MAY IS LYME AWARENESS MONTH
Written by Danette MacDonald, co-written by several concerned Lyme patients.
What is Lyme Disease?
It is a complex disease caused by a spirochete from a tick bite and possibly other insect bites that can infect people, wild animals and domestic pets with a spiral-shaped bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. Lyme Disease is known as "The Great Imposter" as it has similar symptoms to syndromes such as MS, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, ALS, Alzheimer's, Chronic Fatigue, various forms of Arthritis, Parkinson’s, Depression, Dementia and other degenerative syndromes, making it difficult to diagnose. This spirochete can travel to every area of the body creating an array of damage and multiple symptoms that can be disabling and on the rare occasion, fatal.
What are the symptoms?
The symptoms of Lyme Disease overlap several other diseases, making it very difficult to diagnose. Most people don’t recall a tick bite and many never get rashes or flu-like symptoms that are often associated with the early stages of Lyme Disease. With such a broad range of symptoms it is often misdiagnosed as other diseases and in many cases just the symptoms are treated because the underlying cause is not realized.
How do you contract this disease?
In B.C., Lyme Disease is known to be contracted from the bite of the western blacklegged tick, Ixodes pacificus, and likely the mouse tick, I. angustus. It can be passed on from the mother to the unborn fetus and also through breast milk to the infant.
But we don't have Lyme Disease province-wide.
Most people and doctors believe that to be true and unless a doctor is quite experienced with Lyme Disease they may not recognize it until it is too late or often not at all. Ticks and other carriers of Lyme Disease DO NOT know what borders are! With many factors such as migratory birds, animal travel and possibly global warming, the ticks are spreading further away from where the disease is thought to have originated. The organism which causes Lyme Disease (Borrelia burgdorferi) has been found in ticks collected from many areas of BC, and health authorities now believe that Lyme Disease infected ticks may be present throughout the province.
How can I get tested?
The diagnosis of Lyme Disease is based more on a clinical diagnosis; lab tests are used to see if antibodies exist by the ELISA and Western Blot methods. At present the B.C. lab tests do not have a high degree of sensitivity and are not fully reliable. Unfortunately, some individuals have a limited immune response to Borrelia burgdorferi, and are seronegative. As a result, lab work alone should not be the basis of a negative diagnosis but should be interpreted in conjunction with clinical symptoms and patient history.
Where can I find more information on this disease?
The internet is always a great information highway with many websites full of good information. If you are interested in a B.C. website, please go to: http://lymeinbc.cjb.net
If you do not have access to a computer the staff at your local library will be happy to help you to access this information.
TICK TALK
Be aware, and be wary
- Apply insect repellent before going out. Applying repellents with DEET to skin
and clothing and/or permethrin to clothing only (not skin) helps. The
combination provides additional protection. Apply DEET solutions only to
exposed skin but avoid the face and hands, especially children's, to lessen
the chance that the repellent will come in contact with their eyes and lips.
Also, do not use DEET products on infants, toddlers, pregnant women or skin
that is sunburned or abraded. Pediatricians recommend 10 percent
concentrations for children. Concentrations of 20 to 30 percent are probably
safe for adults but should be washed off after each use. As with any such
product, carefully follow the manufacturers' labeling advice. Some doctors
recommend Avon's Skin-So-Soft Bug Guard Plus IR3535, which contains no DEET.
- Wear a long-sleeved shirt and pants in light-colours so ticks are visible.
- Ticks like damp moist, shaded areas, so avoid walking in dank, bushy areas. Also avoid areas with tall grass.
- Check your body after every excursion, including scalp, and behind ears and joints.
- A tick will typically lodge in the leg, groin or neck area. It may stay there drawing blood for up to three days and can become the size of a coffee bean when engorged.
- You won't feel a bite as the tick injects an anesthetic as it feeds.
- Never try to brush, burn or pull a tick out as you risk having it inject more bacteria into you. The best method to remove a tick is to grasp it, using very fine-tipped tweezers, as close as possible to the skin, and then gently pull it out over a period of 30 to 60 seconds.
If a tick has bitten you, save it for testing, to see if it is infected with Lyme.
- Dogs can be covered in ticks after running through the bush, so check them too. Their Lyme symptoms are similar to those of humans.
- A mature tick is about the size of a sesame seed, but at the nymph stage it is just a dot -- both stages can cause infection.
Source: Lyme Disease Foundation
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