Ticks, tiny parasitic arthropods, have very little pleasing characteristics about them. Not only do they crawl from the grass or underbrush in wooded areas up your legs to find a warm, comfortable venue for dinner – your blood – but they are widely known to carry disease. A particular favorite of ticks from the genus Ixodes is Lyme disease.

It was once thought that the actual tick bite caused the infection, but the bacteria borrelia burgdorferi is now known to be the culprit behind the numerous symptoms of Lyme disease. Young deer ticks, or blacklegged ticks, feed on infected animals, consuming bacteria along with the blood.

The bacteria then live in the gut of the ticks until the ticks feed on another animal or human. While the ticks happily drink away, the bacteria enter the bloodstream of the victim, infecting it with Lyme disease. The bacteria then attacks the bodily tissues causing the tell-tale erythema migrans rash that often looks like a bull’s eye, the flu-like symptoms, and eventually the arthritic inflammation of joints indicative of advanced Lyme disease.

Luckily, the chances of contracting Lyme disease are slight for most people. Only certain ticks, members of the Ixodes genus, are known to carry the bacteria. Being bitten by other species of ticks carries no proven risk of infection and only one to three percent of Ixodes tick bites result in Lyme disease.

Other means of transmission, e.g. bodily contact, blood transfusions, kissing, sexual contact, ingesting infected meats, other insect bites, or through the air have never been proven to constitute even a risk of infection. Only people who live in areas where deer ticks or blacklegged ticks are common or people who are regularly in wooded areas have an elevated risk of contracting Lyme disease.

Preventing tick bites is then the best way to prevent contracting the disease. Avoid areas where ticks like to live. Wooded or bushy areas with lots of tall grass or fallen leaves are tick magnets. If you have to enter such places, use insect repellent that says it works against ticks.

Many of these have DEET in them and are widely available. Wear long pants, long sleeves, and tall socks to prevent access to your skin. Once you leave tick-prone areas, change your clothes and check your body for ticks, especially the scalp, armpits, and groin. Remove any ticks you find with tweezers.

If you follow these preventative measures, you will greatly reduce your risk of contracting B. burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.

As of yet, the most reliable method of diagnosing Lyme disease is considered to be that of a clinical exam completed by an experienced practitioner. Elements such as personal account symptoms and history, as well as possible exposure to tick-infested areas are all significant areas to consider during this exam.

The Erythema Migrans (EM) rash, which is not found in all cases, is also considered to make a sufficient enough diagnosis of the disease and therefore prompt treatment without further testing being necessary.

The successful management and treatment of Lyme disease – as with any other disease – rests mainly upon early and accurate diagnosis. This is why a proper and understood diagnosis must be done immediately when risk factors or symptoms of the disease are found.

The only absolute positive way in which Lyme disease can be diagnosed is through a blood or tissue test, however in most cases, it is not possible to isolate and culture Borrelia burgdorferi, which is the spirochete that causes the Lyme disease itself.

Also, the blood test cannot diagnose the disease alone, in that the signs and symptoms reported by the patient must go hand-in-hand with the blood and tissue sample analysis.

Lyme disease is often incredibly hard to diagnose, due to the fact that its signs and symptoms mimic those of numerous other diseases. The flu-like symptoms which often accompany the onset of Lyme disease can easily be mistaken for viral infections, such as influenza or infectious mononucleosis.

Other symptoms of Lyme disease such as joint pain can also be mistaken for other types of arthritis, such as rheumatoid arthritis. The clinical diagnosis of Lyme disease is most often based on the patient’s personal history, as well as recent admittance of exposure to possible tick-infested areas.

In most cases, the diagnosis of Lyme disease is relied upon the signs and symptoms reported by the patient. The first stage of Lyme disease is called early Lyme disease, and this usually causes symptoms such as fatigue, chills and fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, swollen lymph nodes, and erythema migrans.

The second stage of Lyme disease is known as early disseminated Lyme disease, and this means that the infection of bacteria is basically spreading and is beginning to affect certain body functions. The third and final stage of Lyme disease is called late (or chronic) Lyme disease, and can occur anywhere from weeks to years after initial infection.

