Lyme Disease: Diagnosis and Treatment for People and Pets

How to Safely Remove a Tick

  1. Using fine-tipped tweezers, grasp the tick as close to the skin’s surface as possible.
  2. Pull upward with steady, even pressure. Don’t twist or jerk the tick. Your goal is to remove the entire tick, ideally in one piece, including the mouth parts embedded under the skin.
  3. Thoroughly clean the bite area and your hands with rubbing alcohol, an iodine scrub, or soap and water.

Safe Tick Removal With Tweezers

Not all ticks carry Lyme disease, and some ticks carry other diseases. To avoid infecting yourself, never crush a tick with your fingers. For more information on the safe removal, disposal and identification of ticks visit CDC.gov/ticks.

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Tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease are on the rise. Reported cases in the United States increased from about 12,000 annually in 1995 to approximately 36,000 per year from 2013 – 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As reported cases are only a fraction of actual cases, CDC believes the true number of infections is likely closer to 300,000.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates products that are used to help diagnose and treat this complex disease in humans. There are no licensed vaccines in the United States to aid in the prevention of Lyme disease in people.

Who Gets Lyme Disease, and at What Time of Year?

Lyme disease is transmitted via the bite of infected ticks, which attach to any part of the body, but often to moist or hairy areas such as the groin, armpits, and scalp.

While everyone is susceptible to tick bites, campers, hikers, and people who work in gardens and other leafy outdoor venues are at the greatest risk of tick bites. As many a suburban gardener can attest, with the expansion of the suburbs and a push to conserve wooded areas, deer and mice populations are thriving, too, providing ample blood meals for ticks. For lyme disease to be transmitted, a tick needs to feed on the host for 24-48 hours.

In the majority of cases, tick bites are reported in the summer months when ticks are most active and people spend more time outdoors. But this can extend into the warmer months of early autumn, too, or even late winter if temperatures are unusually high. Similarly, a mild winter can allow ticks, much like other insects, to thrive and emerge earlier than usual.

Lyme Disease: Symptoms and Stages

Symptoms of early-stage Lyme disease include:

  • muscle and joint aches
  • headache
  • fever
  • chills
  • fatigue
  • swollen lymph nodes

Another common symptom of Lyme disease is a rash (referred to as “Erythema migrans”). As many as 80% of infected people may develop a rash, and roughly 20% of the time the rash has a characteristic “bull’s-eye” appearance.

When left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system.

Later-stage symptoms may not appear until weeks or months after a tick bite occurs. They include:

  • heart-rhythm irregularities
  • arthritis (usually as pain and swelling in large joints, especially the knee)
  • nervous system abnormalities

Permanent damage to the joints or the nervous system can develop in patients with late Lyme disease. It is rarely, if ever, fatal.

Lyme Disease Test and Treatment

If you think you may have Lyme disease, contact your physician right away.

Your doctor may do a test for Lyme disease. The FDA regulates diagnostic tests to ensure that they are safe and effective. It’s important to know that blood tests that check for antibodies (produced by the body to fight infection) to the bacterium that causes Lyme disease are not useful if done soon after a tick bite. It typically takes 2 to 5 weeks after a tick bite for initial antibodies to develop.

For this reason, your doctor may recommend treatment with antibiotics before the diagnostic tests are complete. According to the CDC, patients treated with appropriate antibiotics in the early stages of Lyme disease usually recover rapidly and completely.

What Precautions Can I Take Against Tick Bites?

  • Avoid wooded, brushy, and grassy areas, especially in May, June, and July.
  • Wear light-colored clothing so that you can see ticks that get on you.
  • Wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts, and shoes that cover the entire foot.
  • Tuck pant legs into socks or shoes, and tuck shirts into pants.
  • Wear a hat for extra protection.
  • Spray insect repellent containing DEET on clothes and uncovered skin.
  • Walk in the center of trails to avoid brush and grass.
  • Remove your clothing, and wash and dry them at high temperatures after being outdoors.
  • Do a careful body check for ticks after outdoor activities.

Lyme Disease in Dogs and Other Pets

Household pets can get Lyme disease, too. Typical symptoms in animals include swollen joints and lameness, fever, and loss of appetite. Experts in the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) say that dogs with Lyme disease occasionally develop serious kidney disease that can be fatal.

There are ways you can reduce your pet’s risk for tick bites and Lyme disease. Regularly checking pets for all types of ticks, for instance, reduces the risk of infection for both pet and owner. Avoid allowing your dog to roam in tick-infested areas.

Topical, oral and/or collar products are also very important in preventing Lyme disease in dogs.

There are two basic types of Lyme disease vaccines available for dogs. Talk to your veterinarian to see if vaccination is appropriate for your dog. There is no vaccination for cats, which do not seem susceptible to Lyme disease.

Updated: May 24, 2018

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