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.

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.

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.