Lyme disease is easily avoided and easily treated if caught early, but when a patient contracts the disease through the bite of a deer tick, the sometimes painful symptoms can last for weeks or even months.
How Lyme Disese Is Contracted
The bite of an infected deer tick triggers Lyme disease and its symptoms. If you are bitten by a deer tick that carries Lyme disease and the tick attaches to your skin, the bacteria can travel from your skin into your bloodstream--usually within 48 hours. If the tick remains on your skin long enough to become swollen, bacteria may have been transmitted.
Symptoms
Symptoms of Lyme disease vary from person to person, and several factors play a role in how the symptoms manifest themselves, including the part of the body where the bite occurred. Yet several symptoms are fairly universal in most cases of Lyme disease. A rash may follow the appearance of a small bump. The initial bump or bite mark may feel warm. Redness may follow over a few days, then a rash may spread as wide as 1 foot in diameter. The rash may take on a target, or bull's eye, appearance.
In addition to the bite mark and rash, the infected person may experience flulike symptoms, including headache, fatigue, chills, body aches and fever. If the infection goes untreated, the larger joints may become swollen and painful. This inflammation can last weeks or months after the initial infection.
Inflammation may spread to other parts of the body, including the membranes around the brain, which can result in meningitis. More severe symptoms may include neurological impairments such as loss of memory and marked difficulty in concentration.
Treatment
The most common treatment for Lyme disease is antibiotics, particularly in the early stages. In some patients, some symptoms can still be present long after antibiotic therapy is complete. These symptoms may be autoimmune responses in which the body continues to fight the infection. Joint inflammation, muscle pain, fatigue and neurological symptoms may linger as a result.
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