IT’S ABOUT LYME

Chances are you don’t know a lot about Lyme disease unless you’ve had it or know someone who has. But according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 329,000 Americans are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year—more than with breast cancer and HIV/AIDS combined. So here are some inside facts about what many have called the “quiet disease.”

THE BASICS

•Lyme disease is a bacterial infection spread to humans by infected deer ticks, also called blacklegged ticks. Some (but not all) people develop a bull’s-eye-shaped lesion around the bite. If caught early and treated aggressively with antibiotics, the infection can be eradicated in a month or two. But if it goes untreated, Lyme disease can become chronic and lead to years of misery.

THE HISTORY

•One of the earliest mentions of a tick-borne disease came from a Dr. John Walker, who was visiting an island off of the west coast of Scotland in the mid-1700s. He wrote of a common aliment there that causes “exquisite pain [in] the interior parts of the limbs.” Walker was on the Isle of Jura, from an old Norse name meaning “Island of the Deer.”

•In 1975 two doctors from the Yale School of Medicine, Allen Steere and Stephen Malawista, were sent to three small towns in Connecticut—Lyme, Old Lyme, and East Haddam—to find out why more than 50 people of all ages were suffering from what was thought to be juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. After doing blood tests and interviews, a pattern began to form: 1) Nearly all the sufferers lived on the outskirts of the towns near the forests; 2) the outbreaks occurred in early to mid-summer; and 3) 25 percent of the patients reported that, before their symptoms appeared, they were bitten by a tick and noticed a bull’s-eye-shaped lesion. Steere and Malawista became convinced that the outbreak in Lyme was caused by deer tick bites, so they named it “Lyme arthritis.” Over the next few years, it became clear that the symptoms go far beyond arthritis. So they changed the name to “Lyme disease.”

THE SYMPTOMS

•Lyme is considered “multisystemic.” According to Dr. Leo Galland, a Lyme disease specialist from New York:

[The] symptoms involve many different organs, including your skin, nervous system, joints, muscles, heart, and eyes. In my medical practice, Lyme disease is the trigger for half my patients with chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia, most patients with painful neuropathies or autonomic nervous system disorders, 40% of people with dizziness, and 30% of patients with arthritis or autoimmune disorders. I’ve seen Lyme disease cause abrupt changes in personality, impaired thinking, memory loss, and panic disorder.

•In the northeast United States, where Lyme is most prevalent, doctors are more likely to suspect Lyme disease when the common symptoms are present. However, in most other regions, where Lyme is much rarer, it can be misdiagnosed as Crohn’s disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, ALS, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, colitis, encephalitis, fibromyalgia, fifth disease, motor neuron disease, arthritis, cystitis, irritable bowel syndrome, lupus, prostatitis, bipolar disorder, depression, Sjogren’s syndrome, sleep disorders, thyroid disease, and more. That’s why Lyme disease is sometimes called “the Great Imitator.”

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THE BACTERIUM

•The life cycle of Lyme disease doesn’t begin with the tick, but with a bacterium known as Borrelia burgdorferi that infects the tick. This parasite was discovered in the early 1980s by Willy Burgdorfer, a researcher at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, who described it as “poorly stained, rather long, irregularly coiled spirochetes.” (A spirochete is a wormlike bacterium known for its corkscrew shape.) And like most species of bacteria, B. burgdorferi has some sneaky survival mechanisms: This one produces a protein that actually fools the victim’s immune system into not producing any antibodies at first. It can even tag other beneficial bacteria to be killed.

THE TICK

•These bacteria infect deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis). But don’t the let the “deer” in the name fool you: the tiny ticks can latch onto any mammal and even some birds.

•The ticks go through three stages in their two-year life span: larva, nymph, and adult. It’s usually during the nymph stage—which occurs in late spring and early summer—that Borrelia-infected ticks find their way to humans. Because the nymphs are only about the size of a poppy seed at this stage, they often go unnoticed. Result: they can feed off your blood for several days while infecting you with B. burgdorferi. Deer ticks used to be confined to the northeastern United States, but now they’ve spread across the continent, and with them, Lyme disease.

