How to Know if You Have Limes Disease

What Is Lyme Disease?

Lyme affliction is a bacterial infection. You get it when the blacklegged tick, also known as a deer tick, bites yous and stays attached for 36 to 48 hours. If you remove the tick within 48 hours, you probably won't become infected.

When you practice get infected, the bacteria travel through your bloodstream and affect various tissues in your body. If you don't care for Lyme disease early on, information technology tin can plough into an inflammatory status that affects multiple systems, starting with your skin, joints, and nervous organisation and moving to organs later on.

The chances you might become Lyme disease from a tick bite depend on the kind of tick, where you lot were when it bit you, and how long the tick was fastened to you. You're nearly probable to get Lyme disease if yous live in the Northeastern U.s.a.. The upper Midwest is also a hot spot. Simply the disease now affects people in all fifty states and the District of Columbia.

What Are the Symptoms of Lyme Disease?

Symptoms tin start anywhere from 3 to 30 days after the seize with teeth. They may look different depending on the stage of your infection. In some cases, you lot won't notice any symptoms until months after the seize with teeth.

Early symptoms include:

• Fever
• Chills
• Headache
• Fatigue
• Muscle and joint pain
• Swollen lymph nodes

All of those symptoms are also mutual in the flu. In most Lyme infections, one of the start symptoms you'll notice is a rash.

Without treatment, symptoms can get worse. They might include:

• Severe headache or neck stiffness
• Rashes on other areas of your trunk
• Arthritis with joint pain and swelling, particularly in your knees
• "Drooping" on one or both sides of your face
• An irregular heartbeat
• Inflammation in your encephalon and spinal cord
• Shooting pains, numbness, or tingling in your easily or feet

What does the rash look similar?

Some Lyme rashes look like a bull'southward-eye with circles around the centre. But about are round, red, and at least 2 inches across.

The rash slowly gets bigger over several days. It tin abound to about 12 inches across. Information technology may feel warm to the affect, but information technology'southward commonly not itchy or painful. It can bear witness up on whatever part of your body.

How modest are ticks?

Ticks come up in three sizes, depending on their life stage. They can be the size of a grain of sand, a poppy seed, or an apple tree seed.

How Is Lyme Disease Diagnosed?

Your doctor will diagnose yous based on your symptoms and whether yous've been exposed to a tick. They might as well run a claret test. In the start few weeks of infection, the exam may be negative because antibodies accept a few weeks to testify upwardly.

Hopefully soon, there will be tests that can diagnose Lyme affliction in the get-go few weeks after you're exposed. The earlier y'all get treated, the less probable it'll get worse.

What Are the Stages of Lyme Infection?

In that location are three stages:

• Early localized Lyme: Flu-similar symptoms like fever, chills, headache, swollen lymph nodes, sore pharynx, and a rash that looks like a bull's-eye or is round and red and at least ii inches long
• Early disseminated Lyme: Flu-like symptoms like pain, weakness, or numbness in your arms and legs, changes in your vision, heart palpitations and breast pain, a rash (that may nor may non exist a balderdash's-centre rash), and a type of facial paralysis known every bit Bell's palsy
• Late disseminated Lyme: This tin happen weeks, months, or years afterward the tick seize with teeth. Symptoms might include arthritis, severe fatigue and headaches, dizziness, problem sleeping, and confusion.

Most 10% of people treated for Lyme infection don't shake the affliction. They may go on to have three core symptoms: joint or muscle pain, fatigue, and short-term memory loss or confusion. This is called post-handling Lyme illness syndrome. It can be difficult to diagnose because it has the same symptoms as other diseases. Plus, there isn't a blood test to ostend it.

Experts aren't sure why Lyme symptoms don't always go away. 1 theory is that your torso keeps fighting the infection fifty-fifty after the leaner are gone, like an autoimmune disorder.

How Is Lyme Disease Treated?

With early-phase Lyme disease, you'll take antibiotics for nearly 10 days to three weeks. The virtually common ones are amoxicillin, cefuroxime, and doxycycline. The antibiotics will almost always cure your infection. If they don't, you lot might go other antibiotics either past rima oris or as a shot.

If y'all don't treat your Lyme infection, you might need oral antibiotics for symptoms like weakened face muscles and irregular heartbeat. You may need antibiotics if you have meningitis, inflammation in your encephalon and spinal cord, or more astringent eye problems.

If your Lyme is late stage, the md might requite you antibiotics either by mouth or every bit a shot. If information technology causes arthritis, y'all'll get arthritis handling.

In that location's no therapy for mail service-treatment Lyme disease syndrome.

Which Areas Are More Likely to Have It?

The tick that causes Lyme disease has been moving from the Northeast and upper Midwest into the Southern and Western U.Due south., United mexican states, and Canada. Cases in California and Florida are on the rising. After a drib between 2017 and 2018, the numbers jumped a little bit in 2019.

But most Lyme cases in 2019 were in 15 states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New

Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Washington, DC, is also a hotspot.

In 2019, Pennsylvania had the most Lyme infections, with vi,763. New York was next, with ii,847 cases.

In the Southern U.Due south., where it'due south hotter, ticks stay under leaves so they don't dry out. This means people don't go Lyme from Southern ticks very often because they don't unremarkably come out to bite.

