How Lyme Disease Deceives The Immune System?
Summary: We all know that Lyme disease is hard to diagnose and millions of people suffer from this disease without knowing the reason behind their illness.
Main Content: We are all aware with antibiotics from our childhood. Whenever we used to get infected by a bacterial infection, our parents or guardians used to takes to the doctor and then we had to follow a 4 to 5 day course of antibiotics to resolve the problem. However, you should make a mistake of taking Lyme disease just like any other infection. If you fail to visit a doctor early or if the doctor fail to diagnose Lyme disease then in later stages, even several weeks of antibiotics might fail to eliminate the infection.
The Lyme spirochete
…show more content…
A corkscrew shaped spirochete which is known as Borrelia burgdorferi is the reason behind majority of Lyme disease cases around the globe.
This bacterium has developed a unique way to evade the human immune system and starts evading right from moment the bite occurs. It has learned to survive in the human body and sometimes even heavy doses of medicines fail to generate results against the bacteria.
A Deceitful Attack
The skin is punctured by the tick and its saliva covers the bacteria while it’s entering the human body, protecting it from the immune system. The human immune system can fail to generate antibodies to fight the bacteria, even weeks after a tick bite occurs. So, this implies that because the body has failed to identify the infection, when you visit the doctor to get Western blot test, you may receive negative results.
An Elusive Shape
A Lyme disease bacterium has a unique inner structure known as a flagellum excites the body’s immune system. Even when the body can see the bacterium, it fails to attack it, and starts an inflammatory response which damages tissues instead of killing the harmful
The black legged tick is the new name for the deer tick, it can cause all kinds of problems if you are unlucky enough to get bitten. The symptoms of deer tick bites include:
Borrelia burgdorferi was first diagnosed as Lyme disease in 1982 when the bacteria were isolated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The spirochete has been in the United States and Europe for many years but had gone un-diagnosed because of the limited medical knowledge. It is named after the leading American bacteriologist, Willy Burgdorfer, after his extensive research between the arachnid vectors and the human host was acknowledged. He studied many different diseases caused by animals, but the discovery of Lyme disease gained him recognition around the world. There are many tick-borne diseases, but Lyme disease is the number one tick-borne disease in America. The number of diagnoses has increased significantly in the last
Speaker Creditability: I know first-hand of what it's like to have Lyme disease after being diagnosed with late stage Lyme arthritis in 2014. I have had several treatments as well, but even after three years I can still feel Lyme’s effects.
bodily functions, especially in the nervous system (1). It occurs because of the effect of bacterial infection, a Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, which is blood-borne to a person by infectious ticks (1). The disease is more common in North America and Europe, especially in wilderness areas and grassland (1). Lyme disease is classified into phases according to the speed and the extent of the infection in the body. Early diagnosis and treatment prevent the patient from reaching the late phase, so it is important to be aware of the two phases of Lyme disease, which are the early disease phase that has two stages, and the late disease phase.
Lyme disease is an infection caused by a bacteria known as Borrelia. In the early 1970s, a group of children and adults were suffering from some puzzling health issues. Though they were unsure of the cause. Finally, in mid-1970, researchers found out it was the Lyme disease but still was unsure of what caused it.
The disease is caused by a bacteria lipoprotein (BLPs) produced by Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) of which over 100 strains exist. Bp is primarily transmitted through tick bites. The standard routine for treating Lyme disease involve use of antibiotics, although this has been shown to be inefficient in other cases because Bb recreates itself every 7 days through a complex in-vitro replication cycle. Untreated Lyme disease can develop into a more severe case called Chronic Lyme Disease (CLD). Some of the symptoms of lime disease include facial drooling, rashes and flu-like symptoms such as nausea, joint pain, fever, muscle pain
It is important to this course because it affects any organ of the body, including the brain and nervous system, muscles and joints, and the heart. Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. Borrelia burgdorferi is a bacterial species of the spirochete class of the genus Borrelia. B. burgdorferi which resides mostly in North America and Europe and is the creator of Lyme disease. If the disease is left untreated an infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. The bacteria often is found in the skin, after the infected tick has been in place for 36 to 48 hours.
Bubonic plague is an infectious disease that is spread by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. These bacteria remain in a dormant state primarily in a rat flea’s foregut. Once the flea has bitten a victim it regurgitates the contents in its foregut into the bite location. Once the bacterium has entered into a mammal’s warm body it begins to reproduce and spread throughout the mammal’s body. The reproduction of this bacterium creates large painful swollen lymph nodes which are called buboes. Once these buboes get large enough they begin to ooze infected body fluid so that any contact between an infected person and a healthy person will facilitate the spread of this disease. (The Mayo Clinic Staff, 2012)
The symptoms of lyme disease is normally a fever, headache, chills, fatigue, and a rash. Early symptoms might include a rash that is an expanding red area, it forms center of a bulls eye pattern type. Sometimes it is called ‘erythema migrans’, which refers to a rash. The later symptoms will include joint pain, swelling, vomiting and nausea. It might also cause some neurological problems like inflammation surrounding the brain.
