High School Students Want to Know: Can Lyme disease kill you?

 Question #6

Can Lyme disease kill you?  

In some rare circumstances people have been known to die from Lyme disease.  In these limited known instances of fatality, death is usually caused by Lyme carditis, where the bacteria cause an infection of the heart muscle, or in immune system disorders caused by untreated, prolonged infection.  According to research by DeLong, Hsu, and Kotsoris published in a recent issue of  BMC Public Health, "...Lyme disease is rarely reported as a cause of death." 

Because it is difficult to accurately test for Lyme disease causing bacteria there is still some disagreement among scientists and doctors about how to diagnose and characterize the effects of Lyme disease.  Complicating this problem, the symptoms attributed to Lyme disease are often similar to those of other illnesses so some people believe misdiagnosis may be obscuring the facts. 

 

Post by C. Fisher

DeLong, Allison et al. “Estimation of cumulative number of post-treatment Lyme disease cases in the US, 2016 and 2020.” BMC public health vol. 19,1 352. 24 Apr. 2019, doi:10.1186/s12889-019-6681-9

High School Students Want to Know: How many people get Lyme disease every year?

 Question #5:

How many people get Lyme disease every year?

Because we do not yet have a particularly reliable way to diagnose and test for Lyme disease causing bacteria in people, there is some discrepancy in the exact number of people who get Lyme disease each year.  Usually our statistics on the number of cases is reliant upon doctors reporting this information to state or federal sources tracking reportable diseases.  Another way that can be used to estimate the number of cases is by insurance claims where Lyme disease is listed as the reason for the visit/treatment that the insurance payment is requested to cover.  The number of cases can vary from year to year, so some data reports annual estimates, where other reports will list estimates for a given year.

According to the Center for Disease control website:

Each year, approximately 30,000 cases of Lyme disease are reported to CDC by state health departments and the District of Columbia. However, this number does not reflect every case of Lyme disease that is diagnosed in the United States every year. Standard national surveillance is only one way that public health officials can track where a disease is occurring and with what frequency. Recent estimates using other methods suggest that approximately 476,000 people may get Lyme disease each year in the United States.

The Minnesota Department of Health’s most recent data for 2018 states there were 950 confirmed cases in Minnesota.

Post by C. Fisher

May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month