What is Lyme Disease?

Lyme disease is a tick-borne disease that affects several thousand people every year. Lyme disease commonly advances in three stages, with ultimate symptoms causing brain damage. The disease can be prevented and treated, with extremely high degrees of success.

Lyme disease is passed on to people by the Ixodes tick, which can be identified by its signature black legs and is found primarily in a handful of states in the U.S., including Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. Cases of Lyme disease have been reported in all 50 US states, in Canada, and in Europe and Asia. The ticks pass on Lyme disease, which is caused by a bacterium that dwells within the ticks and “jumps ship” during the tick bite. The bacterium travels into the bloodstream of the person bitten by the tick. The initial result is a rash, and the disease proceeds from there.

The first stage is called the localized stage and involves symptoms that go no further than the area immediately surrounding the initial bite point. A red-ringed rash appears at the bite point. This rash can last up to five weeks. Other symptoms of this stage of Lyme disease include fatigue, headaches and general achiness, joint pain, and swelling of lymph glands near the bite point.

The second stage, or early disseminated stage, of Lyme disease begins anywhere from two weeks to three months after the initial bite. Symptoms of this stage of Lyme disease include rash areas nowhere near the bite point, severe fatigue and headaches, irregular heart rhythm, fever, sensitivity to light, and sometimes even facial paralysis.

The last stage of Lyme disease is called the late stage. The appearance of the symptoms in this stage can range from a few weeks to a few years after the initial bite. Arthritis, especially in the knees, is a common side effect of a bite that has reached the late stage. An extreme complication resulting from the late stage of Lyme disease is a decrease in cognitive function.

Lyme disease can usually be treated. The earlier in its development that the disease it is detected, the more effective and less severe the treatment will be. In most cases, treatment consists of oral and/or intravenous antibiotics to combat the bacterium that is the cause of the disease. Lyme disease is often a treatable condition, with the vast majority of sufferers reporting eradication of the bacterium in short order once the antibiotics kick in. Doctors also urge prevention techniques to avoid Lyme disease in the first place.