High School Students Want to Know: What happens if you don’t treat Lyme disease?

 Question #4

What happens if you don’t treat Lyme disease?  Is Lyme disease very serious?

Untreated Lyme disease may lead to a variety of problems including fever, rashes, facial palsy and arthritis. Other long-term affects are listed here.  Some can be serious, but the disease seems to be unpredictable, causing worse problems for some people compared to others.  Much research still needs to be done to understand why there are differences in how people are affected.

Even with treatment, according to the CDC, "In a small percentage of cases, symptoms such as fatigue (being tired) and myalgia (muscle aches) can last for more than 6 months. This condition is known as post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS), although it is also sometimes called chronic Lyme disease."

Read more from the CDC here. 

 

Post by C. Fisher 

 

High School Students Want to Know: How is Lyme disease treated?

Question #3:

How is Lyme disease treated?

Usually a course of antibiotics is all that is required if the disease is caught early.  With more complicated cases it is possible there may be different treatments prescribed to meet the needs of the individual patient’s symptoms.   

 

To read more about treatments for Lyme disease symptoms from the CDC click here.

 

Post by C. Fisher 

 

High School Students Want to Know: What are the symptoms of Lyme disease?

Question #2:

What are the symptoms of Lyme disease? How does Lyme disease affect the human body?

Beyond the list of symptoms below, there are still more questions than answers.  There is a lot that medical science does not know about how the bacteria that cause Lyme disease affects the human body; for example, why there seems to be a lot of variation in symptoms and in the severity of symptoms between people and where the bacteria seem to cause problems, sometimes in the joints, sometimes the heart muscle and other times in the nervous system.  It’s an unusual type of bacteria, and we just have a lot to learn before we can really give a good answer to this question.

According to the CDC

Typical “early” signs are:

• A distinctive rash 
• Fever  
• Chills  
• Headache  
• Muscle and joint pain  
• Fatigue

Symptoms of untreated or long-term Lyme disease include:

• Multiple rashes 
• Facial paralysis on one side of the face
• Fever
• Stiff neck
• Headache
• Weakness, numbness or pain in arms or legs
• Irregular heartbeat
• Dizziness, feeling lightheaded, or heart palpitations
• Persistent weakness and fatigue
• Joint swelling from arthritis in one or more joints, usually the knees
• Problems with the nervous system
• Persistent weakness and fatigue

It is important to note that not everyone may have every symptom, and not all symptoms are equally severe from person to person. Read more from the CDC here.

 

Post by C. Fisher