How to Know You Have Lyme Disease

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Summary

What is Lyme illness?

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection you get from the bite of an infected tick. At commencement, Lyme illness normally causes symptoms such as a rash, fever, headache, and fatigue. But if it is not treated early, the infection can spread to your joints, centre, and nervous system. Prompt treatment tin assist you recover apace.

What causes Lyme disease?

Lyme disease is caused by leaner. In the United States, this is normally a bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi. It spreads to humans through the bite of an infected tick. The ticks that spread it are blacklegged ticks (or deer ticks). They are ordinarily found in the:

• Northeast
• Mid-Atlantic
• Upper Midwest
• Pacific coast, especially northern California

These ticks can attach to whatsoever part your body. But they are ofttimes found in hard-to-meet areas such as your groin, armpits, and scalp. Usually the tick must be attached to you for 36 to 48 hours or more to spread the bacterium to you.

Who is at risk for Lyme disease?

Anyone can get a tick seize with teeth. But people who spend lots of time outdoors in wooded, grassy areas are at a higher adventure. This includes campers, hikers, and people who piece of work in gardens and parks.

Most tick bites happen in the summertime months when ticks are most active and people spend more fourth dimension outdoors. But y'all can go bitten in the warmer months of early fall, or fifty-fifty late wintertime if temperatures are unusually high. And if in that location is a mild winter, ticks may come out earlier than usual.

What are the symptoms of Lyme disease?

Early symptoms of Lyme disease offset between iii to 30 days afterwards an infected tick bites you lot. The symptoms can include:

• A red rash called erythema migrans (EM). Nearly people with Lyme illness get this rash. It gets bigger over several days and may experience warm. It is usually non painful or itchy. Equally it starts to get improve, parts of it may fade. Sometimes this makes the rash look like a "bull's-eye."
• Fever
• Chills
• Headache
• Fatigue
• Muscle and joint aches
• Swollen lymph nodes

If the infection is not treated, it can spread to your joints, middle, and nervous organisation. 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 1 or both sides of your confront.
• Arthritis with severe joint pain and swelling, especially in your knees and other big joints
• Hurting that comes and goes in your tendons, muscles, joints, and bones
• Heart palpitations, which are feelings that your heart is skipping a vanquish, fluttering, pounding, or beating besides difficult or as well fast
• An irregular heart vanquish (Lyme carditis)
• Episodes of dizziness or shortness of breath
• Inflammation of the brain and spinal cord
• Nerve pain
• Shooting pains, numbness, or tingling in the hands or anxiety

How is Lyme disease diagnosed?

To make a diagnosis, your health care provider will consider:

• Your symptoms
• How likely it is that you were exposed to infected blacklegged ticks
• The possibility that other illnesses may cause like symptoms
• Results of any lab tests

Most Lyme affliction tests bank check for antibodies made by the body in response to infection. These antibodies tin take several weeks to develop. If you are tested right away, it may not testify that you have Lyme disease, even if yous have it. And then you lot may need to have another test later on.

What are the treatments for Lyme disease?

Lyme disease is treated with antibiotics. The earlier you are treated, the better; it gives you lot the best adventure of fully recovering quickly.

After treatment, some patients may still have pain, fatigue, or difficulty thinking that lasts more than than 6 months. This is called post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS). Researchers don't know why some people have PTLDS. There is no proven treatment for PTLDS; long-term antibiotics accept not been shown to help. However, in that location are ways to assist with the symptoms of PTLDS. If you lot have been treated for Lyme illness and still experience unwell, contact your wellness intendance provider about how to manage your symptoms. Nigh people do get improve with time. Just it can accept several months before you feel all ameliorate.

Can Lyme affliction be prevented?

To preclude Lyme disease, you should lower your chance of getting a tick seize with teeth:

• Avoid areas where ticks live, such as grassy, brushy, or wooded areas. If you are hiking, walk in the middle of the trail to avoid castor and grass.
• Use an insect repellent with DEET
• Treat your vesture and gear with a repellant containing 0.v% permethrin
• Wearable light-colored protective clothing, so y'all can easily run into whatever ticks that go on you
• Habiliment a long-sleeve shirt and long pants. Also tuck your shirt into your pants and your pant legs into your socks.
• Cheque yourself, your children, and your pets daily for ticks. Carefully remove whatsoever ticks y'all find.
• Take a shower and wash and dry your clothes at high temperatures after existence outdoors

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

• Signs and Symptoms of Untreated Lyme Disease (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Also in Castilian

• Lyme Disease Tests (National Library of Medicine) Also in Castilian

• Lyme Disease Transmission (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
• Neurological Complications of Lyme Disease (National Establish of Neurological Disorders and Stroke)

• Chronic Lyme Illness (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
• Postal service-Treatment Lyme Illness Syndrome (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

• Lyme Disease: Fact or Fiction? (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

• Lyme Disease Data (Centers for Disease Command and Prevention)
• Scientists Piece of work Toward a Rapid Betoken-of-Care Diagnostic Test for Lyme Disease (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
• Tickborne Diseases Are Likely to Increase, Say NIAID Officials (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

• Lyme Illness (Nemours Foundation)
• Lyme Disease (VisualDX)

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Source: https://medlineplus.gov/lymedisease.html

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