Lyme disease is a bacterial disease that affects over 200,000 each year. It is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. It is transmitted through the bite of blacklegged ticks (deer ticks). These ticks are found in grassy and wooded areas. Female nymphal or young black-legged ticks carry and transmit the Lyme disease bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi the most. Common symptoms of Lyme disease are fever, muscle pain, joint pain, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash called Erythema migrans (EM rash). To prevent Lyme disease while in grassy or wooded areas you can use insect repellent, remove ticks promptly, and applying pesticides.
If you do contract Lyme disease, it can be treated with the antibiotics Amoxicillin (Amoxil), Cefuroxime (Ceftin), Ceftriaxone by injection (Rocefin), and Doxycycline (Vibramycin). Patients with cardiac or neurological symptoms may require intravenous treatment with drugs such as ceftriaxone or penicillin. This brief overview of Lyme disease gives you a glimpse of what there is to come in this informational essay about Lyme disease. The disease was only discovered by doctors when a group of mothers near Lyme, Connecticut all told researchers their children had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.
This was a very unusual grouping of illness due to the children’s young age. This led doctors and researchers to find the bacterial cause of the children’s conditions. The bacterial disease was then named Lyme disease because of the discovery of the disease in Lyme, Connecticut. The symptoms of Lyme disease can be divided into two categories: early signs and symptoms three to thirty days after a black-legged tick bite and later signs and symptoms days to months after a tick bite. The early signs and symptoms of a tick bite include fever, chills, headache, fatigue, muscle and joint aches, swollen lymph nodes, and Erythema migrans (EM rash).
The Erythema migrans occur in seventy to eighty percent of people who get Lyme disease. The rash begins at the site of the bite about an average of seven days after the bite and expands gradually over a couple of days growing to twelve inches across. The EM rash can appear on any area of the body, clears as it enlarges resulting in a bull’s-eye appearance, and could feel warm to the touch, but isn’t itchy or painful. The EM rash is one of the most definitive symptoms that help you know you have Lyme disease as other symptoms of Lyme disease are common in many different diseases.
Later signs and symptoms of Lyme disease that occur days to months after a tick bite are severe headaches and neck stiffness, additional EM Rashes on other parts of the body, arthritis with severe joint pain and swelling, facial palsy, intermittent pain in tendons, muscles, joints, and bones, heart palpitations or irregular heartbeat, dizziness, shortness of breath, inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, nerve pain, shooting pains, numbness, tingling in the hands and feet, and short-term memory. As you can see, a tick bite that causes Lyme disease left untreated can unleash a whole variety of symptoms to your body.
Two tests are used by doctors to diagnose Lyme disease. These tests are the Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test and the Western blot test. The ELISA test is used to detect Lyme disease. The test detects antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi in blood, but sometimes can provide false-positive results it’s not used as the sole-basis of the diagnosis. The Western blot test is used if the ELISA test is positive. This test also detects several antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi in blood to confirm the diagnosis of Lyme disease.
Lyme disease affects the body in a multitude of ways. Lyme disease can affect any organ or system within the body including the brain, nervous system, heart, muscles, and joints. Most Lyme disease in the U. S is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi. Borrelia burgdorferi has learned to survive even when very aggressive treatments are used against it. The tick’s saliva from the puncture of the bite protects and hides Borrelia burgdorferi from the immune system as it enters the body. Weeks after a tick bite, our immune system still may not produce antibodies against this bacterium.
When a patient with a tick attached to them goes to their doctor and receive a test like the ELISA test or the Western blot test they may receive negative results that are false because their immune system hasn’t yet produced antibodies against the bacteria. Borrelia burgdorferi also has a flagellum that propels the bacteria through body tissues and thick mucus that would usually stop the bacteria from moving through the body as well as biofilm that consists of bacteria and other microorganisms and allows the Borrelia burgdorferi to hide and resist harsh environmental conditions such as antibiotic treatments.
