What Does Lyme Disease Cause

Chronic Lyme Disease Patients Profoundly Debilitated

Many patients with chronic Lyme disease are profoundly debilitated. Investigators of the four NIH-sponsored retreatment trials documented that the patients quality of life was consistently worse than that of control populations and equivalent to that of patients with congestive heart failure. Pain levels were similar to those of post-surgical patients, and fatigue was on par with that seen in multiple sclerosis.

An LDo published survey of over 3,000 patients with chronic Lyme disease found that patients suffer a worse quality of life than most other chronic illnesses, including congestive heart failure, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and arthritis. Over 70% of patients with chronic Lyme disease reported fair or poor health. Similar results have been found in other studies. Many of the symptoms associated with Lyme disease are common in other diseases. The CDC surveillance criteria for confirmed cases specifically exclude most of the symptoms that patients report, including fatigue, sleep impairment, joint pain, muscle aches, other pain, depression, cognitive impairment, neuropathy, and headaches. However, these common symptoms can be severe and may seriously affect quality of life.

What Are The Most Common Symptoms Of Lyme Disease

Aside from the aforementioned symptoms, many people with Lyme disease may experience others such as fatigue, fever, headache, sort throat, and swollen glands. As the disease worsens, cognitive health, along with the health of various other organs and tissues, can become compromised. The area of the body affected depends entirely on where the bacteria has infiltrated.

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Living With Lyme Disease

Most people treated in the early stages of Lyme disease make a quick and complete recovery. Some may experience symptoms for a few weeks after treatment. If you were treated for Lyme disease but you still dont feel well, call your family doctor. He or she can make sure there isnt something else wrong. They can help you find ways to ease your symptoms. Some patients have found relief with treatments typically used for chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia.

Other things you can do to help manage Lyme disease include:

• Educate yourself.There is a lot of inaccurate information to be sorted through, especially on the internet. Ask your doctor if you have questions.
• Track your symptoms.Keep a diary of your sleep patterns, eating habits, exercise routines, and how youre feeling. You or your doctor may be able to make connections between them.
• Take care of yourself.Eat a healthy diet. Exercise as regularly as you can. Get plenty of rest.

Find support. It can be hard to not feel well and not know why. Some people may think your symptoms arent real. Talk to friends and family. If they cant offer support, talk with a counselor who can help you.

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Who Is At Risk

Many occupations may be at risk, including forestry, farming, veterinarians, construction, landscaping, ground keepers, park or wildlife management, and anyone who either works outside or has contact with animals that may carry ticks

Similarly, any person who spends a lot time outdoors , especially in grassy or wooded areas may also be at risk.

Are You The Ticks 2nd Meal

A tick that is partially fed may be able to transmit diseases faster, Eisen explains.

Partially fed ticks able to re-attach could result from detachment from dead animals or possibly by host grooming.

Researchers have shown that infected I. scapularis nymph ticks which had been previously attached to a host for 24 48 hours, then removed and placed onto a new host, can effectively transmit B. burgdorferi spirochete within 24 hours of their re-attachment, Eisen writes.

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Can Lyme Disease Cause Eye Problems In Dogs

However, dogs that spend more time outside than other pets also face another cause of eye infections: Lyme disease. Because Lyme is carried by ticks, pets that spend time outdoors are vulnerable. Furthermore, certain breeds of dog are more at risk for eye infections.

Dogs with Lyme disease can experience an array of signs, including joint pain, swelling and fever. Dogs may not show signs of illness for weeks or months after an infected tick bites them and many dogs that are infected never show signs of illness.

Early Localized Lyme Disease

During this stage, the infection has not yet spread to other parts of the body. Diagnosing Lyme disease during stage 1 gives you the best chances of a quicker recovery.

Early localized Lyme disease commonly begins with a rash called erythema migrans. This rash, which occurs in 70% to 80% of infected people, typically develops seven days after a bite but can occur within three to 30 days.

The rash grows slowly over several days and can be more than 12 inches in diameter. The rash may be warm to the touch but is not usually painful or itchy. Some people may develop the classic bulls eye rash, but the rashs appearance can vary greatly.

The following symptoms may also be present with or without a rash:

• Chills
• Joint or muscle pain
• Swollen lymph nodes

People treated during this stage often recover quickly and completely. Treatment involves 10 to 14 days of oral antibiotics.

Unfortunately, 10% to 25% of cases may go unnoticed and progress to later stages of the disease.

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Coping With Chronic Disease Depression & Anxiety

Living with Lyme disease or other chronic illness has its own challenges, but when depression and anxiety come into play, its even more difficult. No treatment or management plan is a one-size-fits-all and often, the best results are found when a series of changes work together. Try these 7 ways to manage your symptoms of lyme disease, depression and anxiety, and remember to always consult your doctor for direction and support.

