by Jane Fazackarley

Created on: May 28, 2011

The tick-borne illness Lyme disease can be hard to diagnose because of its vague symptoms which can include joint pain tiredness, headaches, swollen glands and blurred vision.  Lyme disease can affect the respiratory and circulatory systems, the nerves and the muscles and can also cause psychiatric problems such as mood swings, depression and anxiety, but often what gives it away is the bulls eye rash that is often present but not in all cases, which can make the illness even harder to diagnose.   Lyme disease is best treated early to avoid the risk of further complications developing. 

People can develop Lyme after being bitten by an infected tick and Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium which is known as Borrelia burgdorferi.   According to Time for Lyme, there are 100 strains of the bacteria, including 100 in the United States. The symptoms do not always become obvious straight away and it could be weeks or months before a person will start to develop signs of the disease.

If you are bitten by a tick it is advised that you remove it as soon as possible to lessen the chance of developing Lyme.  Time for Lyme also say that people should keep covered up to protect themselves from being bitten.

According to Wikipedia, Lyme disease is among the fastest growing of infectious diseases in the States and cases of Lyme have been reported in 49 of the 50 states.  It is not just the United States that has seen an increase in Lyme disease; reports on the Internet indicate that the number of cases of Lyme disease is also increasing in the United Kingdom.

The usual way of diagnosing Lyme disease is through the ELIZA test or the Western Blot test.  However the ELIZA test has been shown to give false negatives and some have raised questions over the reliability of these tests.  Time for Lyme, a non-profit organisation, advise people to have both tests done to get an accurate diagnosis.

Lyme is treatable and medications given orally, intravenously or intramuscular are the available options and it is often treated with antibiotics.  In an interview given last year, Dr. Harriet Kotsoris, a medical advisor for Time for Lyme said:

"If diagnosed early, patients with Lyme disease generally do well.”Early" from an anecdotal perspective, several decades of experience in my treating patients with neurologic complications of Lyme disease, may be 6 months from time of inoculation or tick bite. Despite what is considered "adequate"

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