Lyme disease is quite unknown among the population, although anyone could develop it. One of the last famous people who recognized the disease was Justin Bieber, who preferred to secretly carry the disease originating from a tick. He never saw the malevolent tick, but it wasn’t long before he noticed a bull’s-eye rash, which is now known to be characteristic of the disease.
Its characteristic symptoms are a sore throat, deep exhaustion and a clouded mind that prevents concentration. Although the signs may not appear for days, weeks, or even months after the bite. However, not all tick bites lead to disease, but it’s understandable that it’s the first thing we think of in that moment of panic to find an insect happily sucking on our ankles or below our waists.
To help you understand the disease, we analyze the key aspects.
You can only get Lyme disease with a tick
In other words, you are not going to catch him from a family pet that has been walking in the backyard. However, those pets can bring ticks into the house, which can then feast on your meat. (You also cannot pass it on to your partner or children, unless you are currently pregnant.)
There’s even a specific type of tick to blame: Lyme is spread by the deer tick , also known as a black-legged tick. Any type of bite transmits the bacteria that causes the disease.
You can eliminate the insect before it infects you
The tick needs to stay attached to you for 36 to 48 hours before it can transmit its Lyme-causing bacteria. The good news is that if you can get rid of the tick in about 24 hours, you won’t have a chance of infection. All it takes is a pair of clean tweezers to pull the tick firmly up and off your skin.
Of course, you may not see the tick, because they are about the size of a sesame seed. That is why such comprehensive control is so crucial.
Not everyone has that bull’s-eye rash
It is considered a kind of distinctive symptom, yet up to 50% of people may never have eoriruption. And some people may simply not notice the rash, like it was on the scalp, behind the ears, or around the groin. But perhaps different strains of Lyme do not cause the rash.
Getting a diagnosis can be very difficult
The diagnosis of Lyme is often based on recognizing a number of signs and symptoms that could overlap with countless health problems, including headaches, stiff neck, joint pain, muscle aches, dizziness, numbness, and memory problems. . Depending on the day of the week, you may not even think you need to go to a doctor to find out the origin of some of those symptoms.
Available blood tests are also not always accurate. Confusingly, they can lead to false positives and false negatives, which means that patients do not always receive the treatment they need.
Standard treatment doesn’t work for everyone
After the recommended course of antibiotics, which generally lasts 2 to 4 weeks, up to 20% of Lyme patients continue to have symptoms, be it joint pain, fatigue, or muscle aches. Once known as “chronic Lyme disease,” experts now call this little-known constellation of symptoms Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome , or PTLDS. Some people may have an already compromised immune system due to another health condition or other infections that occur at the same time.
PTLDS, and its treatment, is controversial
How to manage these lingering symptoms is a touchy subject in the Lyme world. When that standard treatment doesn’t work, some doctors suggest long-term use of antibiotics, but many health experts are adamant against this practice.
