Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Boglebaum. Here. July and August mark the
Speaker 1: high season for lime disease if you're in an area
Speaker 1: of the United States where lime is inclined to fester,
Speaker 1: that being the mid Atlantic and northeastern regions of the
Speaker 1: country mainly, but it has been spreading this time of
Speaker 1: year might make you a little nervous about being outdoors
Speaker 1: and wood see grassy or leafy areas where you might
Speaker 1: encounter ticks carrying the disease. According to the United States
Speaker 1: Centers for Disease Control, the number of confirmed cases of
Speaker 1: lyme disease here more than doubled from the most recent
Speaker 1: year of data, and cases increased seventeen percent between twenty
Speaker 1: six and seventeen alone. Well cases used to be mostly
Speaker 1: isolated to the Northeast. Now the CDC considers half the
Speaker 1: counties in the United States high risk for lime disease.
Speaker 1: Lime disease, first idea deified in the US in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, isn't particularly mysterious or anywhere close to untreatable,
Speaker 1: Despite the horror stories that you may have heard. I mean,
Speaker 1: lime disease should not be taken lightly. If you think
Speaker 1: you might have it, you do need to see a doctor,
Speaker 1: and the sooner the better. As with most illnesses. By
Speaker 1: some estimates, somewhere around three hundred thousand possible cases of
Speaker 1: it are diagnosed every year, but the vast majority of
Speaker 1: those cases are handled with a simple round of oral antibiotics.
Speaker 1: If caught early, especially, people recover quickly and completely. Okay,
Speaker 1: but let's back up a step. What is lime disease.
Speaker 1: Lime disease is an infection caused by the Bacterium aurelia
Speaker 1: erg door free, which is transmitted through those tiny, bitey,
Speaker 1: black legged ticks. You can't transmit lime disease through sexual
Speaker 1: contact or kissing or holding hands with a person who's
Speaker 1: been infected, and nor can you pass it through breast milk.
Speaker 1: Lime disease is often characterized by some TEMs like fatigue, headache, fever,
Speaker 1: and most tellingly, an expanding skin rash that's called air
Speaker 1: thema migrants and normally look circular with a bull's eye
Speaker 1: in the middle. The rash usually pops up anywhere from
Speaker 1: three to thirty days after a tick bite, the average
Speaker 1: time being about a week. Given the chance ticks will
Speaker 1: latch onto you and feed on your blood during the
Speaker 1: late spring and summer months, and they often latch in
Speaker 1: hard to see places like in the hair of your scalp,
Speaker 1: in your armpits, or your crotch. Ticks normally have to
Speaker 1: be attached for thirty six to forty eight hours or
Speaker 1: even longer in order to transmit the bacteria, which is
Speaker 1: why it's a good idea to check yourself immediately and
Speaker 1: thoroughly when you've been in areas where ticks hang out.
Speaker 1: If lime disease goes untreated and gets into later stages weeks,
Speaker 1: two months or even more after the bite, it can
Speaker 1: cause things like temporary facial paralysis or severe swelling and
Speaker 1: darthritis and joints. It's more rare to experience heart palpitation,
Speaker 1: which happened when the bacteria invades the heart. This occurs
Speaker 1: in just about one percent of reported cases of lyme disease.
Speaker 1: Other severe symptoms are possible, but still even then treatment
Speaker 1: is generally very effective. The problem with diagnosing lime disease
Speaker 1: is that it involves symptoms that are common to many
Speaker 1: other illnesses. I mean headache, fever, fatigued soreness, that could
Speaker 1: be anything. The key to diagnosis is often the rash,
Speaker 1: which occurs in up to of lyme disease cases. If
Speaker 1: you see that after a bite, or if you come
Speaker 1: down with that or other symptoms after hanging out where
Speaker 1: ticks may live, talk to a medical professional so that
Speaker 1: they can make an informed diagnosis. Blood tests may be helpful,
Speaker 1: though they can also be tricky and in some circles,
Speaker 1: controversial too. It takes a while for humans to produce
Speaker 1: the antibodies that are measured by a blood test, so
Speaker 1: if you're tested too soon, you might get a negative
Speaker 1: result even if you are infected, and the first test
Speaker 1: sometimes can come up false positive too, and that's why
Speaker 1: experts like the CDC call for a two tiered test
Speaker 1: to confirm diagnosis. If the first test is positive, doctors
Speaker 1: sometimes will call for a different type of test, a
Speaker 1: Western blot test, which can identify specific classes of the
Speaker 1: antibody that your body is producing. It's important to note
Speaker 1: here that some patient advocate groups aren't very trusting of
Speaker 1: the tests or the guidelines on how lyme disease should
Speaker 1: be treated. For the article, this episode is based on
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works. Spoke with Philip Baker, the executive director
Speaker 1: of the American Lime Disease Foundation. Baker previously spent more
Speaker 1: than thirty years as a research scientist at the National
Speaker 1: Institutes of Health, many of them involved with lyme disease.
