Saturday, October 30, 2010

What is Lyme Disease?

What is Lyme Disease?  Thanks to the help from the following websites hopefully we will get the general idea...

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/lyme-disease/DS00116  

"Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne illness in North America and Europe. Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. Deer ticks, which feed on the blood of animals and humans, can harbor the bacteria and spread it when feeding.

You're more likely to get Lyme disease if you live or spend time in grassy and heavily wooded areas where ticks carrying the disease thrive. It's important to take common-sense precautions in areas where Lyme disease is prevalent.

If you're treated with appropriate antibiotics in the early stages of the disease, you're likely to recover completely. In later stages, response to treatment may be slower, but the majority of people with Lyme disease recover completely with appropriate treatment."


http://www.aldf.com/lyme.shtml#whatIsLyme 

"LD manifests itself as a multisystem inflammatory disease that affects the skin in its early, localized stage, and spreads to the joints, nervous system and, to a lesser extent, other organ systems in its later,
disseminated stages. If diagnosed and treated early with antibiotics, LD is almost always readily cured. Generally, LD in its later stages can also be treated effectively, but because the rate of disease progression and individual response to treatment varies from one patient to the next, some patients may have symptoms that linger for months or even years following treatment. In rare instances, LD causes permanent damage."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease 

Chronic neurologic symptoms occur in up to 5% of untreated patients.[12] A polyneuropathy that involves shooting pains, numbness, and tingling in the hands or feet may develop. A neurologic syndrome called Lyme encephalopathy is associated with subtle cognitive problems, such as difficulties with concentration and short-term memory. These patients may also experience profound fatigue.[18] However, other problems such as depression and fibromyalgia are no more common in people who have been infected with Lyme than in the general population.[18][19] Chronic encephalomyelitis, which may be progressive, can involve cognitive impairment, weakness in the legs, awkward gait, facial palsy, bladder problems, vertigo, and back pain. In rare cases untreated Lyme disease may cause frank psychosis, which has been mis-diagnosed as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Panic attack and anxiety can occur, also delusional behavior, including somatoform delusions, sometimes accompanied by a depersonalization or derealization syndrome, where the person begins to feel detached from themselves or from reality

I really hope this gives you an idea and helps you to better understand Lyme Disease.  There are tons of information available online or through your doctors.  I encourage you to research LD for more information.

God bless,
Sydni 

No comments:

Post a Comment