Lyme disease is most prevalent in the Northeast, upper Midwest, and Pacific Northwest, but residents of these areas need not worry too much. The disease is easily preventable because humans can only contract it through deer tick bites. No other method of transmission has been proven. Therefore, to prevent Lyme disease, just prevent deer tick bites.

Ticks prefer wooded or bushy areas with lots of grass and fallen leaves. Clearing brush piles, cleaning up leaf piles, and cutting tall grass around your property greatly reduces their preferred environment and should be the first step in making any home safer from ticks.

If such areas cannot be cleared or cut, avoid them as much as possible and be sure to wear long pants, a long shirt, and tall socks whenever you are in wooded or bushy areas. For best protection, tuck pant legs into socks and seal with tape to ensure that ticks cannot access skin.

Whenever outside, wear insect repellent that protects against ticks. Most repellents with twenty to thirty percent DEET will effectively protect adults from ticks. Check your local drug, grocery, or outdoor sporting goods store for a full array of insect repellents.

A special type of repellent available at sporting goods stores is called Permethrin. It is applied to clothing, lasts several washes, and, best of all, kills ticks on contact.

After spending time in a tick-prone area, it is vitally important to search your body for ticks. Remove any visible ticks then remove clothes and launder them in hot water to kill ticks you might have missed. Search your body, especially the armpits, scalp, and groin. These are favorite feeding grounds for ticks.

Remove any attached ticks using tweezers immediately, being careful to remove the entire tick. Smashing the tick with your thumb is not the same as removal. Finding any attached ticks as quickly as possible is crucial because your chances of contracting Lyme disease rise the longer the tick is attached. Removal within twenty-four hours ensures an extremely small chance of infection.

In 1998, the US FDA approved the LYMErix vaccine for ages fifteen to seventy. The vaccine was proven seventy-five to eighty percent effective in clinical trials, but production was discontinued in 2002 due to lack of demand.

Someone who properly follows preventative measures significantly reduces their risk of deer tick bites and Lyme disease. Prevention is especially important if you live in areas with large deer tick populations.

There is no reason to hide indoors and miss the beauty of the outdoors in the summer when successful and effective prevention is so easy. Avoid their favorite environments, cover your skin to keep them from biting, wear insect repellent to keep them away, and enjoy the summer outdoors.

Lyme disease is presently the most common vector-borne disease in the Northern Hemisphere. There are numerous risk factors associated with this disease, which although are not considered as being a direct cause of the disease, still seem to be associated in some way. It must also be known and understood that even with the absence of any or all of these risk factors, one is not guarded against Lyme disease.

Some of the most common risk factors associated with Lyme disease are as follows: ticks, tick bites, tick-infested areas, wooded areas, hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, outdoor occupations, landscaping, brush clearing, forestry, and wildlife and parks management.

The area and location where you live or visit greatly determines your risk in regards to Lyme disease. Such places with an overpopulation of deer may greatly increase your risk in consideration that they account for the spread of ticks and therefore the increase in Lyme disease.

In a country such as the United States, the disease is most popular in the northeastern, upper north-central regions, and mid-Atlantic, along with northwestern California. Living in an area where cases of Lyme disease is common, obviously, is a huge risk factor, as well as being outdoors most of the time during the warmer months of the year, as this is the time when ticks that carry Lyme disease are most rampant.

For the most part, the risk factors associated with Lyme disease are environmental, and therefore must be taken into great consideration, especially for those who spend a lot of their time outdoors. Even a seemingly minor issue such as spending some time in grassy or wooded areas can be a hazard in this matter.

With deer ticks being the most common in nine states in the U.S. which include Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and California, these regions are where children are at a higher risk.

An exposed skin is another risk associated with the disease, as ticks easily attach to bare flesh. Children and pets should be especially protected when expected or known to be wandering in tall grasses and weeds.

The prevention of Lyme disease is important and must go together with the risk factors involved with the disease. The most important form of prevention is to be conscious to try and avoid tick bites.

Some good ideas for this are wearing protective clothing; checking yourself, your children and pets for ticks; and the cleaning away of brushy or grassy areas near your home that would attract ticks. It can be incredibly difficult to spot the ticks that carry Lyme disease, which is why following these tips and advice will at least assist in the attempts of avoiding contracting the disease.

