What Are The Risk Factors For Post Treatment Lyme Disease
Risk factors for Post Treatment Lyme Disease include:
- Delay in diagnosis
- Increased severity of initial illness
- Presence of neurologic symptoms
Increased severity of initial illness, the presence of neurologic symptoms, and initial misdiagnosis increase the risk of Post Treatment Lyme Disease. PTLD is especially common in people that have had neurologic involvement. The rates of Post Treatment Lyme Disease after neurologic involvement may be as high as 20% or even higher. Other risk factors being investigated are genetic predispositions and immunologic variables.
In addition to Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, there are several other tick-borne co-infections that may also contribute to more prolonged and complicated illness.
Who Is At Risk For Lyme Disease
Anyone can get a tick bite. But people who spend lots of time outdoors in wooded, grassy areas are at a higher risk. This includes campers, hikers, and people who work in gardens and parks.
Most tick bites happen in the summer months when ticks are most active and people spend more time outdoors. But you can get bitten in the warmer months of early fall, or even late winter if temperatures are unusually high. And if there is a mild winter, ticks may come out earlier than usual.
What To Expect At The Vets Office
If your pet has been diagnosed with uncomplicated Lyme disease, this is what you can expect to happen at your veterinarians office.
- Depending on the type of test used to screen for Lyme disease, a confirmatory test may be necessary.
- Urine protein screening — In general, only dogs who have symptoms of Lyme disease or protein in their urine should be treated with antibiotics.
- Dogs with protein in their urine should have regularly scheduled rechecks to monitor their condition.
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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 whats 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 dont prescribe antibiotics. Each child is different, but its 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.
Unexplained Pain And Other Sensations
Some people with Lyme may have sharp rib and chest pains that send them to the emergency room, suspecting a heart problem 00090-7/abstract%20″ rel=”nofollow”> 27).
When no problem is found, after the usual testing, the ER diagnosis is noted as an unidentified musculoskeletal cause.
You can also have strange sensations like skin tingling or crawling, or numbness or itchiness 00090-7/abstract%20″ rel=”nofollow”> 27).
Other symptoms have to do with cranial nerves.
- Ear-ringing . Tinnitus can be a nuisance, especially at bedtime when it seems to get louder as youre trying to fall asleep. About 10 percent of people with Lyme experience this (
- Hearing loss. One study reported that 15 percent of Lyme patients experienced loss of hearing .
- Jaw pain or toothaches that are not related to actual tooth decay or infection.
Summary:
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How To Avoid Getting A Tick Bite
You might be at risk if you live, work in, or visit a wooded area, or an area with tall grasses and bushes .
You may also be at risk if you are involved in outdoor activities such as hiking, camping and gardening.
You may be bitten by a tick and not even know it.
Heres what you can do to avoid getting a tick bite.
What Do You Do If There’s A Tick Under Your Skin
Use a pair of fine-tipped tweezers to remove it as soon as possible. Pull upward with steady pressure. If parts of the tick are still in your skin, try to get those with the tweezers, too. After everything is out, clean the bite area with rubbing alcohol or soap and water.
You probably wonât get infected if you remove the tick within 36 to 48 hours.
How do you throw away a tick?
Put it in soapy water or alcohol, stick it to a piece of tape, or flush it down the toilet.
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Creating The Perfect Environment For Healing
Healing is the ability of cells to regenerate and recover from being stressed. Healing can only occur if ongoing stresses are reduced enough for cellular recovery to occur.
No doubt, killing bacteria and other microbes is essential for cellular healing, but it must be done without upsetting the delicate balance of other microbes that inhabit the body. This is the problem with antibiotics. Conventional antibiotics dont penetrate into cells very well, but do disrupt the balance of normal flora in the gut and skin. Prolonged use of antibiotics typically leads to a host of issues that disrupt cellular healing and often doesnt eradicate the ongoing infection.
This is where the antimicrobial properties of herbs offer a distinct advantage. Taking an herb with antimicrobial properties isnt like taking an antibiotic. Instead of being a single chemical agent, like an antibiotic, herbs offer a wide spectrum of chemical substances with broad spectrum action against a wide variety of microbes. In essence, it acts like an intelligent defense system that targets pathogens and not normal flora. This allows herbs to be taken for extended periods of time months and even years without disrupting the balance of bacteria and other microbes in the body. Which is exactly what it takes to wear the intracellular microbes down.
