Lyme Disease Research Paper

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

Your chances of acquiring Lyme disease can be greatly affected by where you live or travel to. Many outdoor activities put you at risk. Since deer ticks feed on mice and white-tailed deer, they are most commonly found in heavily wooded areas. Another risk factor of Lyme disease is having exposed skin. Since ticks attach easily to bare skin, being exposed in wooded or grassy areas will increase your risk. If you are bitten by a tick, the final chance of prevention is to remove the tick quickly and properly. In most cases, to infect it’s host, a tick must remain attached to the skin for at least thirty-six hours. If you safely remove the tick

According to EPA (2011), "In order to garner support for local community IPM efforts and to promote prevention, communication and outreach with local citizens is imperative. People are less likely to be interested in preventive measures if they have limited understanding of the problem and risk involved. One question concerning communication and outreach in communities, posed by Karl Malamud-Roam, is who should educate whom?" Against this backdrop, program stakeholders were identified by considering group that will be willing to learn, comprehend, and pass on the information on Lyme disease to the grass root level. Also considered are the issues of who is at risk, and community involvement. So stakeholders include Maryland Department of Health, K-8 school children, school teachers, parents, and local community groups.

The Collaborative Strategy on Bed Bugs was developed by the Federal Bed Bug Workgroup1, to explain the federal role in bed bug control and highlight ways that all levels of government, community, academia and private industry can work together to reduce bed bugs across the United States. Adjusting bed bugs can be very expensive and nearly all communities and states are currently facing issues with enough resources for individual families. The strategy used has four priority areas for bed bug control; Prevention, Surveillance and Integrated Pest Management, Education and Communication, and Research. Each of these areas is critical to national and local efforts, to raise awareness within communities and prevent future outbreaks. (Public Health Systems and Emerging Infections,

The bite of an infected tick is the primary mode of transmission to humans, or other vertebrate hosts, though it is also possible, but extremely rare for infection to result from exposure to crushed tick tissues, fluids, or feces. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rmsf/Natural_Hx.htm)

What is Lyme disease, and why is it important? Lyme disease is a tick-borne disease created by bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. “The infection is primarily transmitted by Ixodes ticks, also known as deer ticks, and on the West Coast, black-legged ticks” (Lymedisease.org). It’s hard to identify the ticks because of their tiny size, similar to a poppy seed. To make that exact the female adult deer tick is about 2.7 mm in length, and the male is smaller than that (tickencounter.org). The size makes it even more difficult to feel or find a bite from the tick. However, the consequences can be very serious, sometimes even fatal (cdc.gov). Lyme disease is a serious public health in the United States that is overlooked.

Signs and symptoms of Lyme disease may occur within a couple days after being bitten, but it can also take up to a month before symptoms develop. Your family caregiver should diagnose you Lyme disease, they will begin by asking you about your signs and symptoms. They will then check your skin for any unusual rashes and or attached ticks. During this you should make sure you tell your caregiver if you have removed a tick or have been in an area that ticks may live, such as sagebrush or wooded areas. Your caregiver may diagnose you with Lyme disease on the spot, but chances are you will have to be put through further testing. Testing can range from blood tests, lumbar puncture commonly known as spinal taps, and synovial fluid tests, which is the fluid that surrounds your joints. After being diagnosed, treatment for Lyme disease can be simple as taking medicine. Medicines can include antibiotics that kill the germs that causes the disease, anti-inflammatories that decrease pain and swelling, or steroids that can also reduce pain, redness, and swelling in your joints and or

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

Most Lyme disease cases are very serious. The disease creates symptoms that are similar to the flu. When you first catch the disease you may experience fever, chills, sweats, muscle aches, fatigue, nausea and general pain. Very rarely, Lyme disease may be fatal depending on which strain of the disease you caught.

First, Lyme disease is a tick borne illness, meaning it spreads through tick bites. The disease is only spread through a limited species of ticks, the utmost popular being the deer tick. Lyme disease can affect humans and dogs, as well as other animals. Although, only spread through a few species the disease is very harmful to one’s health. In 2009, it was found that “the C.D.C reported 38,000 cases, which is three times more than in 1991” (Specter 25). The process of the tick is rather simple and sudden. First, the ticks attach to their host and spread an antihistamine on the surface to numb the area to prevent the victim from feeling the bite. Thereafter they emit a glue resembling

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).

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.

Borreliosis, also known as Lyme’s disease, is a disease that is transmitted to humans by blacklegged ticks. The first case of Lyme’s disease was first reported in Old Lyme, CT, hence the name. A tick picks up the virus from biting deer and mice infected with the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. White footed mice are the most common carriers of the disease. The virus is then transferred from tick to human through the bite from an infected tick. Generally the tick must remain attached to the human for 36-48 hours for the bacterium to be transmitted. The best way to prevent this disease is to try and avoid tick bites. You can do this by using repellent on the skin and gear your using, treating your animals with tick medication, shower

Lyme Disease is the number one tick-borne disease in the United States and in Massachusetts. It is considered a vector disease because it is spread through the bite of a black-legged tick (also known as a deer tick) that carries the bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi. Lyme was first diagnosed in 1975 in Lyme, CT and the bacterium that causes Lyme was discovered in 1982 by Willy Burgdorfer (Todar, 2012, p. 1). Lyme disease spreads rapidly and can impact many different organ systems including the joints, brain, heart, and muscles. Symptoms can lay dormant for months or years or occur quickly after the initial tick bite. Difficulty of diagnosis adds to the burden of Lyme disease in Massachusetts. “Because of its initial presentation as a skin rash, …the difficulty in some cases of even considering Lyme disease given its presentation in the form of other more typical illnesses, …Lyme disease in the 1980s became known as ‘the new Great Imitator’ “ (Lyme Disease, n.d.).

Lyme is a bacteria spread by Zoonosis which occurs when an infectious disease, being embedded in the gut of an animal such as a rodent or queer squirrel, germinates another vector to be spread to other hosts. The disease can then be transferred from that animal to a tick such as a Deer Tick(North America). This tick is known as a vector and searches for a new, larger host. This can range from a deer(most prominent scenario) to even humans. Ticks must take in blood to survive. Ticks lodge themselves into a host 's skin and feed on their blood. While this is taking place the Borreliosis bacteria get in through the bloodstream and can spread to joints, the brain and even the heart.(Portal.mah.harvard.edu)