{"id":39821,"date":"2015-05-11T07:14:19","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T11:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/?p=39821"},"modified":"2016-07-14T16:06:03","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T20:06:03","slug":"lyme-disease-symptoms-safety-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/health\/lyme-disease-symptoms-safety-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Lyme Disease: Why It Might Be Worse This Year and How to Stay Safe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lyme
Photo: Pond5<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Jennifer Farrell suffered from fever, chills and fatigue<\/a> a couple of years ago, she chalked up the flu-like symptoms<\/a> to crazy spring weather fluctuations that went from hot to cold almost overnight. Then the back of her neck started aching. Within days, the pain was so severe \u2014 a feeling she describes as \u201clike a dog biting your neck and pulling really hard\u201d \u2014 she had to rush out of a funeral to go to the emergency room. The diagnosis: A pinched nerve.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> 10 Reasons You\u2019re Exhausted (And What to Do About It)<\/a><\/p>\n

Farrell followed up with her family physician who asked, \u201cWhy weren\u2019t you tested for Lyme disease?\u201d But Farrell couldn\u2019t find a bite mark and didn\u2019t have the resulting circular \u201cbull\u2019s eye\u201d rash that\u2019s often a telltale sign of the bacterial illness. Even though the 30-year-old advertising executive lived in the woodsy town of Summit, New Jersey, she hadn\u2019t been hiking<\/a> in an area where she could have been exposed to infected ticks that transmit<\/a> the disease. Still, the doctor ordered a blood test and called her a few days later with the results: \u201cYou tested positive for Lyme,\u201d she said. \u201cGet in here now.\u201d<\/p>\n

How to Spot Lyme Disease Symptoms<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Farrell was treated with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medication to reduce the swelling in her neck from meningitis (inflammation of the brain and spinal cord membranes), a common symptom of Lyme disease. Three exhausting weeks later, she started feeling better. \u201cI\u2019m so glad my doctor suspected Lyme when she did. I could have had major complications,\u201d she says. \u201cAll I can say is that if you have lingering flu symptoms, don\u2019t brush them off. Get tested as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a horrible feeling to be getting worse every day and not get the help you need.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lyme disease has always seemed like something of a public health mystery. Though 70 percent of patients develop a rash within three to 30 days of a tick bite, many don\u2019t connect symptoms like fatigue, chills, fever, headaches, muscle aches and joint pain to Lyme disease. \u201cSome people don\u2019t become ill at all or might not remember getting bitten,\u201d explains Paul Auwaerter, MD, clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins Medicine. (Farrell now believes a tick jumped on her from a dog.)<\/p>\n

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Stories abound of people who spend months or years in doctors\u2019 offices trying to find out what\u2019s wrong with them, while their Lyme disease spreads. The illness affects the brain, nerves, cardiovascular system, liver and eyes. Symptoms can also include sleepiness, loss of muscle tone on one or both sides of the face, shooting pain in your limbs or arthritis, especially in the knee. \u201cThese cases can be harder to resolve. If they\u2019re not diagnosed properly, patients might not improve as quickly,\u201d says Auwaerter.<\/p>\n

Why Diagnosis Is More Difficult Than You\u2019d Think<\/strong><\/h3>\n

College student Jordan Landerman, 21, spent more than a year visiting a dozen doctors with complaints of everything from dizziness, throat spasms and nausea to weight loss before being diagnosed with Lyme disease last summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so worried about exotic diseases…but we need to remember that one of the worst is in our backyard.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cBlood tests kept coming back<\/a> abnormal, but no doctor could tell me why. I was [told I was] anorexic one day. I had GERD<\/a> the next, then mono, then depression,\u201d says Landerman, who believes she was infected while training for a marathon near the California Polytechnic State University campus in San Luis Obispo. \u201cIt\u2019s a horrible feeling to be getting worse every day and not get the help you need. It starts to make you think you\u2019re crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, during an exceptionally painful recovery from late-stage Lyme and several co-infections, she\u2019s been taking antibiotics for eight months. (How long Lyme patients should be treated<\/a> with antibiotics is another source of debate.)<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Which Vaccines Should You Get as an Adult?<\/a><\/p>\n

Making the issue even more confusing, there\u2019s controversy<\/a> about whether patients who have chronic conditions, such as \u201cbrain fog,\u201d anxiety<\/a>, irritability and hearing and vision problems, are truly infected by the Lyme bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi<\/em> \u2014 or if they should be classified as having \u201cpost-Lyme disease syndrome.\u201d Explains Auwaerter: \u201cDoctors might label something as chronic Lyme disease when they don\u2019t understand what\u2019s going on. It can be a catch-all diagnosis that\u2019s adopted too liberally,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s not to say Lyme disease can\u2019t be severe, but for most people, it\u2019s a treatable illness that won\u2019t result in the ruination of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could Lyme Disease Be Worse Than Ever This Year?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What is clear is that incidences of Lyme disease are on the rise<\/a>. Over the last decade, it\u2019s grown steadily, and it’s estimated that about 300,000 people<\/a> in the U.S. are diagnosed annually with the illness, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The increase is due to better surveillance and reporting practices. But it may also be the result of more people moving into suburban housing developments built near reforested areas full of blacklegged (also called \u201cdeer\u201d) ticks, explains Sarah Hook, who researches Lyme disease for the CDC\u2019s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Use repellent that contains 30 percent DEET on exposed skin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although 95 percent of cases<\/a> are reported from 14 states in the Northeast and upper Midwest, there are also clusters in western Washington, the Bay Area and northeast Texas. This year\u2019s record snowfall, which protects ticks from freezing, might mean we\u2019re in for a doozy of a Lyme season<\/a> this spring, climate experts say.<\/p>\n

The challenge: Convincing people to take the threat of Lyme disease seriously and protect themselves. In a 2012 CDC study<\/a> of more than 3,500 people, 21 percent said that a member of their households had found a tick on his or her body within the previous year, yet more than half did not take steps to prevent tick bites during warm weather.<\/p>\n

Want to know how to avoid Lyme disease? Here are some tips from the CDC:<\/p>\n