Lyme disease

Lyme Disease is caused by borrelia burgdorferi, a pathogen transmitted by the black legged tick. It is treatable but can become chronic lyme disease. A bulls-eye rash can appear at the site of a deer tick bite but can be in different forms while some people never recall having a rash; 30% of lyme patients never get a rash.

Symptoms
The signs and symptoms of lyme disease vary and usually appear in stages.

Early signs and symptoms

 * Erythema migrans (Bull's eye rash) (Rash can be in other forms and 30% of the time no rash is present.)
 * Flu-like symptoms

Later signs and symptoms

 * Erythema migrans
 * Joint pain
 * Neurological problems

Other signs and symptoms

 * Nausea and vomiting
 * Diffuse rashes (rather than a single bull's-eye rash commonly associated with Lyme disease)

Less common signs and symptoms

 * Heart problems, such as irregular heartbeat.
 * Eye inflammation
 * Liver inflammation (hepatitis).
 * Severe fatigue

United States

 * Two-step Laboratory Testing Process
 * Types of Lyme Disease Tests
 * Laboratory tests that are not recommended
 * Tests for Lyme disease don't work well enough to diagnose illness early, federal panel says

United Kingdom

 * BBC1 Lyme Disease Discussion - Some patients have waited up to 30 years for a correct diagnosis. National Health Service (NHS) services have only correctly identified the disease in a quarter of the patients. The blood tests are unreliable and often come back negative. The development of an accurate blood test is in need of research funding.


 * Department of Health and Social Care (UK) Testing for Lyme Disease

False positives
Several herpesviruses including varicella zoster virus, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, and HSV-2 may cause false positives on Lyme Disease tests.

News media on unapproved tests

 * 2005, Unproved Lyme Disease Tests Prompt Warnings - New York Times


 * 2013, Many tests to diagnose Lyme, but no proof they work - The Boston Globe


 * 2013, Lyme Culture Test Causes Uproar - Medscape


 * 2014, Federal Loopholes Compromise Lyme Disease Testing

Treatment

 * Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) on Treatment


 * Patients treated with appropriate antibiotics in the early stages of Lyme disease usually recover rapidly and completely. Antibiotics commonly used for oral treatment include doxycycline, amoxicillin, or cefuroxime axetil. Patients with certain neurological or cardiac forms of illness may require intravenous treatment with drugs such as ceftriaxone or penicillin.


 * 2006, The Clinical Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention of Lyme Disease, Human Granulocytic Anaplasmosis, and Babesiosis: Clinical Practice Guidelines by the Infectious Diseases Society of America

Notable studies

 * 2013, Quirky Lyme disease bacteria: Unlike most organisms, they don't need iron, but crave manganese


 * 2016, Ticks that transmit Lyme disease reported in nearly half of all US counties
 * 2016, Researchers identify new Borrelia species that causes Lyme disease


 * 2016, Gene Signature Could Lead To A New Way Of Diagnosing Lyme

Pathobiome Paradigm
Some future research will focus on a spectrum of pathogens instead of a "one pathogen-one disease" vision.

United States Congressional Report

 * 2018, Tick-Borne Disease Working Group - 2018 Report to Congress

News and articles

 * 2016, Researchers identify new Borrelia species that causes Lyme disease
 * Apr 23, 2014, Lyme disease — a ticking timebomb that health authorities say does not exist - PerthNow
 * Jul 31, 2016, How I was floored by a tick - BBC News

Learn more

 * About the Deer Tick - National Geographic
 * Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center - Columbia Lyme
 * Lyme Disease - Video Short
 * Tickborne Diseases — Confronting a Growing Threat - New England Journal of Medicine