Lyme Disease Borrelia

Lyme Disease Borrelia

Lyme disease is known as borreliosis because of the three strains of bacteria that can cause the symptoms associated with the diagnosis of Lyme disease. The bacteria are carried by wood ticks that are transported via deer and are sometimes known as deer ticks as well.

Most ticks are relatively small and you may not be aware that you had been bitten by one.  Most tick bites will show up as a small reddened area around the actual bite. Ticks infected with Lyme disease borrelia bacteria will cause a ring shaped rash around the bite area that will spread rather quickly (erythema migrans).

The bacteria can take between one and four weeks to create the symptomatic rash and you may end up with flu like symptoms including headaches, drowsiness, swollen glands, sore joints (like arthritis pain) and fever.

Another complication created by the Lyme disease borrelia bacteria is neuro borrelia which affects your central nervous system and manifests itself as back pain between the shoulders and neck that feels like a slipped disc (15 % of infected patients experience this).

Nerves around the bite area can become numb or you many develop meningitis like symptoms with the accompanying fever and stiffness in the neck. If the disease progresses to the chronic stage the nervous system can degenerate to include general overall numbness, partial loss of hearing and possibly the onset of dementia.

Antibody tests are used in the diagnosis of Lyme disease borrelia but the antibodies can be present for years after the initial infection and the time frame for antibodies to initially arrive can be from one to as many as eight weeks from the original bite.

The best way to get a true diagnosis is to have the presence of the erythema migrans rash and some of the Lyme disease symptoms like joint pain, headaches and other flu like symptoms.