Chronic Lyme Dos And Don’ts
Chronic Lyme disease is an ongoing Borrelia burgdorferi infection that can involve any body system or tissue. The infection produces a wide range of symptoms and signs, which can be debilitating for some patients. Common symptoms include severe fatigue, migratory musculoskeletal pain, headaches, and impaired memory. Unfortunately, chronic Lyme disease is complex and often misunderstood, which means that many patients will struggle to obtain the care they need to regain their health. Every patient concerned about Lyme disease and tick-borne illness should know the following.
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What Tests Are Available For Lyme Disease
When a person becomes infected, the body creates antibodies to protect itself from the bacteria. Certain blood tests are available to measure these antibodies. However, sometimes a false negative test can result if there are not enough antibodies in the blood for the tests to detect accurately. A doctor should also do a complete medical examination and gather information about your recent outdoor activities in order to make a clinical diagnosis for Lyme disease.
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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:
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Regression And Other Symptoms In Children
Children are the largest population of Lyme patients.
The CDC study of reported Lyme cases from 19922006 found that the incidence of new cases was highest among 5- to 14-year-olds . About one quarter of reported Lyme cases in the United States involve children under 14 years old .
Children can have all the signs and symptoms of Lyme that adults have, but they may have trouble telling you exactly what they feel or where it hurts.
You may notice a decline in school performance, or your childs mood swings may become problematic.
Your childs social and speech skills or motor coordination may regress. Or your child may lose their appetite.
Children are more likely than adults to have arthritis as an initial symptom 01267-2/fulltext#sec0040″ rel=”nofollow”> 25).
In a 2012 Nova Scotian study of children with Lyme, 65 percent developed Lyme arthritis . The knee was the most commonly affected joint.
Summary:
You Have More Than One Symptom
Lyme disease is a multisystemic illness. That means that people dont usually complain of just one symptom, but instead notice a cluster of symptoms, such as:
- Fatigue
- Chest pain with palpitations
- Psychiatric symptoms such as depression and anxiety
Others may also complain of day sweats, night sweats and chills, as well as shortness of breath, with an unexplained cough if they have contracted babesiosis. A different tick-borne infection than Lyme disease, babesiosis can be transmitted with the same tick bite. Its a malaria-type parasite which makes people much sicker and difficult to treat with resistant symptoms.
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What Symptoms Should I Look For
A circular or oval shape rash that can have a darker or lighter area in the centre will appear in most people. The rash may be flat, or slightly raised, and look pink, red, or purple when it appears on white skin.
For those with darker skin, it may look more like a bruise.
Flu-like symptoms may also present in a few days or weeks after the bite, including:
- a high temperature, or feeling hot and shivery
- headache
Finally, if you are going hiking or walking in natural areas take precautions and do check for ticks on your return.
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Where Does Lyme Disease Occur In Ohio
Blacklegged ticks that carry Lyme disease are most commonly found in the eastern and southern areas of the state, but are likely to occur in suitable wooded habitat throughout most or all of Ohio. On the map below, each dot represents one case of Lyme disease and is placed randomly in the patients county of residence. The presence of a dot does not necessarily mean that the Lyme disease infection was acquired in Ohio. The place of residence can be different from the place where the patient became infected.
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Early Symptoms Of Lyme Disease
More than 30,000 cases of Lyme disease are reported to the Centers for Disease Control each year. The risk of Lyme disease is greatest in the spring and summer when the disease is commonly transmitted through tick bites.
Preventing tick bites is key to fending off an infection, but if you do get bit, look out for these early symptoms of Lyme disease:
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What Is The Outlook For Someone With Lyme Disease
Most of the people who get Lyme disease and are treated early will be fine.
Post-Lyme Syndrome
Even after proper treatment, some patients may experience lingering fatigue, achiness or headaches. This does not signify ongoing infection and will not respond to additional antibiotics. The majority of people in this group will have symptoms resolve over the next one to six months.
Chronic Lyme Syndrome
Chronic Lyme syndrome is a term used by some that includes the symptoms of Post-Lyme syndrome outlined above. This is a controversial topic with no accepted etiology and no proven cause or association.