Although infection occurs in only one to three percent of deer tick bites, recognizing the symptoms of Lyme disease is important because treatment is most effective in early stages of the disease when the worst symptoms can be completely avoided.

Anyone at risk of being bitten by deer ticks, and everyone who has already been bitten, should be aware of the warning signs to expedite proper medical treatment. Not all patients will have all of the following symptoms.

The first and most easily recognizable symptom is the erythema migrans (EM) rash. It appears in up to ninety percent of Lyme disease cases, generally within the first thirty days after infection, and is thus an excellent indicator. Rashes are usually at the location of the bite, but may appear elsewhere, especially as the disease progresses.

The rash will be red, circular, and expanding, sometimes having a diameter of up to twelve inches. The center may clear and the rash will resemble a bull’s eye. The rash is not itchy, not usually painful, and may clear on its own after three to five weeks. This does not mean however that the Lyme disease is cured.

Other early symptoms are easily confusable with other illnesses and are often considered too minor for medical treatment. Fever, headaches, a stiff neck, joint and muscle pain, and severe fatigue are all flu-like symptoms of Lyme disease. In early stages of the disease, without a recognizable EM rash, diagnosis is difficult.

Once Lyme disease progresses sufficiently, sixty percent of patients experience arthritis or chronic joint swelling, especially in larger joints. Neurological disorders such as tingling and numbness, confusion, or palsy and cardiac disorders such as an abnormal pulse can also occur although in fewer cases.

Many of the symptoms of Lyme disease may disappear with or without treatment. It is important that they are not ignored because more, and much more serious, symptoms will develop but they may take weeks, months, or even years. Only proper medical care can cure Lyme disease and anyone who may have Lyme disease should consult their physician.

In most cases, antibiotic treatments are very effective, especially if taken during the early stage of the disease. In rare cases, symptoms persist for months to years after the antibiotic treatment is complete and the infection has been cured.

Proper prevention and careful monitoring of deer tick bites greatly increases the chances of catching Lyme disease in its early stages and avoiding the suffering that it causes untreated.

The treatment of Lyme disease with modern medicine is straightforward and very effective. Treatment within the first three weeks of infection is most effective and almost always results in a full cure. After the first three weeks, treatment still usually cures the disease, but the cure rate diminishes with time.

Most Lyme disease patients will receive one of three oral antibiotics: amoxicillin, doxycycline, or the more expensive cefuroxime axetil. In some advanced cases when neurological or cardiac abnormalities are severe, oral antibiotics are replaced with intravenous ceftriaxone, cefotaxime, or penicillin.

Intravenous treatment is more expensive and is only recommended for such cases. Neither type of antibiotic treatment has been proven more effective if administered for more than twenty eight days.

As already mentioned, treatment is most successful soon after infection. Later stages of Lyme disease are usually treated successfully, but not in all cases. Some patients, albeit a small percentage, experience the symptoms for months or years after the initial infection. Treatment approaches at this point are a matter of debate.

Some physicians believe that several courses of antibiotics are sometimes necessary in persistent cases. This theory is not clinically proven however. Long-term treatments have been speculated to be more effective than standard length treatments, but also have not been clinically proven and are seldom prescribed because of possible side effects, including death.

Other physicians maintain that no bacterial infection persists after standard antibiotic treatments. The symptoms are not caused by continued infection, but may be a delayed autoimmune system response.

Pregnant women infected with Lyme disease need not worry about treatment harming the fetus. Studies have found no negative effects for proper treatment. However, some documented cases show that untreated Lyme disease may harm, even kill, the baby.

Some people believe that antibiotic treatment should be received by all victims of tick bites. While some physicians routinely prescribe such treatment, it has not been proven to provide a significant benefit to the patient because the risk of infection is only one to three percent, unless the tick was attached for more than forty-eight hours.

It is instead recommended to monitor the bite site closely for thirty days after the bite. If an erythema migrans rash develops, antibiotic treatment is necessary.

While new research or old tradition may yield other forms of treatment – and the internet is bountiful with alleged treatments – the only treatment recommended by the Center for Disease Control and the Infectious Disease Society of America is antibiotics.

