The Importance Of Early Detection In Lyme Disease

Ticks, relatives of spiders and not true insects, are creatures that spend most of their lives passively waiting for for something to happen. That "something" is a passing warm body on which the tick hitchhikes a ride.

The tick is sensitized to the approach of a potential host by the carbon-dioxide the human or animal exhales. So sensitive are ticks to CO2, in fact, that when scientists want to catch them for study, they take a fine-mesh net, bait it with dry ice and drag it through tick country, luring the creatures into it with the evaporating gas.

Four tick species, all smaller than the better known dog tick, are known to spread Lyme disease in the United States: Ixodes dammini, the carrier of Lyme disease throughout the Northeast, probably ranging as far as Chesapeake Bay, and in a second area in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

No pesticide registered with the Environmental Protection Agency has received approval for control of the ticks that are clearly the chief carriers of Lyme disease.

With early treatment, Lyme disease can usually be stopped early. Some tips are given below:

- Prevention. When you plan to be outdoors, especially in areas where Lyme disease is prevalent, wear protective clothing (long-sleeved shirts, pants tucked into boots or socks) sprayed with insect repellent (products containing 30 percent Deet or permethrin are most effective). Light colored clothing makes ticks easier to spot.

-Routinely check for ticks on yourself, children and pets. Remove attached ticks by grasping with tweezers at the point where the tick's mouth enters the skin.

-Save the tick in a jar with a cotton ball moistened with water and refrigerate. If you become ill, take it to your doctor; testing will ascertain whether it carries the disease.

- Treatment. If you have any symptoms and recall being in an area where ticks might have been, discuss the possibility of Lyme disease with your doctor. Antibiotics usually ward off later complications.

Often mistaken for flu or arthritis, Lyme disease can cripple its victims. Once seen only in New England, the condition has now appeared in 33 states. Here's information to make detecting Lyme disease less difficult.

Stage 1. Flu-like feelings arise three to 30 days after the bite. Headache, neck stiffness and extreme fatigue are common. About half of all victims develop a bull's-eye rash: a circle of redness 1 1/2 to 8 inches across surrounding a relatively clear central area. The rash usually first appears at the bite site, but new bull's-eyes may appear elsewhere.

Stage 2. A month or more later, if untreated, the disease may spread. Facial paralysis or Bell's palsy is a signal of Stage 2 infections.

Stage 3. Within a few months to about a year, steady or occasional arthritis may develop in one or more joints, with pain, swelling and stiffness. Levin said Lyme disease in children often is mistaken for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Lyme Disease