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Lyme Disease Cases Soared Over 15 Years Due To Global Warming: Researchers
Lyme disease cases have soared almost five-fold in 15 years because of global warming, according to new research.
The potentially-fatal bacterial infection is transmitted by tiny spider-like bloodsuckers. Campers and hikers are particularly prone.
An analysis found diagnoses rose 357 percent in rural areas in the United States between 2007 and 2021. In towns and cities they increased by around two-thirds .
Longer summers and warmer winters are to blame, along with animal migration and increased time spent outdoors.
Men, those over 50 and those living in rural areas are most vulnerable.
New York-based FAIR Health said Lyme disease has become an “illness of increasing national concern.”
It used its database of over 36 billion privately billed healthcare claims in the U.S. to carry out the study.
For decades, scientists have been clueless as to exactly how widespread the tick-borne illness really is.
The latest findings add to evidence that it is much more widespread than previously feared.
If left untreated it can lead to serious symptoms affecting the joints, nervous system – and even the heart.
The charity’s freely available “infographic” reveals key differences in prevalence when comparing different regions.
From 2016 to 2021, claims with Lyme disease diagnoses increased 60 percent in rural areas and 19 percent in urban areas – peaking nationally in June and July.
During summer months rural areas, on average, had a greater share of claim lines associated with Lyme disease.
Lyme Disease Is Once Again In The News With A Rise In Ticks Across Spain The Uk And Most Of Europe
Spread by a variety of ticks, but not all, Lyme Disease is a bacterial infection that is transmitted to humans by ticks that are infected. Not all ticks spread the virus, however, it is not the only virus that they do spread with many more severe illnesses transmitted through tick bites.
Treatable if diagnosed early, the virus can also lead to some people becoming severely ill.
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Avoiding Highly Processed Foods
Some health experts believe that highly processed foods, such as refined carbohydrates and sugars, can increase inflammation in the body and intensify health conditions like Lyme disease. For that reason, many Lyme disease patients attempt to rid their diets of highly processed and non-organic foods.
That said, there is not an abundance of empirical evidence to suggest that avoiding processed foods will help in the fight against Lyme disease. However, avoiding such foods is generally a wise decision from a health perspective, which means its unlikely to have a negative impact on the patient. Still, Lyme disease patients should discuss any major lifestyle or diet changes with their doctor.
Questions To Ask Your Doctor
- I found a tick embedded in my skin, but I cant get it out. What should I do?
- Ive been bitten by a tick. Do I need to be seen?
- Do I need a blood test to confirm Lyme disease?
- Which antibiotic is best for me?
- How long will I have to take the antibiotic?
- What tick or insect repellent should I use for me or my child?
- How long will the symptoms last?
- What should I do if I still dont feel well a long time after I was bitten?
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Can I Catch Lyme Disease From My Dog
Dogs are not a direct source of infection for people. Lyme disease cant be transmitted from one pet to another, nor from pets to humans, except through tick bites. However, a carrier tick could come into your house on your dogs fur and get on you.
If your dog is diagnosed with Lyme disease, you and any other pets have probably been in the same outdoor environment and may also be at risk, so it is a good idea to consult with your physician and veterinarian to see whether you should test other pets or family members.
What Blacklegged Ticks Look Like
Blacklegged ticks are small and hard to see. They attach themselves to humans and animals and feed on their blood. They can range in size depending on how long they have been feeding.
You can find out if its a blacklegged tick by:
- calling your local public health unit or checking their website
- submitting a photo of the tick to etick.ca
Adult female blacklegged tick at various stages of feeding. Photo: Government of Canada
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Tips For Reducing Inflammation
Changing diets to reduce inflammation can be daunting, but there are certain things people can do to make it easier.
- No miracle food: People should include a wide variety of foods in their diet rather than relying on a few anti-inflammatory foods. What works for some people may not work for everyone, so people should ensure they get a wide range of nutrients by diversifying their diet.
- Small changes: Rather than changing their entire diet all at once, people can make small changes to gradually replace pro-inflammatory foods with anti-inflammatory ones.
- Rainbow meals: The darker or more intense the color of a fruit or vegetable, the more packed full of antioxidants it is. Choose a variety of different colored fruits and vegetables.
- Exercise: Regular exercise can help reduce inflammation. People should start simply and aim for