If this bacteria reaches the brain where the immune system is most vulnerable, these cells continue to ineffectively fight a cloaked organism, damaging the brain while allowing the infection to continue. There are many treatments and ways to prevent Lyme disease. These include prescription antibiotics like Amoxicillin (Amoxil), Cefuroxime (Ceftin), Ceftriaxone by injection (Rocefin), Doxycycline (Vibramycin). Medicines with no prescription that can treat Lyme disease is Ibuprofen. Patients with cardiac or neurological symptoms may require intravenous treatment with drugs such as ceftriaxone or penicillin.
A lyme disease vaccine used to be available, but the manufacturer discontinued production in 2002 after not enough consumer demand for the vaccine. The vaccine was also not very effective as it diminishes greatly over time so if you received the vaccine in 2002 you are almost certainly not immune to the disease right now. Some current research being done about Lyme disease are Johns Hopkins Medical School launching the first U. S center to study Lyme disease to hopefully find causes and cures for a disease that afflicts over 300,000 and costs 1. billion dollars each year to treat.
There isn’t really a specific age where someone can get Lyme disease as a person at any age can contract Lyme disease. People contract Lyme disease by being bitten by a black-legged tick with the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. Female nymphal or young black-legged ticks carry and transmit the Lyme disease bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi the most. These ticks live in grassy and wooded areas, applying pesticides to these areas can help prevent the possibility of getting bitten if you need to work in these areas.
After Lyme disease is treated, it isn’t that uncommon to have lingering symptoms of fatigue, pain, or joint and muscle aches, but it is uncommon when these symptoms last upwards of six months. This is called Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PLTDS). Causes of PLTDS are not yet known, but most medical professionals think it is caused by damage to tissues and the immune system that occurred during the infection. The cost of treating Lyme disease is on average nearly $3,000 per patient. This high cost is due to doctor visits, testing, antibiotics, as well as return visits if the patient has any lingering symptoms like PLTDS.
Lyme disease is usually treated quite easily with the right antibiotics, but if it reaches the nervous system it can greatly affect daily life. For example if Lyme disease reaches the nervous system it can attack the nervous system, producing learning disabilities, mood swings, anxiety and depression, panic attacks, obsessive behavior, sudden rages, and other psychiatric diagnoses. PLTDS can greatly affect daily life because of how long the symptoms last. The symptoms of PLTDS like muscle and joint pain can make it hard to walk and move daily and fatigue can make it hard to get through the day.
These symptoms can also affect people that just have Lyme disease for the short four weeks they most likely have the disease. I have made and used graphs from other sources to enhance this essay that I will now be talking about. Human diagram #1 shows where Lyme disease affects in the body and where the symptoms of Lyme disease occur. These symptoms include hearing loss, paralysis of face, heart complications, painful joints, rash at the site of the tick bite, insomnia, psychological complications, and flu-like symptoms. Human diagram #2 shows how Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria travels from infecting a black-legged tick to a human.
Last, but not least math graph #1 is a histogram that shows the difference between probable and confirmed reported cases of Lyme disease in the U. S and each state in 2014. You can see the number of cases separately as well a how many there are combined in the graph. In conclusion, I chose Lyme disease because I was interested in how ticks transmit diseases to humans. I also knew I wanted to do a popular bacterial disease so it was easy to research and because I wanted to do a bacterial disease because we didn’t learn as much about bacteria as we did viruses so I was more intrigued with bacteria and bacterial diseases.
The most interesting thing I learned while doing this project was the outrageous cost of treating Lyme disease and PLTDS as it costs the average patient on average $3,000. The most important source I used for this report was definitely http://www. cdc. gov/ lymel. The CDC Lyme disease page gave me so much information and data about Lyme disease, it was definitively the most helpful source I used during my research. Some questions Twould still like to have answered about Lyme disease are: Why did the Lyme disease vaccine have low demand?
How much can Lyme disease affect the nervous system? and finally How do people who are forced to work in conditions where Lyme disease is common because of their jobs avoid Lyme disease? | feel the strengths of my report are the information and graphs because of their detail. On the other hand some weaknesses of my report are its flow because it ruins how the report reads. In conclusion I hope after reading my informational report on Lyme disease, you have learned about how Lyme disease affects the human body.