Lyme disease was first discovered in the United States in 1975 by Dr. Allen Steere, following a rather mysterious outbreak of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis near the community of Lyme, Connecticut.

Following the discovery, reports of this disease have increased dramatically, to the point where Lyme disease today is the most prevalent tick-borne illness in the United States. In regards to possible different types of Lyme disease, there are really only those considered which are often diagnosed mistakenly to those who actually do have Lyme disease.

The causative agent of Lyme disease was first identified in 1982, and the disease itself varies widely in its appearance. There are many possible physical symptoms, such as rash, flu-like symptoms, neurologic, arthritic, and cardiac manifestations – to name a few.

Although there are technically no other literal types of Lyme disease, there are however other clinical types of Lyme disease such as Lyme arthritis and neuroborreliosis. If you are diagnosed as having Lyme arthritis, it is most likely that your health care provider will treat you with oral antibiotics.

Of course, there are always different paths if the arthritis is classified as being more severe. In this case, you may be given ceftriaxone or penicillin intravenously. Usually Lyme arthritis will fade within a few weeks or months following the prescribed antibiotic treatment.

In regards to Lyme neuroborreliosis, it has been named ‘the great simulator’, in that all patients have the pain factor in common. Soon after the onset of the pain, a neurological problem begins to become clearly more obvious.

Symptoms such as headache, photophobia, extreme fatigue, memory troubles, and emotional ability are most commonly reported at this point. There were reports of cranial nerves, and the sixth and seventh nerve palsy as well.

In consideration of the fact that Lyme neuroborreliosis is a ’simulator’, in that it simulates or comes off to the practitioner as various other diagnoses, most of them completely common, it can often take quite a while for a patient to be properly diagnosed of having this condition.

In regards to diagnosing neuroborreliosis in children, this is even more difficult. This is due to the fact that the symptoms in children with this disorder are different than those in adults, and the symptoms in children more closely resembles that of meningitis – mild neck stiffness, headache. Chronic neurborreliosis remains today as the most primary Lyme diagnostic challenge for the practitioner.

Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium which is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. In North-America these blacklegged ticks have been found and identified as the main factor to the spread of the disease, especially on the east coast.

It is known that in order for the spirochete to be attached, the tick must remain attached to the host for a minimum of 12 hours, however the longer the tick is attached, the higher the risk of the disease being transmitted.

The deer tick (ixodes dammini) is known as being the culprit in most of the cases of Lyme disease in the United States, especially in the northeastern parts. Deer ticks are most often found in grassy locations and woodland, shrubby, and brushy areas, especially in summer, but even on warmer days of winter.

These ticks tend to seek areas where there is some moisture, and can feed on different warm blooded animals including humans, cats, dogs, horses, and cows. Perhaps the most problematic issue of all is that the bite of the tick is so painless that often times one will not even realize they have been bitten at all.

In approximately half the cases of Lyme disease symptoms in humans, a rash or some form of scratch will appear, which usually begins anywhere from a few days to weeks following and infected tick’s bite. These rashes or lesions (erythema migrans) can last anywhere from a few days to more than a month, and can either be felt as entirely painless, itchy or as painful and hot to the touch.

The rash itself generally looks like a red ring that expands and looks like a bull’s eye with alternating light and dark circles. It has usually been described that almost the same time as this rash develops, so do symptoms that are similar to flu such as headache, fever, chills, sore throat, muscle aches, stiff neck, general malaise and fatigue. While some people develop both the rash and these symptoms of flu, some may only develop or notice one or the other.

Lyme disease can also be transmitted to the developing fetus during pregnancy if the mother is infected. It was also found that Lyme disease can possibly be transmitted by a biting fly and a mosquito. A man’s semen and a woman’s breast milk may also be habitats of Lyme spirochetes, although there was no solid proof yet of these kinds of transmission.

In the case of diseases, the spread of false knowledge can be life-impinging if not threatening. With twenty thousand reported cases of Lyme disease in 2004 – who knows how many unreported – and the insidious nature of its tick carriers, there is impetus for a dearth of information about the disease and much is available online and off.