Speaker 1: He said, there's so much misinformation out there. That's why
Speaker 1: I do what I do. You can't go by symptoms
Speaker 1: alone to diagnose lyme disease. There are at least two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty or two hundred and sixty different medical
Speaker 1: conditions that have symptoms that are almost what people see
Speaker 1: with lyme disease. What you need a reliable, objective laboratory
Speaker 1: tests to make the diagnosis. The tests for lyme disease
Speaker 1: are very good, very reliable tests. Once a positive diagnosis
Speaker 1: is made for lime disease, treatment is relatively simple and straightforward,
Speaker 1: usually involving an oral antibiotic for fourteen two twenty one days.
Speaker 1: A relief from symptoms often comes within days of starting treatment.
Speaker 1: Late stage lime disease, defined as weeks, months, or years
Speaker 1: after the bite, may call for intravenous antibiotics. These treatments
Speaker 1: do the trick for most people, though if lime disease
Speaker 1: isn't caught until the late stages, it can do lasting damage.
Speaker 1: Some affective patients report continuing symptoms even after treatment, what's
Speaker 1: sometimes called chronic lime disease. This is the most debated
Speaker 1: topic in the lame disease community. Most experts and studies
Speaker 1: don't recognize a chronic form of the disease. The antibiotics,
Speaker 1: they say, read the body of the infection. They believe
Speaker 1: the continuing symptoms what's known as post treatment lime disease syndrome,
Speaker 1: are the result of an autoimmune response that lasts after
Speaker 1: the infect is gone. And despite these varying views, the
Speaker 1: key point here is that lyme disease, especially if caught early,
Speaker 1: is eminently treatable, and a large part of that depends
Speaker 1: on the awareness of a person who may be infected,
Speaker 1: So look out for those symptoms if you suspect you've
Speaker 1: had exposure to ticks. The best way to deal with
Speaker 1: lime disease, of course, is to not get it in
Speaker 1: the first place. Avoid ticks by staying away from especially
Speaker 1: woody or leafy spots in the late spring or summer.
Speaker 1: If you live in a tick heavy area or an
Speaker 1: area of the country known for lyme disease, be especially
Speaker 1: aware one outdoors in such areas. Use bug repellents like
Speaker 1: deep and treat your clothes and footwear with the insecticide
Speaker 1: per methren. They'll technically dear ticks are a Racknet's not insects,
Speaker 1: but it works on them too. Once you come indoors,
Speaker 1: check your clothes and footwear so that you're not carrying
Speaker 1: ticks into the house and shower as soon as you
Speaker 1: can after exposure to ticks, and check all over your body,
Speaker 1: and check the kids and pets too. If you do
Speaker 1: find one. Here's how to remove it. A Snag it
Speaker 1: as close to the skin as you can with a
Speaker 1: pair of your best skinny tweezers and pull slowly straight out.
Speaker 1: Don't twist. If a piece of the bug stays in
Speaker 1: the skin, don't mess with it too much. The area
Speaker 1: could become infected. Wash the area with soap and water
Speaker 1: or rubbing alcohol, and the skin should push it out
Speaker 1: on its own. The CDC suggests that you dispose of
Speaker 1: a live tick by putting it in alcohol, placing it
Speaker 1: in a sealed bag, wrapping it tightly in tape, or
Speaker 1: flushing it down the toilet. Remember it generally takes at
Speaker 1: least thirty six hours for a latched tick to transmit
Speaker 1: the bacterium to you. If you catch a tick before
Speaker 1: it gets too settled, you can nip lime disease in
Speaker 1: the butt. Today's episode is based on the article getting
Speaker 1: a Grip on Lime Disease on how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of by
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with how s toforks dot com,
Speaker 1: and it's produced by Tyler playing in Ramsey Out four
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