Lyme Disease

The name for Lyme disease does not have anything to do with the fruit. It comes from Old Lyme, Connecticut, in the United States. That is the town where the disease was first discovered.

Visit the CDC: Spotlight on Lyme Disease site. It has a fact sheet, a U.S. map of affected regions, pictures of ticks, a public info guide, and a brochure you can download.

The rash that occurs in Lyme disease does not always look like a dart board.

Check out BrainPOP: Lyme Disease to play a movie and take a quiz and learn more about this disease.

Lyme disease is a bacterial disease. Deer ticks, also known as blacklegged ticks, transmit Lyme disease. Lyme disease is found in the Midwest and the eastern and western seaboards. The tick latches on to your skin, punctures it and sucks your blood. You can not feel this process. Don’t go checking for ticks right away because you normally find one only if you have been outdoors in the woods.

A tick that has latched on to a white tailed deer or white-footed mouse may carry Lyme disease. People who are outside fishing, hiking, bird watching, etc. have the most exposure to ticks. Anyone could get Lyme disease. It is just that you are more likely to get Lyme disease if you are a person who is in the woods a lot. Don’t let that turn you off being an outdoorsman though.

After the infection, bacteria, called spirochetes ( spy-ro-keets), replicate quickly, destroying tissues. This may cause a red rash to appear, though one fourth of the time a bull’s-eye shaped rash does not appear. The rash expands outward with time. This rash does not itch or even hurt; it may also disappear on its own. The rash is called erythema migrans ( er-ah-thee-ma my-grains) because it is a migrating rash. The rash can appear somewhere else on your body, far from the tick bite. Several days to a few weeks later a person may develop flu-like symptoms. Some kids don't get any of these symptoms. Instead, a few months after a tick bite, their knee, or another joint swells up and starts to hurt.

When Lyme disease is undetected and untreated it may cause problems involving the skin, joints, nervous system, and heart. These problems usually get better after antibiotic treatment. In some rare cases, it may cause permanent damage

Physicians treat Lyme disease with antibiotics. Patients can be given a blood test to see how strong the antibodies are. In the early stages patients will respond well to two to four weeks of medication. The patient may feel aches and fatigue, but this will go away after six months.

When outdoors to avoid getting Lyme disease try to wear a long shirt and pants. Tuck the shirts into your pants and tuck the pants into your socks. Use bug stray and do “tick checks”.

My grandpa was a hiker and birdwatcher. He probably got Lyme disease while he was bird watching. He developed a red rash on his arm. When Grandpa bumped his leg it tingled. He was treated with antibiotics and it went away.

I have had wood ticks which don’t carry Lyme disease. They are not very bad but are gross when they fall off. Deer ticks which do carry Lyme disease are very small and much harder to spot.

If you have a tick, you should let your parents know. They should remove the tick with a tweezers and place it in alcohol. Then they should take you and the tick to the doctor to be checked.

Citations

Images

Images of a heart, birds, tick, and dartboard from "Microsoft Office Online" <http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/default.aspx?cag=1> Images free for non-profit and personal use. (October-February, 2003-2004).

Web Sites

Dattwyler, Raymond J.. "Lyme disease." World Book Online Reference Center. Feb. 2004. World Book, Inc. 5 Feb. 2004. <http://www.worldbookonline.com/ar?/na/ar/co/ar335110.htm>

Nemours Foundation. "KidsHealth." <http://kidshealth.org/> (January, 2004).