Lyme Disease Symptoms
What is Lyme disease?
Lyme disease is related with mark borne which causes symptoms and signs ranging from the fever, rash, chills and the body ashes to the weakness, swelling at joints, and temporary paralysis. Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium is responsible for causing the lyme disease.
Causes of Lyme disease:
Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium is responsible for causing the lyme disease and this carried initially by the deer ticks. These ticks are brown in color and same as head of pin or smaller than that which can be impossible to spot them.
These ticks are feed on the blood, attached to the host and feed till they are swollen than normal size. At the time of feeding, ticks which carries the bacteria that causes the disease can transmit to the healthy host or they pick up the bacteria when host get infected themselves. In the region where this disease is most common, fifty percent of the deer ticks carry the Borrelia burgdorferi.
Deer ticks normally feed on small birds, deer, and mice blood but also feed on the blood of cats, dogs, horses and even human. They live on the tall grasses and in bushes and waiting for the warm blooded animal to go bye their. In summer days, deer ticks are mainly active.
When person bitten by the infected deer tick, you must suffering from lyme disease. Through the bite, this bacterium enters into the skin and from the skin it enters in the blood stream. Before transmission of bacteria, deer tick takes a meal of blood and this take 48 hours for feeding or more than that. When the attached tick gets swollen then it is assumed that time is enough for transmitting the bacteria. Then for preventing the infection, removes that tick.
Lyme disease Symptoms:
Lyme disease symptoms and signs are different for different person because it affects on different parts of the body. The person suffering from lyme disease do not necessarily have all the lyme disease symptoms and signs. In general signs and symptoms of lyme disease are given below:
- Rash: A red, small bump appear within few days to few months at the place of tick bite may be in belt area, groin or behind the knee. This is warm to touch. After some days, redness starts expanding and forming a rash of size small as the fingertip and large as 30 centimeters and more. The rash, also known as erythema migrans, is the hallmarks of the Lyme disease, which affects to the 70 to 80 percent of the infected persons. If you are suffering from tick saliva, red mark appears at the place of tick bite. This red marks gets light within the week and this is opposite with the erythema migrans, which expands and get redder as time goes.
- Flu-like symptoms: A fever, fatigue, headache and the body aches.
- Migratory joint pain: If the infection is not treated properly then bouts are developed of severe joints and swelling several weeks to several months after getting infected. When the knee of the patient gets affected then also pains are shifted to other joints of the body.
- Neurological problems: In some of the cases, temporary paralysis of one side of your face (Bell's palsy), inflammation of the membranes surrounding your brain (meningitis), numbness or weakness in your limbs, and the impaired muscle movement may occur several weeks, several months or even the years when the infection remains untreated. Difficulties during concentration, loss of memory, and the changes in mood or sleep habits are the late stage lyme disease symptoms.
- Less common signs and symptoms: Some of the people feel the heart problems such as irregular heartbeats. This symptom occurs after several weeks of the infection, and lasts after some days or weeks but very rarely. Eye inflammation, severe fatigue and hepatitisare are also rare lyme disease symptoms.
Diagnosing lyme disease:
Lyme disease is often overdiagnosed. Signs and symptoms of lyme disease are variable and may found in other diseases or conditions such as joint disorders, viral infections, muscle pain (fibromyalgia), chronic fatigue syndrome, and even the depression. The ticks transmit the lyme disease also responsible for spreading the other diseases at the same time.
If there is no any characteristic of the lyme disease such as red rash, then doctor may ask about patient's medical history or the physical exams. Following tests are used for diagnosing the lyme disease but these tests are not foolproof. These tests include:
- Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test: This test is used for detecting the lyme disease. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay detects the antibodies to B. burgdorferi. But some of the times it gives false result so it is not used as only treatment for the diagnosis.
- Western blot test: If the result of ELISA test becomes positive then another test is done for confirming the diagnosis. The name of this test is known as Westurn blot test.. This test detects antibodies to several proteins of B. burgdorferi.
- Polymerase chain reaction (PCR): Polymerase chain reaction is used for detecting bacterial DNA in the fluid which is drawn from the infected joints. This test is not effective for detecting the infection of urine or blood but used for the peoples suffering from chronic lyme arthritis. It is also used for detecting constant infection in cerebrospinal fluid.
Treatments for lyme disease:
Oral antibiotics:
The treatment used for early disease lyme disease is oral antibodies. These contain doxycycline for the adults and children having the age more than eight years, or cefuroxime axetil or amoxicillin for the younger children, adults, and the pregnant or breast-feeding women. These drugs are useful for clearing the infection and preventing complications. Normally 14-21 days antibiotics course is suggested but according to the study if course lasts for 10-14 days then it is more effective. Longer treatment is connected with several complications.
Intravenous antibiotics:
If disease gets progressed, doctor suggests the course of intravenous antibodies for 14-28 days. These antibiotics are useful for removing the infection and take some time for recovering symptomatically. Several side effects can caused because of intravenous antibiotics such as lower white blood cell count, mild to severe diarrhea and gallstones
Avoid bismacine:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns health care providers and consumers for avoiding the bismacine. Bismacine is an injectable compound which is suggested by some medicine practitioners for treating the Lyme disease. Bismacine also called as chromacine that contains lot of metal bismuth. Bismuth is a medication which is taken orally for stomach ulcer but is not used in injectable format for treatment of the lyme disease. Bismacine causes side effects such as failure of kidney and heart because it creates bismuth poisoning.
