Prevention Of Lyme DiseasePreventing Lyme infection is the key to stopping the disease, specialists say. Once it begins, the disease may be difficult to diagnose and problematical to treat. Unfortunately, the ticks that cause Lyme disease are only about the size of two pinheads at the immature nymphal stage, when they're most likely to bite people. They can be very hard to find. Luckily, however, it's thought to take 48 hours after the bite for the tick to transmit the bacteria that cause the infection. If you check yourself daily, you probably have two chances to catch a tick and remove it before it's too late. If you do miss a tick bite, you won't necessary get sick; roughly 25-40 percent of Ixodes dammini ticks are infected with the spirochete. The tick nymphs usually are found on tall grass or brush very close to the ground. Areas where meadow and forest meet are most heavily populated by ticks, Spielman said. People most often pick them up on their shoes or feet, and the ticks crawl up their clothes or bodies. The waist and thighs are common sites for the bites. If you find a tick, remove it with tweezers, getting as much of it out as you can. Tiny parts may remain in your skin, but that's not a hazard, he said. Removing the tick that way almost certainly will kill it. Take a thorough shower if you think you might have been exposed; the ticks may wander on your body for hours before attaching themselves, and a good shower may wash them off. Early symptoms include fatigue, aches in the joints and a slight fever. Many cases never go beyond that, but some do. Some people, about 20 percent of those infected, get very sick. A few have a high fever, disorientation, heart problems, brain damage, permanent arthritic symptoms - and even death in a small number of cases. Lyme Disease is treatable at any stage with antibiotics. The real danger of the disease is that it often goes undiagnosed and thus goes untreated. Doctors around the country are learning about the disease, though, so this problem is diminishing. |