Can You Die From Lyme Disease

If not treated, Lyme disease can sometimes be fatal. Death records collected by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control in the U.S. found that during a four year period from 1999 to 2003, 114 records listed Lyme disease as a cause of death. Left untreated, Lyme disease eventually spreads to the brain, heart, and joints where it can do a lot of damage.If it’s not promptly and aggressively treated, it may become chronic or may cause death later on.

Borrelia burgdorfi bacteria are not the only bacteria that ticks carry. Co-infections by other bacteria are often missed, such as Bartonella, Babesiosis, Mycoplasma fermentans, and Ehrlichiosis can also be transmitted. They can also be dangerous with their own set of symptoms, and people must be tested for them during the Lyme treatment. Co-infections can exacerbate Lyme disease or induce similar disease manifestations making the condition worse.

How can you die from Lyme disease? Possibly as Lyme bacteria are particularly difficult to kill, and in many cases the use of antibiotics only temporarily suppresses them. They prefer to travel in tissue because of their corkscrew shape, and they’re clever enough to conceal themselves by entering healthy cells, where they remain unnoticed by the immune system. As soon as the bacteria enter the blood stream, they quickly enter the central nervous system where they cause the most harm.

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What Are The Symptoms Of Lyme Disease

Early symptoms of Lyme disease start between 3 to 30 days after an infected tick bites you. The symptoms can include:

• A red rash called erythema migrans . Most people with Lyme disease get this rash. It gets bigger over several days and may feel warm. It is usually not painful or itchy. As it starts to get better, parts of it may fade. Sometimes this makes the rash look like a “bull’s-eye.”
• Fever
• Muscle and joint aches
• Swollen lymph nodes

If the infection is not treated, it can spread to your joints, heart, and nervous system. The symptoms may include:

• Severe headaches and neck stiffness
• Additional EM rashes on other areas of your body
• Facial palsy, which is a weakness in your facial muscles. It can cause drooping on one or both sides of your face.
• Arthritis with severe joint pain and swelling, especially in your knees and other large joints
• Pain that comes and goes in your tendons, muscles, joints, and bones
• Heart palpitations, which are feelings that your heart is skipping a beat, fluttering, pounding, or beating too hard or too fast
• Shooting pains, numbness, or tingling in the hands or feet

What Is Lyme Disease Symptoms Causes Diagnosis Treatment And Prevention

Early signs and symptoms of Lyme disease can be very mild and potentially missed. The disease may resemble the flu at its onset. Its most distinct symptom is a bull’s-eye-shaped rash. But in at least one-quarter of Lyme disease patients, the telltale rash does not develop, notes the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases .

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Other Symptoms Of Lyme Disease In Dogs

Dogs are more resilient against Lyme disease than other animals. According to an experimental study, only a few percentage of pet dogs that test positive for this disease develop symptoms.

Dog Lyme disease can also result in intermittent arthritis, similar to humans, and rarely results in a kidney infection. Other symptoms include:

• Pain in Joints and leg
• Signs of rash in areas such as the leg or the limb
• Signs of fever and illness
• Joint pain or

All of these symptoms are indicative of a tick bite.

Can One Die Of Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is an inflammatory disease typically marked by a fever, headache, chills, and bulls-eye rash, and later by arthritis, cardiac, and neurological disorders, caused by bacteria that are spread by ticks. Lyme disease is common in North America, Europe, and Asia and is caused by the bacterium borrelia burgdorfi, and infected ticks spread the disease by biting people and/or animals. There are two kinds of ticks that carry Lyme disease in the U.S. They are the deer tick, found in the Northeast and Midwest, and the western black-legged tick, predominantly found along the Pacific coast in northern California and Oregon.

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What Is The Best Way To Remove A Tick

To remove a tick, use fine-point tweezers to hold the tick as close to its entry point in the skin as possible. Pull back firmly in a controlled motion without jerking or twisting the tick. Gently wash the area and disinfect it with a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol or an alcohol wipe.

The tick can be saved in a plastic bag for testing. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not recommend testing ticks for the disease. Just because a tick is carrying the disease-causing bacteria doesnt mean it has been transmitted through a bite. If the tick tests negative for bacteria, it doesnt exclude the possibility of infection from a different tick bite.

Does Lyme Disease Make You Crazy

Lyme disease has been linked to mental or psychiatric problems. These can include difficulty sleeping, anxiety, depression, irritability, and higher sensitivity to sounds and light. In more severe cases, Lyme disease may have some connection to paranoia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and hallucinations.

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Can Lyme Disease Cause Low Platelets In Dogs

Many essential oils, such as eucalyptus oil, tea tree oil, cinnamon, citrus, peppermint, pine, wintergreen, and ylang ylang are straight up toxic to pets. These are toxic whether they are applied to the skin, used in diffusers or licked up in the case of a spill. Can lyme disease in dogs cause low platelets?

Causes And Risk Factors Of Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and, rarely, Borrelia mayonii. Humans can get Lyme disease if they are bitten by an infected blacklegged tick, according to the CDC.

