The development of Lyme disease is quite an interesting topic. One question that I was asked was, “How long does a tick have to be on you in order to give you the Lyme disease?” So I decided that I should really start at the very beginning when talking about the difference between acute and chronic Lyme disease.
You get Lyme disease from a tick bite. A tick will wait on the end of a blade of grass or leaf of a shrub, waiting for a person or animal to walk by that they can grab. Once they have been able to get onto a host (person or animal) they look for a good feeding ground. This is usually in a dark area such as the groin, arm pit, or scalp.
WARNING! This is about to get graphic and disgusting!
When the tick has found the place it would like to feed he cuts into the skin putting a little antiseptic around the cut as he goes so that the host does not feel it. He inserts a feeding tube and puts a cement like substance around the tube so it stays in place. The tick will stay like this until it has it’s fill. It then uses some saliva to remove the cement substance (this is usually how the Lyme bacteria enters the host’s body through this saliva), and drops off the host until it is ready for its next meal. A tick will mostly likely stay on their host for 24-48 hours.
If you catch the tick within 24 hours there is a low chance of the tick infecting your body. The longer the tick is attached to you the higher the chance for the bacteria to transfer into the body of the host. When removing a tick be careful not to squeeze it to hard because you don’t want the saliva to enter.
Ticks don’t actually create Lyme bacteria but receive the Lyme bacteria from animals such as deer, mice, or other rodents, after a tick is exposed to the bacteria it will infect anything else that it feeds on. A human cannot directly receive the Lyme bacteria from other animals, though some would argue that mosquitos may carry a small amount of the bacteria as well (this hasn’t been scientifically confirmed). There is also some research that shows that humans can pass it on to each other either via a blood transfusion or a mother to her fetus through the placenta.
Once the bacteria has entered the body there are some common symptoms but keep in mind that not everyone has symptoms, or the same ones. Some symptoms are; fever, chills headache, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, and swollen lymph nodes. The most common symptom that medical doctors associate with Lyme disease is a bull's eye rash. There will be a small red mark where the tick bite is and then a red circle around it. The circle can grow each day until it is about 12 inches across. This rash is found in 70-80 percent of people with Lyme disease. Symptoms can show up 3-30 days after the bite. If you live in a place that has ticks that are known to carry Lyme disease you may want to mark down in the calendar when you get a tick bit to see if you will develop any symptoms within 30 days.
There is an organization that you can send your ticks to, to find out if the tick is infected with Lyme bacteria. Simply keep the tick after you remove it and mail it in, I believe there is a fee for this service. If the tick is not infected with Lyme then neither are you. Some people, I believe, choose to do it this way because the window for testing your blood is so small and not very accurate. If you get tested the first week after getting bit, the test often comes back negative, since your body has not had time to build up antibody’s to fight the bacteria. After 30 days there is a chance that the test will not come back positive and after 60 the chance of a positive test is very low. After 30-60 days of infection is when the Lyme disease turns chronic.
Chronic Lyme disease is when the Borrelia (Lyme bacteria) is no longer in your blood but has entered your cells. This is what the Canadian medical field does not believe exists. I have still not figured out why the medical system here in Canada does not want to believe this exists. Some people say that it is all political, but I don’t know what that means, or why it is political. One thing that I have thought of (this is just my musings so please do not take this as fact) is that doctors are being told to not use antibiotics as much as before because they have found how harmful it can be to patients. With chronic Lyme disease patients may need years of strong antibiotics! One thing we do know is that doctors and pharmacists that do help people with Lyme disease here in Canada risk having their license taken from them!
This is when your immune system becomes the main factor of how your life is going to be. If you have a strong immune system, you will be able to co-exist with the Borrelia bacteria for a long time, but once your immune system is compromised at all it will create problems in your body. Another way for you to prevent Lyme disease from taking over your life, especially if you live in a Lyme infected area, is to live a healthy life style. This means being careful what you eat (limiting your herbicide, pesticide and preservative intake), limiting stress, limiting toxins in your daily living (including chemicals, dust, mold), and in general paying close attention to your body and what it needs. Sleep, exercise, and a good diet are three essential elements to build, and keep strong, your immune system.
When your immune system does crash and you have a Lyme flare up one of three things happens. The Borrelia will attack either your nervous system, muscular system or digestive system. One of the reasons that it causes so much damage is that it does not just attack one organ but a whole system at once. If it attacks the nervous system your will get confused, terrible fatigue, short term memory loss, a feeling of being poisoned in your head, and a tingling in your body. If it attacks your muscular system, it may be physically hard, or impossible, to move. This could be because of weak muscles or a general feeling of paralyses. You may have random shooting pain in your legs or other parts of your body. If it attacks your digestive system, you will not be able to process food properly, nor receive all the nutrients from food or water. In each case if a whole system goes down like that, it effects the rest of the body. If the nervous system gets attacked you may also feel paralyzed. If you are not receiving the nutrients from what you eat your brain will begin to break down and memory loss and fatigue become very real.
So this was a very long and scary post that gave little hope, and lots of information. Here is what I have been learning through all of this. God has made our bodies to work so well together that it is crazy and so amazing! Each system is made to work with another to give us the best quality of life. I have come to believe that I need to do a better job of feeding and taking care of the body that God gave me. When sin came into the world so did all kinds of diseases. There are some things that are inevitable and Lyme disease is one of them. BUT the hope that comes along with that is that there is something that we can do to both prevent and fight it, and that is to live how God intended, without worry, with rest and good food that HE gave us.
References:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - the website that I used for the research for this post.
Geneticks - the Canadian organization that test ticks for Lyme bacteria.
