Lyme Disease Case Study

A person can acquire Lyme disease by the bite of an infected tick. This disease is transmitted by deer ticks or black-legged ticks. Ticks are tiny in size and as their bite is painless, people might not even realize that they have been bitten. Once an infected tick attaches itself to the skin, it is able to transmit the bacteria. This bacteria eventually ends up in the bloodstream. The duration of attachment necessary to transfer

Lyme disease has emerged as the most common vector borne infectious disease in the United States and has presented a growing challenge to public health officials over the past three decades. The infection represents a significant disease burden to the population of the United States with nearly 30,000 new cases diagnosed per year and an estimated additional 270,000 annual incident cases that go unreported. The disease results from a bacterial infection with the spirochete bacteria B. burgdorferi. This bacterial agent is transmitted to humans from the bite of a tick and is most commonly associated Ixodes species blacklegged ticks. These ticks represent the largest genus of the family Ixodidae and mainly inhabit temperate forest or grassland

I chose to do my research paper on Lyme disease. During my research, I found a lot of interesting facts about Lyme disease. The disease is caused by bacteria, called Borrelia burgdorferi, which is only transmitted to humans when they are bitten by an infected tick. Lyme disease was first discovered in 1975, in Lyme, Connecticut, after a group of children were diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. This eventually led them to discover the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. The disease was given its name in 1982, after the town of Lyme, Connecticut. According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Lyme disease is the most commonly reported vectorborne illness in the United States. In 2014, it was the fifth most common Nationally Notifiable disease. Lyme disease is most prevalent in the northeast and upper Midwest.

My health promotion program will focus on Lyme disease. My state-Maryland is number one in the list of top ten states for Lyme disease in United States. According to Physicians Now (2016), "Although there were fewer cases of Lyme disease reported in 2012 than in previous years, the illness is still more common in Maryland than in many other states. There were 1,113 confirmed cases and 538 suspected cases in 2012, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

“Lyme disease got its name from where it was first discovered in Lyme, Connecticut in 1975” (healthychildren.org). “Since then there has been thousands of cases reported of the disease. The ticks live in low and high seasonal temperatures and high humidity” (healthychildren.org). Lyme Disease most common to occur in the Northeast, North-central states, or West Coast. On behalf of the Northeast, I can tell you that ticks are everywhere in this region. They like to live in tall grasses and woody areas. “The small insects more than often latch onto the foot or lower leg and crawl up the body, and travel up the body with a destination of the head. On their normal hosts, ticks also usually crawl up; they want to blood feed around the

Lyme disease is transmitted to humans from a natural reservoir (rodents and deer) by ticks that feed on both sets of hosts. Most infections are caused by ticks in the nymphal stage. Ticks in this stage

According to Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt (a world renowned Lyme expert), Lyme disease is considered the plague of the century due to the large number of people with chronic Lyme disease and the associated co-infections. The number one symptom of Lyme is chronic fatigue. People can have Lyme for a very long time and not be properly diagnosed because current laboratory testing comes up short with being able to detect it. One of the main reasons for this is because chronic Lyme does not live in the blood but rather in the tissues. It is an intracellular organism meaning it lives inside the cell. Lyme has different shapes: spirochete (like a spring), cyst with a hard shell, and acellular (without an outer cell membrane). Lyme likes to set up a sanctuary in the body such as in the brain, teeth (such as under a root canal or in a cavitation), vertebrae, breast tissue, and lymph nodes. It looks for a place where it can be protected and the body is vulnerable preferably in fatty tissue or under a biofilm. While traditionally Lyme disease is considered a tick-borne disease, recent findings have discovered that it is an insect-borne disease that can get transferred

What is Lyme disease? Should it be measured as a true “illness”? These questions are being asked thousands of times each year. Doctors, scientists, and patients all around the United States desire to comprehend what this infection indeed is and how to deal with it. The steps to healing and treating this disease have been very controversial. The idea of Lyme disease being a chronic illness has also been up for debate recently. Do we understand enough about this tick borne illness to accurately benefit those infected? How much treatment should doctors offer to their patients? Lastly, is Chronic Lyme disease a legitimate disease or are its patients just crying out for attention? These are just a few questions Americans hope the Lyme Disease Control Board and doctors will soon be able to answer.

In 2010 there were 2 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in Alabama, which continued to rise until 2014 with the last reported number of 64 confirmed cases for that year alone. In September 2015 the Centers for Disease Control revised their estimates indicating that it is believed that there were more than 10 times more cases in the United States than the 30,000 reported. Lyme disease is the fastest growing transmittable disease in the United States. It is hard to believe a disease this infectious was only discovered four decades ago.

It is transferred into the human body by a tick that is implanted into the skin for at least three days.

Lyme Disease comes from a line of bacteria called Borrelia Burgdorferi which originated during the ice age in Europe. Lyme disease cases are mainly reported in the northeastern states. This blood borne pathogen can only survive inside a host such as a tick. The Ixodes tick commonly known as the black legged tick or deer ticks become infected transmitting Lyme Disease through their bite. Unexpected hosts such as deer, fox, possum, raccoons, horses, cattle, small rodents, pets and even humans can be easy targets for ticks.

Thesis Statement: “According to the Center of Disease Control, Lyme disease is the most commonly reported vector borne illness in the United States”(Lyme Disease: Data and statistics, 2016).

A survey was composed to try to understand whether living around wooded areas could increase susceptibility towards getting Lyme Disease, whether owning outdoor pets was a risk towards getting Lyme Disease, and finally, what type of deer tick preventative measures work best amongst animals. Surveys were collected in two ways: online surveys and telephone surveys. In the end, the results were checked through statistical analysis and proven significant. All the results were posted on the Facebook page.

Lyme disease is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected ticks of the Ixodes genus.[3] Usually, the tick must be attached for 36 to 48 hours before the bacteria can spread.[4] In North America, the only

Lyme borreliosis or Lyme disease can be devastating both physically and mentally for victims. The disease is transmitted by a vector, specifically a tick, which infects their host by biting and infecting them with pathological spirochete bacteria known as Borrelia burgdorferi (Muschart & Blommaert, 2015). There are several species of Borrelia globally, and as a group, the bacteria are referred to as Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (Pearson, 2015). The disease originated from, Lyme Connecticut, of which it was named, after a patient was mistakenly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when the cause of their disease was B. burgdorferi or Lyme disease (Snow, 2013). Lyme disease is classified as one of the most common and growing vector-born disease in the United States as well as Europe (Snow, 2013). Understanding how Lyme disease progresses through the body as well as the disease’s signs and symptoms are essential to understanding how to treat the disease and stop it from spreading throughout the body with destructive results. With a disease as potentially devastating as Lyme disease, early treatment is required for a better outcome (Pearson, 2015). This research paper will discuss the pathophysiology of three Lyme conditions known as Lyme arthritis, Lyme neuroborreliosis, and Lyme carditis and provide an overview of the signs and symptoms of Lyme disease and treatments, and how to prevent infection.