Physicians in Canada have not been properly exposed to the symptoms of clinical Lyme disease; therefore it has become difficult to diagnose a patient with clinical Lyme disease. Professional organizations, such as International Lyme and associated disease society, and Lyme literate medical doctors, have acknowledged the uncommonness of Lyme disease in Canada (Magnotta, 2015). Canada has been highlighted with concerns of misdiagnosis and the increased cost in public health care. The lack of research and resources in Canada, have caused physicians to dismiss the clinical symptoms of Lyme disease, and diagnose patients with a variety of other illnesses, such as fibromyalgia, chronic Fatigue syndrome, to name a few, or something less substantial such as increased anxiety or stress (Magnotta, 2015). A case study presented in Hospital News has recognized that the rarity of symptoms requires hospitals and clinics to do excessive amounts of testing and the patient is sent to different specialists. These chronic illnesses are associated with bacteria, but the Canadian health system needs to recognize that the underlying diagnoses are infections, where Lyme disease
Stage 2 or the disseminated infection, is when neurological symptoms (15% of cases) such as stiff neck, mild headache, and difficulty with mentation will appear. Bell’s Palsy may also occur at this point. Approximately half of undiagnosed cases will develop Lyme arthritis and changing musculoskeletal pain.1 Swelling and pain in large joints as well as shooting pains that wake individuals at night may occur. There may be additional EM rashes over various parts of the body as well as heart palpitations and dizziness due to changes in heartbeat, which is known as Lyme carditis.2 This will begin days to weeks after the spirochete has spread.1 These symptoms may resolve on their own over weeks to months, but if Lyme is left untreated, it can result in long term symptoms and conditions or Stage 3.2
The early disseminated stage marks when Lyme disease becomes systemic and effects the musculoskeletal, cardiac and neurological systems. It can occur weeks to months after the bite when the spirochete travels to organs via hematologic or lymphatic channels (Nichols & Windermuth p.363, 2013). Infected patients may present with a long list of secondary diagnoses such as lymphadenopathy, meningtitis, Bell’s palsy, cranial neuritis, radiculoneuritis, arterioventricular block as well as joint and muscle pain. (Nichols & Windemuth, p363, 2013).
Every disease has a causative agent. The causative agent of Lyme disease is the bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi. Borrelia burgdorferi is a spirochete. It is not classified as either Gram-positive or Gram-negative. When B. burgdorferi is Gram-stained, the cells stain a weak Gram-negative by default, as safranin is the last dye used. Lyme disease does not only affect certain cells, tissues, organs within the host. As Lyme disease is a multi-system disease which can affect virtually every tissue and every organ of the human body. Lyme disease is a tick-borne systemic infection caused by a spiral organism, Borrelia burgdorferi, characterized by neurological, joint, and cardiac manifestations. Lyme disease is carried by a tiny tick. It begins with a bite and a rash that can be so slight, you may not even notice. However, the consequences can be serious, sometimes fatal. Ticks can feed on mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Most ticks prefer to have a different host at each stage of their life. Risks of human
The criminal must atone for it and must seek forgiveness. Raskolnikov at first tries to rationalize his crime by offering various explanations to himself. Foremost among these is his “superman” theory. By definition, the superman theory denies any possibility of atonement. The superman does not need to atone, because he is permitted to commit any crime in order to further his own ends. Raskolnikov also rationalizes his crime by arguing that the old pawnbroker is of no use to anyone; in killing her, he is ridding the world of an unpleasant person. Driven by poverty, he also claims that he wants to use her money to better his position in life. In the course of the book, he comes to realize that none of these excuses justifies his crime. Raskolnikov’s reasons for fearing arrest are equally complex. It is clear, however, that without the example and the urging of Sonya, he would not be able to seek forgiveness. He finds it remarkable that when he confesses his crime to Sonya, she immediately forgives him. She urges him to bow down before God and make a public confession. This act of contrition, she believes, will enable him to begin to cleanse his soul. Svidrigailov is aware of his own guilt, but he does not seek forgiveness. Unlike Raskolnikov, he does not believe in the possibility of forgiveness. In giving money to Sonya and others, he attempts a partial atonement for his sins. However, even these gestures are motivated partly by base self-interest. Because he is
Aviation provides the sole worldwide transportation network that makes it essential for international business and tourism. It plays a significant role in facilitating economic growth, notably in developing countries. Flying transports close to two billion travelers per annum and four-hundredth of interregional fares of merchandise (by worth), four-hundredth of international tourists currently travel by air. The air transportation industry generates a total of twenty nine million jobs globally (through direct, indirect, induced and catalytic impacts). Aviation’s international economic impact (direct, indirect, induced and catalytic) is calculable at US$ 2,960 billion, comparable to 8 may 1945 of world Gross Domestic Product (GDP)