Even though people only study well-nigh 30,000 cases of Lyme infection in the U.South. each year, at that place are actually around 476,000 a twelvemonth. The same tick also can spread other diseases, including babesiosis, anaplasmosis, and Powassan virus. Those diseases are likewise on the rise in the U.S.

Who's likeliest to get Lyme illness?

Boys up to age xv and men betwixt the ages of forty and 60 are the most probable to get Lyme disease. That'due south because they tend to play exterior and go camping ground, hunting, and hiking.

Some people recall Lyme infections are less common in older teens and men in their 20s because those groups are likely to be inside and on a computer. And by the same token, they may be more than common in older adults because they tend to work in their back yards, which is where near Lyme infections happen.

Why are there more ticks at present than there used to exist?

There are several reasons why Lyme is spreading. Some of these are:

• New copse being planted, peculiarly in the Northeastern U.Southward.
• Climatic change and very hot or cold temperatures
• People moving away from large cities
• More contact with white-tailed deer (the blacklegged tick's favorite way to travel)

In the last century, we cut down lots of trees and put buildings in their place. That caused a drop in the deer population. But in the by few decades nosotros've planted more trees, so both the deer and tick populations have grown.

Ticks live for 2-iii years and don't move very far, so it takes a while to run into large changes.

Deer and white-footed mice give Lyme illness to ticks that bite them. And they're moving closer to humans as their habitats disappear. Dogs too conduct ticks into homes and spread them to their humans.

As the climate warms, people are spending more fourth dimension outside. That raises the odds of being bitten, particularly in areas where Lyme is common.

That doesn't mean you should exist afraid of outdoor activities, as long every bit you do the right things to avoid tick bites.

What's the Best Way to Prevent a Tick Seize with teeth?

Ticks can't fly or jump. Only they live in shrubs and bushes and tin grab onto you when you lot laissez passer by. To avoid getting bitten:

• Article of clothing pants and socks in areas with lots of copse and when you touch fallen leaves.
• Wear a tick repellent on your peel and clothing that has DEET, lemon oil, or eucalyptus.
• For fifty-fifty more protection, use the chemical permethrin on clothing and camping gear.
• Shower within 2 hours after coming inside. Look for ticks on your peel, and wash ticks out of your pilus.
• Put your clothing and whatsoever exposed gear into a hot dryer to kill whatsoever pests might be on them.

How do you know if you've been bitten?

Since ticks are and so pocket-size, you've got to have pretty adept eyes to see them.

If you have a pocket-size, red bump on your skin that looks similar a musquito bite, information technology could be a tick bite. If information technology goes abroad in a few days, it's not a trouble. Remember, a tick bite doesn't necessarily mean y'all have Lyme disease.

If you notice a rash in the shape of a bull's-middle, you might have a tick bite. Talk to your doctor most treatment.

If yous have an allergic reaction to ticks, you'll discover a bite right away.

What Do You Do If In that location'southward a Tick Nether Your Skin?

Use a pair of fine-tipped tweezers to remove it as soon as possible. Pull upward with steady pressure. If parts of the tick are still in your skin, try to get those with the tweezers, besides. After everything is out, clean the seize with teeth area with rubbing alcohol or soap and h2o.

You probably won't get infected if you remove the tick within 36 to 48 hours.

How do you throw abroad a tick?

Put information technology in soapy water or alcohol, stick information technology to a piece of tape, or flush it down the toilet.

When Should You See a Medico If You Think Yous Have Lyme?

The rash is a pretty proficient indication that you may take been bitten. Take a photo of the rash and see your physician. At this stage, treatment with antibiotics will probably work.

If yous don't have the rash but take symptoms like fatigue, fever, and headache just no respiratory symptoms like a cough, you may want to talk to your doctor.

Is There a Vaccine for Lyme Disease?

In 2017, a French company called Valneva started testing a Lyme disease vaccine on adults in the U.S. and Europe. The study is in its 2nd phase and should be completed in 2026.

What If a Tick Bites My Canis familiaris?

The more than ticks in your region, the likelier it is that your furry pal will bring them dwelling house.

Your domestic dog is much more probable to be bitten by a tick than you are. And where Lyme disease is mutual, up to 25% of dogs have had it at some point.

Well-nigh ten% of dogs with Lyme disease will go ill. vii-21 days later on a tick bite, your domestic dog might seem similar they're walking on eggshells. They as well might have a fever and enlarged lymph nodes. Plus, they might seem tired. Dogs also go antibiotics for Lyme.

What if my canis familiaris brings ticks into my abode?

Use a tick control product on your pet to foreclose Lyme illness. Also, have your canis familiaris vaccinated confronting Lyme.

Check your dog's whole torso each day for bumps. If you detect a swollen expanse, see if there'due south a tick there. If you lot find a tick, habiliment gloves while you apply tweezers to separate it from your dog. And so, put it in soapy h2o or booze, or flush it down the toilet.

Use booze to clean the spot on your dog where the tick was attached. Continue an center on that spot, and also on your dog to make sure they're behaving normally. If you notice whatever changes, check with your vet.

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Source: https://www.webmd.com/rheumatoid-arthritis/arthritis-lyme-disease

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