Usually the deer tick must be attached for 36 to 48 hours to transmit Lyme disease, notes the Mayo Clinic.

Not all ticks carry Lyme disease, and some ticks carry other diseases.

A persons chances of getting bitten by a tick and getting Lyme disease can depend on where they live, travel or what they do for a living. Common risk factors for contracting Lyme disease include the following:

• Spending a lot of time in wooded or grassy areas, especially in the Northeast and Midwest United States
• Exposed skin, which can make it easier for ticks to attach or bite you
• Removing ticks incorrectly or removing them 36 hours or more after theyve attached to your skin which allows the bacteria from the bite to enter your skin

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Which Areas Are More Likely To Have It

The tick that causes Lyme disease has been moving from the Northeast and upper Midwest into the Southern and Western U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Cases in California and Florida are on the rise. After a drop between 2017 and 2018, the numbers jumped a little bit in 2019.

But most Lyme cases in 2019 were in 15 states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New

Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Washington, DC, is also a hotspot.

In 2019, Pennsylvania had the most Lyme infections, with 6,763. New York was next, with 2,847 cases.

In the Southern U.S., where itâs hotter, ticks stay under leaves so they don’t dry out. This means people donât get Lyme from Southern ticks very often because they don’t usually come out to bite.

Even though people only report about 30,000 cases of Lyme infection in the U.S. each year, there are actually around 476,000 a year. The same tick also can spread other diseases, including babesiosis, anaplasmosis, and Powassan virus. Those diseases are also on the rise in the U.S.

Whoâs likeliest to get Lyme disease?

Boys up to age 15 and men between the ages of 40 and 60 are the most likely to get Lyme disease. Thatâs because they tend to play outside and go camping, hunting, and hiking.

Why are there more ticks now than there used to be?

There are several reasons why Lyme is spreading. Some of these are:

Can Lyme Disease Cause Thyroid Problems

• Tips for preventing Lyme disease

Infections and other chronic health diseases can take a toll on the thyroid gland, especially for people with an autoimmune disease like Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Although the relationship is not well understood by researchers, there is some evidence that Lyme disease may cause thyroid problems to develop.

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Lyme Disease And Leaky Gut Syndrome

Small intestine inflammation more commonly known as leaky gut syndrome is a condition where the spaces between the cells that line the small intestine become enlarged. This allows bacteria and food particles to enter the bloodstream triggering the immune system to respond by releasing inflammatory cytokines. The outer layer of bacteria that enters the bloodstream contains fat and a carbohydrate called lipopolysaccharide that causes the immune system to react. Food allergies, alcoholism, stress, infections , toxicants, certain medications, and mast cell activation syndrome are some of the causes of increased intestinal permeability. Paradoxically, leaky gut syndrome also leads to an increase in food allergies since food proteins pass through the inflamed small intestine into the bloodstream creating an antibody response.

Leaky gut syndrome can lead to systemic inflammation which contributes to fatigue, headaches, joint pain, ADHD, and brain fog. Research has demonstrated leaky gut syndrome can contribute to autoimmune conditions. Since many of the symptoms related to Lyme disease are caused by inflammation, successfully treating leaky gut syndrome is crucial to reducing the systemic inflammatory burden.

Testing For Lyme Disease In Dogs

Lyme disease spread by ticks can be diagnosed with a simple blood tests in your veterinarian’s clinic. The C6 test is very sensitive and specific at diagnosing cases of Lyme disease and depending on clinical signs and concurrent results, treatment may be started immediately. If treatment has been successful, reductions in the QC6 at six months should be lower than the starting point.

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What Can I Expect Long Term If My Child Has Lyme Disease

If Lyme disease is caught and treated early, most children will make a full recovery. Some children with Lyme disease go on to experience what’s called a post-infectious syndrome with symptoms that may include feeling fatigue, joint aches and pains, headaches, difficulty sleeping, and problems concentrating. Since the infection itself is gone by this time, doctors generally don’t prescribe antibiotics. Each child is different, but it’s not uncommon for symptoms of post-infectious syndrome to linger for months, or even years, and they can be made worse by stress or other illness. But most children do make a full recovery.

Blacklegged, or deer, ticks are very small, so it helps to know what to look for when doing a tick check. Adults are about the size of sesame seeds and in the nymph or larva stage, they can be as tiny as a poppy seeds.

What Are The Complications Of Lyme Disease

Lyme disease affects people differently. Relapse and incomplete treatment responses happen. Relapse and incomplete treatment responses happen. Complications of untreated early-stage disease include:

• Joint disease

• Frequent hospitalizations to manage the disease

Some of these complications result in chronic, debilitating conditions.

Some people may develop post-Lyme disease syndrome . A condition also known as chronic Lyme disease includes PLDS, but also other syndromes. Usually, these are characterized by persistent musculoskeletal and peripheral nerve pain, fatigue, and memory impairment.

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