Lyme Disease - Causes, Symptoms, Treatment

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that features a skin rash, swollen joints and flu-like symptoms. You get the disease from the bite of an infected tick. Sometimes it is hard to know if you have Lyme disease because you may not have noticed a tick bite. Also, many of its symptoms are like those of other diseases.

Lyme disease is in "lyme-light" again as usually one or two cases of Lyme disease -- the debilitating infection spread by ticks-- would come up in a year but this year it is much more than that. Brad Peterson, the system spokesman said that the doctors at the PinnacleHealth system have each seen around 2 to four cases of Lyme disease this very year, for a total of about 50 cases.

Causes

Lyme disease is a bacterial illness caused by a bacterium called a "spirochete." In the United States, the actual name of the bacterium is Borrelia burgdorferi. In Europe, another bacterium, Borrelia afzelii, also causes Lyme disease. Certain ticks found on deer harbor the bacterium in their stomachs. Lyme disease is spread by these ticks when they bite the skin, which permits the bacterium to infect the body. Lyme disease is not contagious from an affected person to someone else. Lyme disease can cause abnormalities in the skin, joints, heart, and nervous system.

Symptoms

One sure sign of Lyme disease is a round, red rash that spreads at the site of a tick bite. This rash can get very large. Flu-like symptoms are also very common. People in the early stages of Lyme disease may feel very tired and have headaches, sore muscles and joints, and a fever.

The symptoms often begin with back pain, typically between the shoulder blades and in the neck like a slipped disc. The pain worsens at night. Distorted feelings around the area of the bite. The nerves become numb, especially in the face. This may occur at any time up to four weeks after the pain began.

Treatment

Antibiotics are the primary treatment for Lyme disease; the most appropriate antibiotic treatment depends upon the patient and the stage of the disease. The antibiotics of choice are doxycycline (in adults), amoxicillin (in children), and ceftriaxone. Alternative choices are cefuroxime and cefotaxime. Macrolide antibiotics have limited efficacy when used alone. Physicians who treat chronic Lyme disease have noted that combining a macrolide antibiotic such as clarithromycin with hydroxychloroquine is especially effective in treatment of chronic Lyme disease. It is thought that the hydroxychloroquine raises the pH of intracellular acidic vacuoles in which B. burgdorferi may reside; raising the pH is thought to activate the macrolide antibiotic, allowing it to inhibit protein synthesis by the spirochete.

If the disease has progressed, your doctor may recommend treatment with an intravenous antibiotic for 14 to 28 days. This is effective in eliminating infection, although it may take some time to recover symptomatically. Intravenous antibiotics can cause various side effects, including a lower white blood cell count, gallstones and mild to severe diarrhea.