Patients come to their physicians confident in their own knowledge, accurate or inaccurate as it may be. More often than, they fall prey to myths about Lyme disease like these that follow.

Myth #1: Any tick can carry the bacteria B. burgdorferi and ticks attached for more than twenty-four hours indicate sure infection.

There is no documented instance of ticks outside the genus Ixodes carrying the disease and while the highest risk is for ticks attached for extended periods of time, the general risk of infection is 1-3%.

Myth #2: Tick bites should routinely be treated with preventative antibiotics.

Since in the majority of cases the disease is easily treated if it develops at all, this is an unnecessary and futile approach.

Myth #3: Diagnosis maybe subjective and not based on serology (blood work).

In early stages of Lyme disease, blood work is not needed for a diagnosis, nor will they be reliable because the antibody levels are too low. The erythema migrans (EM) rash alone is evidence enough for a confident diagnosis. In later stages, blood work is reliable. Other bodily fluids such as urine do not offer reliable test results.

Myth #4: Chronic Lyme disease is common and caused by a persistent infection of B. burgdorferi.

In patients who experience chronic problems after Lyme disease, no bacterial infection has been found after the initial infection is eliminated. Furthermore, additional antibiotics have no effect on patient condition. Chronic symptoms experienced after Lyme disease have never been proven to be related to Lyme disease.

Myth #5: There are many documented cases of enduring congenital Lyme disease even when the mother undergoes treatment while pregnant.

Many mothers worry about the effects of treatment on the fetus, but there have been no cases of treatment harming the fetus and all cases of congenital Lyme disease clear shortly after birth. Mothers who refuse treatment put their children at higher risk of serious infection. Indeed, there are documented cases of babies dying shortly after birth apparently from B. burgdorferi infection.

Myth #6: Lyme disease may be transmitted by blood transfusions, physical contact, breast milk, etc.

While B. burgdorferi has been found to be capable of living in blood samples, no person infected with Lyme disease is allowed to donate blood according to medical procedures. Breast milk has never been found to sustain the bacteria and, like physical contact, no transmission in this manner has been documented.

Lyme disease strikes fear into the hearts of many. The idea of a small bug crawling from the grass or leaves under our clothes, sucking our blood like a miniature vampire, and leaving behind a disease is creepy at best. Indeed, Lyme disease is the most common arthropod-borne illness in the United States.

Because it is so repugnant and affects so many people but is seldom well-understood, there is a mass of false information out there, but it is time to set the record straight and separate fact from fiction.

Lyme disease is caused by the bacteria borrelia burgdorferi, a spirochete bacterium, and is only transmitted via the bites of Ixodes ticks, i.e. Ixodes scapularis, and Ixodes pacificus.

These ticks are better known as the black-legged tick, or deer tick, and the western black-legged tick. Ticks, disease carrying or not, prefer wooded or bushy areas with tall grass and lots of leaves.

The disease is found in Europe, North America, Australia, and some parts of Asia.

In the United States, it is most prevalent in the Northeast, the upper Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest. In 2004, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania had the majority of the almost twenty thousand cases reported. Connecticut, the state where Lyme disease was first identified and where the city it takes its name from is located, had the most reported cases for many years.

Lyme disease is an inflammatory disease – first of the skin, then of the joints, and finally of the nervous system.

Within thirty days of infection, the skin around the bite usually breaks out in an erythema migrans (EM) rash, often resembling a bull’s eye. The disease later causes arthritis of major joints, especially the knees. In severe cases, there may be damage to the nervous system, such as numbness, and arrhythmia of the heart.

Treatment of Lyme disease is fairly routine and especially effective in the early stages of the disease.

Oral antibiotics such as amoxicillin clear most cases within two to four weeks. Intravenous antibiotics are sometimes prescribed for advanced cases. Combinations of antibiotics and treatments longer than twenty eight days have not been proven any more effective and are therefore not suggested.

Preventing Lyme disease is pretty straight-forward. Avoid tick-prone areas especially in the peak summer season.

If you do enter a tick-prone area, wear long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and tall socks. After leaving the area, check your body for ticks, especially in the armpits, groin, and scalp. Remove any attached ticks with a tweezers.