7 Surprising Symptoms of Lyme Disease

Nearly 500,000 people receive a diagnosis of Lyme disease each year in the United States for around 75% of them, the first sign will be a skin lesion that appears one to four weeks after being bitten by an infected deer tick. But it might not seem how you imagine it: only 20% of these lesions take the classic appearance of the bull eye commonly associated with Lyme.

Other early symptoms of Lyme disease imitate what you might feel with flu: fever, chills, muscle pain and swollen lymph nodes. During the first five to 10 days of Lyme disease infection, most people will only feel these relatively ordinary symptoms. If they are quickly diagnosed and treated for Lyme – which generally means two to three weeks of antibiotic doxycycline – history often stops there.

But for up to 10% of people, most of whom are not diagnosed or treated quickly, the disease triggers serious persistent symptoms. Researchers do not know exactly what causes chronic Lyme disease, but speculate that this could be the result of factors such as persistent bacteria or genetic predispositions. When someone has it, “there is almost nothing that he can not do,” said Dr. Amy Edwards, assistant teacher of pediatrics at the Western Box University School of Medicine who specializes in infectious diseases. Complex symptoms are often not part of doctors, but “once it has taken you off guard several times, you are looking for it everywhere. Whenever someone arrives with strange symptoms in summer, you say to yourself:” Could it be Lyme disease? “”

Here is an overview of some of the surprising symptoms that Lyme disease can cause, especially as it progresses.

Heart problems

When Lyme is not effectively treated at first, it can end up having an impact on heart, neurological and rheumatological systems, explains Dr. Amy Duckro, specialist in infectious diseases at Kaiser Permanent in Colorado. In 1 patients out of 100, for example, Lyme bacteria enter the heart tissue, which is called Lyme carditis. This type of cardiac inflammation can cause dizziness, fainting, shortness of breath, heart palpitations or chest pain.

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In some cases, people develop an atrioventricular block, which is a blockage that prevents electrical signals from moving from the upper part to the lower rooms of the heart. When the blocking becomes particularly bad, patients often need a temporary cardiac stimulator associated with IV antibiotics, explains Dr. Sunjya K. Schweig, which is part of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s scientific advisory advice, a non -profit organism that aims to accelerate medical breakthroughs for Lyme disease. He wants people to be aware that this can happen and take symptoms seriously such as new cardiac palpitations. “It is treatable, he can be healed, and he can also kill you if he is not taken,” he says. “It’s really a big problem.”

Brain fog

It took more than two years Kirsten Stein – and 15 meetings with the doctor – to be diagnosed with Lyme disease. Meanwhile, she fought with a range of mental and physical symptoms. The most alarming was the cerebral fog and the short -term memory loss which obstructed it every day: she remembers having met a close friend, for example, and not being able to invoke the names of the children of the woman, despite seeing them several times a week. “I remember thinking:” It’s not good, “she said. During a conversation with her husband, she could not evoke the word “glass” and started to point out things; While playing a game with friends, she apologized to the toilet because she couldn’t think clearly enough to participate. Another time, she dropped off her son at school – and five minutes later, asked her daughter where he was. “It was terrifying,” she said.

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Many patients report similar experiences with brain fog, says Schweig. It is probably caused by the inflammation induced by the Lyme in the central nervous system. “We see a huge amount of brain effects: difficulty in concentration, difficulty thinking, difficulty reading and absorbing information,” he said. “This can be extremely disruptive for people’s lives because they cannot work. They cannot do normal learning and work and pay attention and make projects and follow their tasks.”

Bell paralysis

There are 12 nerves – called the cranial nerves – which come from the brain and play an important role in the sense and movement for different parts of the head, the face, the neck and the torso. Lyme disease can affect these nerves, triggering Bell’s paralysis, which causes a sudden weakness or paralysis on one side of the face. This is particularly common in adults, she says, and generally appears several weeks to months after the infection.

Eye problems

In the early stages of Lyme disease, people sometimes experience eye irritation and conjunctivitis. As the condition progresses, “you can obtain inflammation of the cranial nerve or infections, which can cause a double vision called diplopia,” explains Schweig. Research suggests that Lyme can lead to sudden vision loss, optical nerve damage and neurotrophic keratitis (decrease in corneal sensation). It is also possible to feel a blurred vision, eye floats, tears, extreme sensitivity to light and inflammation of the retina.

Hearing problems

The inflammation that Lyme causes can affect the inner ear, leading to a variety of symptoms, including hearing loss and tinnitus, or ring in the ears, says Schweig. Ear problems can also trigger stunning and balance problems.

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In a study which included 216 people with a disease in Ticks, 162 presented otolaryngological symptoms – by making them a “frequent manifestation”, according to study authors. The most common complaint was tinnitus (77%of participants), followed by dizziness and dizziness (54%), headache (39%) and unilateral hearing loss or hearing loss in an ear (17%).

Arthritis

One of the most common symptoms of Lyme that Edwards sees in young people is arthritis. This often happens in the same way: children appear in the emergency room at the end of fall with a large swollen knee and, perhaps, a low grade fever. Sometimes they also have a soft or unable to put weight on their leg. “It’s actually not crazy – it hurts, but it’s not debilitating,” she said. “Is everyone like” have you injured it? “” But it turns out that they experience arthritis caused by a tick bite which they would not have even been aware of during the summer. “It is actually the most common way that Lyme presents in children,” explains Edwards. Children generally improve once they started a four -week dioxycycline diet. The problem, she adds, is that not all clinicians make the link, which can delay the diagnosis and appropriate treatment.

Debilitating fatigue

Research suggests that Lyme disease can cause persistent fatigue, even when diagnosed and treated early. In a study, participants with Lyme history were 8 to 15 times more likely to report moderate or severe fatigue than those that had never had the disease.

This resonates with Caitlin Durcan, 27, who developed Lyme disease after being bitten by a tick while working in a summer camp in New York State. She experienced a range of symptoms – migrraine, puberty -type emotional instability, brain fog, swollen eyes – for months before finding a doctor who prescribed an aggressive treatment diet that mainly attenuated her symptoms. At the time, Durcan was at university and one of the worst manifestations of the disease was overwhelming fatigue. “I was very slow and tired all the time,” she recalls. “I would go to class, I would go home and sleep for three hours. I would wake up, I would go to my lessons, and I would go home and that I slept. I could not stay awake for a day, and my friends were like” clearly something is really not going well. “”