•Infected ticks can deliver more than Lyme; many also carry bacterial co-infections—most commonly Babesia and Bartonella—that come with their own set of Lyme-like symptoms. So if you think you have Lyme disease and you get a blood test, you might get a positive result for one of the co-infections, but the Lyme result is indeterminate.

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TREATMENTS

•The most aggressive way to treat Lyme disease is to administer the antibiotics via an IV drip, an expensive treatment that requires going to a doctor’s office for hours at a time several days a week. These intravenous treatments can cost up to $3,000 per week. (Most insurance plans cover the antibiotics in pill form only.)

•A popular but controversial Lyme treatment: bee venom therapy. It’s said to work like this: Inject a bee-sting’s worth of venom near problem joints, and the venom kills the bacteria. There are two ways to administer it: Via bee venom in a vial that was harvested without killing the bees. (It’s actually quite clever—bees land on a screen, which has a slight electric charge that causes them to sting, and the venom falls through and the bees live to buzz another day.) The other method uses live bees…held by tweezers…and placed stinger-first onto your skin. (Sadly, it kills the bees.)

AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION

The best way to treat Lyme disease is to not get it in the first place.

•Know Your Risks: Lyme-infected ticks can exist naturally anywhere in the world except Antarctica, but some areas are more prone than others. It’s best to assume that any forest or grassy meadow can have ticks, especially during the summertime.

•Cover Up: If you’re walking through a meadow, tuck your pants into your socks, and if you’re in the woods, wear a hat and other protective clothing. And always keep an eye out for ticks, remembering that they can be as small as the period at the end of this sentence. Light-colored clothes make ticks more visible.

•Use Bug Spray: Most Lyme disease prevention lists recommend using a spray with DEET, but according to the health website Shape, “DEET only works on your skin. Using a spray with Permethrin, a clothing-only repellent, kills ticks on contact before they even have a chance to reach a spot where they could attach.” (Another trick: bring a lint roller—you may be surprised what comes off your pants and onto the roller.)

•Save the Tick: If you do find a tick sucking your blood, try and save it. (You can find safe tick-removal tips online.) There are laboratories where you can send the tick, so it can be tested for Lyme. If your tick tests positive for Lyme disease, you can start treatment before your symptoms appear, greatly increasing your chances of getting over it quickly. Testing the tick can also help isolate the harmful bacteria so your doctor can create a more effective antibiotic regimen.

•Keep a Tidy Household: They’re called “deer ticks,” but the ticks that can transmit B. burgdorferi are most commonly found on mice and rats. If you have cats, then the ticks can jump from the rats to the cats…and then to you.

•Inspect Your Kids and Pets: Remember that ticks prefer warm, dark places to feed, so if you think a tick might have attached itself to any of your family members—be they four-legged or two-legged—look in the best hiding places, including behind their ears, under their arms, in their hair, behind their knees, in their navels, even around their groins. It’s recommended that you check for ticks once a day for three days after going anywhere that you might have been exposed.

•Use More Than Your Eyes: Tiny ticks can be tough to spot visually, but if run your fingertip over one, it might feel like a small scab. Any bumps should be inspected thoroughly.

•Vaccinate Your Dog: There is currently no vaccine available for people, but some dogs can be vaccinated against Lyme. Ask your veterinarian for more details.

•Know the Symptoms: Even though Lyme disease can mimic other conditions as it spreads throughout your body, the initial symptoms include “headaches, flu-like symptoms, joint pain, fatigue, and sometimes a rash.” (Bay Area Lyme Foundation)

•Look for the Rash: But don’t rely on it. If you think you have a bull’s-eye-shaped rash (there are plenty of pictures of them online), go to a doctor right away.

•Get Tested: Depending on where you live, you may have to convince your skeptical doctor to test for Lyme. But if you have to, insist.

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This is a thing? In 2012 Kyle Johnson set a world record by holding 14 plastic Easter eggs in one hand.