELISA test. This test canât check for the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. It can only look for your immune systemâs response to it.

Once Borrelia burgdorferi gets into your blood, your body begins to make special proteins called antibodies to fight it off. The ELISA test checks for those antibodies.

Although itâs the most common way to check for Lyme disease, the ELISA test isnât perfect. It can sometimes give false âpositiveâ results. On the other hand, if you have it done too soon after youâve been infected, your body may not have developed enough antibodies for the test to detect them. This will give you a ânegativeâ result even though you do have Lyme disease.

Western blot test. Whether your ELISA test comes back positive or negative, your doctor will need to do this blood test, too.

A Western blot uses electricity to split certain proteins in your blood into patterns. This is then compared to the pattern of people known to have Lyme disease.

At least five band matches means that you have Lyme disease. Still, not all labs have the same standards. Thereâs a chance that you could get a âpositiveâ result from one and a ânegativeâ result from another.

• Alzheimerâs disease

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What Increases Your Risk

The main risk factor for Lyme disease is exposure to ticks that are infected with Lyme disease bacteria. In areas where Lyme disease is widespread, such as the eastern and south-central areas of Canada, southern British Columbia, and northeastern United States, several factors may increase your risk, including:

• Spending time outdoors during the warm months of the year when ticks are most active. This is usually between May and November, with peak activity in June and July.
• Having indoor/outdoor pets. They can bring infected ticks into the house. Although dogs and cats can become infected with the Lyme disease bacteria, they cannot pass the illness to humans. But the infected ticks can drop off the animal and then bite and infect a person.
• Having a stone fence or a bird feeder near your house. Stone fences often become homes for mice, and mice may feed on spilled seed from a bird feeder. Where there are mice, there are ticks.

Remove ticks right away, as soon as you notice them. Your risk for getting Lyme disease increases the longer a tick is attached to your body. Ticks generally cannot transmit Lyme disease until they are attached for at least 36 hours.

Can I Donate Blood

Donating blood is easy and our blood supply relies exclusively on the generosity of volunteer blood donors. There is no substitute for human blood. Most people qualify as a volunteer donor, even if they are taking medications. Review the eligibility criteria below and see if you can be a lifesaver too.

For information about blood donation and the Covid-19 vaccine, visit the Covid-19 and Blood Donation FAQ.

Age Matters

You may donate if you are at least 17 years old , weigh at least 110 pounds, and be in good health.

• Donors age 16-18 are also subject to additional height/weight restrictions.
• Donors age 76 and older can continue to donate blood if they meet all eligibility criteria and present a physician’s letter allowing them to donate, once at the first donation after reaching their 76th birthday. In the absence of a letter from their physician, they must be cleared by an NYBC medical director at each donation.

16 Year Old Parental/Guardian’s Permission Form

New York

7 days after taking

See full list of medications that may affect your eligibility as a blood donor.

* These anti-platelet agents affect platelet function so people taking these drugs should not donate platelets for the indicated time however, you make a whole blood donation. Anyone taking Coumadin must wait 7 days after their last dose in order to be eligible for any type of donation.

Permanent Reasons

Please do not give blood if you:

Please Note:

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Serological Testing Of Serum For The Diagnosis Of Lyme Disease

The most commonly used tests look for antibodies to the Borrelia species that cause Lyme disease in the UK and Europe, but they also detect infections from strains of Borrelia from the US.

The antibody response takes several weeks to reach a detectable level, so antibody tests in the first few weeks of infection may be negative. If the first sample was taken within 4 weeks from the onset of symptoms and is negative and there is a clinical suspicion of Lyme disease, then retesting in 4 to 6 weeks may be useful.

It is very rare for patients to have negative antibody tests in longstanding infections. Borrelia antibodies persist indefinitely in some patients and this does not indicate continuing disease or a need for re-treatment.

Serological testing for Lyme disease in the UK and much of the world follows a two-step approach:

Questions To Ask Your Veterinarian

If your dog has a positive Lyme test but no symptoms of the disease or protein in the urine, ask your veterinarian why he or she is recommending treatment. Experts currently recommend against antibiotic therapy under these circumstances because the dogs immune system is holding the bacteria in check and antibiotics are unable to eliminate the infection.

Dogs who have contracted Lyme disease do not develop prolonged, protective immunity and can be reinfected at a later date. Talk to your veterinarian about how best to prevent future infections. Options include measures to prevent the ticks that carry Lyme disease from biting your dog and Lyme vaccination.

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Can People With Chronic Lyme Disease Donate Blood

This is a debatable issue in the medical community. As of right now, no blood donation rules suggest checking for the Chronic Lyme disease. There has not been a single case where someone has contracted the disease due to blood transfusion. On the contrary, it is well documented that the bacteria is capable of surviving blood storage in blood banks.

In Arkansas, for example, patients are allowed to donate blood even after having disclosed that they have the chronic Lyme disease. Red Cross said that they will accept the blood without doing any tests prior or post blood donation.

The likelihood of contracting the disease from a blood transfusion is extremely low. It would also be extremely costly to check every donor for chronic Lyme disease. Regardless, even if it were carried out, the chances of coming across a positive sample are close to zero.

There are, however, a different set of experts that believe that every donor must be checked for the chronic Lyme disease. They refer to a study done in 2006, where it was proved that it is possible to spread the disease in mice by blood transfusion.

However, they donât have any evidence of it being true for humans. Which is why, they advise caution when dealing with blood banks for the same reason. They are of the opinion that if someone is suffering from the chronic Lyme disease, it is safer to not donate blood or any vital organs.

Donate Tissue From Surgeries

Our Lyme Disease Biobank collects human tissue from surgeries such as knee and hip replacements from people with Lyme and other tick-borne diseases. These samples are made available to approved researchers who will look for evidence of infection and evidence of inflammation. Our goal is to better understand how the bacteria that causes Lyme disease and other tick-borne pathogens invade human tissues.

