How Does Lyme Disease Work?

encounter ticks carrying the disease. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control, the number of confirmed cases of lyme disease here more than doubled from the most recent year of data, and cases increased seventeen percent between twenty six and seventeen alone. Well cases used to be mostly isolated to the Northeast. Now the CDC considers half the counties in the United States high risk for lime disease.

Lime disease, first idea deified in the US in the nineteen seventies, isn't particularly mysterious or anywhere close to untreatable, Despite the horror stories that you may have heard. I mean, lime disease should not be taken lightly. If you think you might have it, you do need to see a doctor,

and the sooner the better. As with most illnesses. By some estimates, somewhere around three hundred thousand possible cases of it are diagnosed every year, but the vast majority of those cases are handled with a simple round of oral antibiotics. If caught early, especially, people recover quickly and completely. Okay, but let's back up a step. What is lime disease. Lime disease is an infection caused by the Bacterium aurelia erg door free, which is transmitted through those tiny, bitey,

black legged ticks. You can't transmit lime disease through sexual contact or kissing or holding hands with a person who's been infected, and nor can you pass it through breast milk. Lime disease is often characterized by some TEMs like fatigue, headache, fever, and most tellingly, an expanding skin rash that's called air thema migrants and normally look circular with a bull's eye in the middle. The rash usually pops up anywhere from three to thirty days after a tick bite, the average

time being about a week. Given the chance ticks will latch onto you and feed on your blood during the late spring and summer months, and they often latch in hard to see places like in the hair of your scalp, in your armpits, or your crotch. Ticks normally have to be attached for thirty six to forty eight hours or even longer in order to transmit the bacteria, which is why it's a good idea to check yourself immediately and thoroughly when you've been in areas where ticks hang out.

If lime disease goes untreated and gets into later stages weeks, two months or even more after the bite, it can cause things like temporary facial paralysis or severe swelling and darthritis and joints. It's more rare to experience heart palpitation, which happened when the bacteria invades the heart. This occurs in just about one percent of reported cases of lyme disease. Other severe symptoms are possible, but still even then treatment

is generally very effective. The problem with diagnosing lime disease is that it involves symptoms that are common to many other illnesses. I mean headache, fever, fatigued soreness, that could be anything. The key to diagnosis is often the rash, which occurs in up to of lyme disease cases. If you see that after a bite, or if you come down with that or other symptoms after hanging out where ticks may live, talk to a medical professional so that

they can make an informed diagnosis. Blood tests may be helpful, though they can also be tricky and in some circles, controversial too. It takes a while for humans to produce the antibodies that are measured by a blood test, so if you're tested too soon, you might get a negative result even if you are infected, and the first test sometimes can come up false positive too, and that's why experts like the CDC call for a two tiered test

to confirm diagnosis. If the first test is positive, doctors sometimes will call for a different type of test, a Western blot test, which can identify specific classes of the antibody that your body is producing. It's important to note here that some patient advocate groups aren't very trusting of the tests or the guidelines on how lyme disease should be treated. For the article, this episode is based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with Philip Baker, the executive director

of the American Lime Disease Foundation. Baker previously spent more than thirty years as a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health, many of them involved with lyme disease. He said, there's so much misinformation out there. That's why I do what I do. You can't go by symptoms alone to diagnose lyme disease. There are at least two hundred and fifty or two hundred and sixty different medical conditions that have symptoms that are almost what people see

with lyme disease. What you need a reliable, objective laboratory tests to make the diagnosis. The tests for lyme disease are very good, very reliable tests. Once a positive diagnosis is made for lime disease, treatment is relatively simple and straightforward, usually involving an oral antibiotic for fourteen two twenty one days. A relief from symptoms often comes within days of starting treatment. Late stage lime disease, defined as weeks, months, or years

after the bite, may call for intravenous antibiotics. These treatments do the trick for most people, though if lime disease isn't caught until the late stages, it can do lasting damage. Some affective patients report continuing symptoms even after treatment, what's sometimes called chronic lime disease. This is the most debated topic in the lame disease community. Most experts and studies don't recognize a chronic form of the disease. The antibiotics,

they say, read the body of the infection. They believe the continuing symptoms what's known as post treatment lime disease syndrome, are the result of an autoimmune response that lasts after the infect is gone. And despite these varying views, the key point here is that lyme disease, especially if caught early, is eminently treatable, and a large part of that depends on the awareness of a person who may be infected, So look out for those symptoms if you suspect you've

had exposure to ticks. The best way to deal with lime disease, of course, is to not get it in the first place. Avoid ticks by staying away from especially woody or leafy spots in the late spring or summer. If you live in a tick heavy area or an area of the country known for lyme disease, be especially aware one outdoors in such areas. Use bug repellents like deep and treat your clothes and footwear with the insecticide per methren. They'll technically dear ticks are a Racknet's not insects,

but it works on them too. Once you come indoors, check your clothes and footwear so that you're not carrying ticks into the house and shower as soon as you can after exposure to ticks, and check all over your body, and check the kids and pets too. If you do find one. Here's how to remove it. A Snag it as close to the skin as you can with a pair of your best skinny tweezers and pull slowly straight out. Don't twist. If a piece of the bug stays in the skin, don't mess with it too much. The area

could become infected. Wash the area with soap and water or rubbing alcohol, and the skin should push it out on its own. The CDC suggests that you dispose of a live tick by putting it in alcohol, placing it in a sealed bag, wrapping it tightly in tape, or flushing it down the toilet. Remember it generally takes at least thirty six hours for a latched tick to transmit the bacterium to you. If you catch a tick before it gets too settled, you can nip lime disease in

the butt. Today's episode is based on the article getting a Grip on Lime Disease on how stuff works dot com, written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with how s toforks dot com, and it's produced by Tyler playing in Ramsey Out four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H