If you are having a surgery in the future, you can donate tissue from the surgery to LDB. The current focus is joint replacements, such as knee, shoulder, and hip replacements. Other surgeries are considered on a case-by-case basis depending on how much tissue will be available.

LDB partners with NDRI to collect human tissue samples. Potential donors register with NDRI and complete authorization forms and questionnaires about their medical history. NDRI will coordinate with the surgery site to collect and transfer the tissue to the LDB repository.

LDB also partners with MyLymeData, the largest Lyme disease patient registry in the world. Tissue donors can choose to link their tissue samples with their MyLymeData profile.

For more information about donating tissue visit NDRIs Lyme registration page , or call 800-222-NDRI , option 5. If the surgery is occurring within a week, please call the number above for assistance . Donating tissue from a surgery is not location dependent. You can plan to do this from anywhere in the continental US.

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What Happens After Blood Donation

Your blood donation will be taken to a laboratory and will be tested for several things the first is blood type. The different blood types are: A, B, AB, and O. All blood types are eligible for blood donation.

Your blood will also be tested for any potential infections such as:

• Hepatitis B

• HTLV

• Syphilis

If your blood is positive to any of the above diseases, you will be notified by the donation center, and your blood will not be able to be used for donation.

What Is Creutzfeldt

Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease is an infectious brain disease that can pass from animals to humans. The equivalent illness in cows is called Mad Cow Disease. vCJD can rarely be passed through blood transfusions. Since there is no test for vCJD, there are certain restrictions around who can donate blood in order to prevent possible transmission.

These include:

• If you were in the UK for three months or more between January 1, 1980 through December 31, 1996

• If you spent 5 years or more in France or Ireland from January 1, 1980 through December 31, 2001

• If you had blood transfusion in the UK, France, or Ireland from January 1, 1980 to present

You can find full details about vCJD and blood donation here.

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How Is It Diagnosed

If youâve been outside in an area where ticks are known to live, you should tell your doctor. Theyâll also want to know about the symptoms youâre having. These details are crucial to making a diagnosis of Lyme disease.

Early symptoms that usually occur within the first month after a tick bite can include:

• Rash at the site of the tick bite that may look like a âbullâs-eyeâ

• Racing heart
• Problems with your short-term memory

Symptoms that come and go are common with Lyme disease. They will also depend on the stage of the disease.

Management Of Individuals Without Symptoms Following A Tick Bite

Diagnostic testing is not recommended for individuals who do not develop any symptoms suggestive of Lyme disease after a tick bite.

Some commercial companies offer services to test removed ticks for the presence of the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. UKHSA does not provide such tick-testing services. The results of such tests should not be used to inform diagnosis or treatment. A positive result does not mean that the infected tick will have passed on the bacteria there are many factors that determine whether Lyme disease results from the bite of an infected tick. A negative result may not be technically valid and could give false assurance, as it does not exclude the possibility that another tick elsewhere on the body has been missed by the patient.

UKHSA runs a tick surveillance scheme and is happy to receive ticks for species identification and to monitor tick distribution.

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Symptoms Of Lyme Disease

A circular or oval shape rash around a tick bite can be an early symptom of Lyme disease in some people.

The rash can appear up to 3 months after being bitten by an infected tick, but usually appears within 1 to 4 weeks. It can last for several weeks.

The rash can have a darker or lighter area in the centre and might gradually spread. It’s not usually hot or itchy.

The rash may be flat, or slightly raised, and look pink, red, or purple when it appears on white skin. It can be harder to see the rash on brown and black skin and it may look like a bruise.

Some people also get flu-like symptoms a few days or weeks after they were bitten by an infected tick, such as:

• a high temperature, or feeling hot and shivery
• headache
• tiredness and loss of energy

Some people with Lyme disease develop more severe symptoms months or years later.

This is more likely if treatment is delayed.

These more severe symptoms may include:

• pain and swelling in joints
• nerve problems such as pain or numbness
• heart problems
• trouble with memory or concentration

How To Avoid Tick Bites

To reduce the chance of being bitten:

• cover your skin while walking outdoors and tuck your trousers into your socks
• use insect repellent on your clothes and skin products containing DEET are best
• stay on clear paths whenever possible
• wear light-coloured clothing so ticks are easier to see and brush off

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What To Expect At Home

Home care for dogs with Lyme disease is relatively straightforward. Doxycycline is usually given by mouth twice daily for at least 30 days. Improvement in the dogs symptoms should be noted within 24-48 hours. If the dogs condition fails to improve in 72 hours or worsens at any time, call your veterinarian.

Restrictions For Donating Blood If You Have An Std

There are varying timelines for when you can or cannot donate blood with STDs. When in doubt, reach out to your local blood bank and ask for their specific guidelines. You should not donate blood if you suspect you may have human immunodeficiency virus , acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , human T-lymphotropic virus , or hepatitis.

You can never donate blood if you:

• Are HIV positive or receiving HIV treatment
• Are HTLV positiveâ
• Are a carrier of Hepatitis B or C

The American Red Cross says you should not donate if you have done any of the following in the past three months:

• Were a sex worker
• Are a man and had sex with another man
• Had sexual contact with anyone who meets the above-listed criteria
• Injected recreational drugs
• Had a sex partner who is HIV or HTLV positive, a carrier of hepatitis B or C, or a partner who has injected drugs not prescribed by a doctorâ
• Took Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis or Truvada for preventing HIV

If you contracted syphilis or gonorrhea, wait three months following completion of your treatment to donate blood. If you have chlamydia, HPV, or genital herpes, you can still donate blood if you meet the other eligibility requirements.

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