In the United States, nearly 500,000 people are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year. In some cases, the first symptom is a skin rash that appears one to four weeks after the infected tick bite. But it doesn’t necessarily look the way you might imagine: only 20% of these rashes show the classic bull’s-eye appearance characteristic of Lyme disease.
Other early symptoms of Lyme disease are similar to those of the flu: fever, chills, muscle aches, and swollen lymph nodes. During the first five to ten days of Lyme disease infection, most people experience only these relatively common symptoms. If Lyme disease is diagnosed and treated in time, the story may end there.
However, for those who are not diagnosed in time and therefore do not receive proper treatment, the disease causes persistent, severe symptoms. Researchers do not know exactly what causes chronic Lyme disease, but they suspect that factors such as residual infection or genetic predisposition may be involved. Once someone is infected, “almost anything is possible,” says Dr. Amy Edwards, an assistant professor of paediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine who specialises in infectious diseases. The complex symptoms often surprise doctors, but “once you’ve been surprised a few times, you start looking for it everywhere. Every time someone comes in with strange symptoms, you think, ‘Could it be Lyme disease?'”
Here are some lesser-known symptoms that Lyme disease can cause, especially as the disease progresses.
Heart problems
If Lyme disease is not treated effectively in its early stages, it can affect the heart, nervous system and musculoskeletal system, says Dr. Amy Duckro, an infectious disease specialist at Kaiser Permanente in Colorado. For example, in 1 out of 100 patients, the Lyme disease bacteria enter the heart tissue, a condition known as Lyme carditis. This type of heart inflammation can lead to dizziness, fainting, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat or chest pain.
In some cases, people develop atrioventricular block, which is a blockage that prevents electrical signals from passing from the upper chambers of the heart to the lower chambers. If the blockage is particularly severe, patients often need a temporary pacemaker and intravenous antibiotics, says Dr. Sunjya K. Schweig, a member of the scientific advisory board of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to accelerating breakthroughs in the treatment of Lyme disease. He wants people to be aware of this possibility and to take symptoms such as a rapid heartbeat seriously. “It’s treatable, it’s curable, but if it goes unrecognised, it can be fatal,” he says. “This is very serious.”
Brain fog
It took Kirsten Stein more than two years and 15 medical examinations to be diagnosed with Lyme disease. During that time, she struggled with a number of mental and physical symptoms. The most alarming were brain fog and short-term memory loss, which clouded her thoughts every day: she remembers, for example, running into a close friend and not being able to remember the names of her children, even though she saw them several times a week. “I remember thinking, ‘This isn’t good,'” she says. During a conversation with her husband, she couldn’t remember the word “glass,” so she started pointing at objects; during a game with friends, she went to the bathroom because she couldn’t think clearly enough to participate in the game. On another occasion, she took her son to school and five minutes later asked her daughter where her son was. “It was awful,” she says.
Many patients report similar brain fog, says Schweig. It is likely caused by inflammation in the central nervous system triggered by Lyme disease. “We see a lot of brain effects: difficulty concentrating, difficulty thinking, difficulty reading and absorbing information,” he says. “This can be extremely disruptive to people’s lives because they can’t function normally. They can’t study, work, pay attention, carry out projects and complete their tasks normally.”
Bell’s palsy
The 12 nerves that originate in the brain, known as cranial nerves, play an important role in the sensation and movement of various parts of the head, face, neck and trunk. Lyme disease can affect these nerves and cause Bell’s palsy, which results in sudden weakness or paralysis on one side of the face. This is particularly common in adults and usually occurs a few weeks or months after infection.
Eye problems
In the early stages of Lyme disease, people sometimes experience eye irritation and conjunctivitis. As the disease progresses, “facial nerve inflammation or infections can develop, which can cause double vision, or diplopia,” says Schweig. Research shows that Lyme disease can cause sudden vision loss, optic nerve damage and neurotrophic keratitis (decreased sensitivity of the cornea). Blurred vision, eye spots, tearing, extreme sensitivity to light and inflammation of the retina may also occur.
Hearing problems
The inflammation caused by Lyme disease can affect the inner ear, causing a number of symptoms, including hearing loss and tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, says Schweig. Ear problems can also cause dizziness and balance disorders.
In a study of 216 people living with tick-borne diseases, 162 experienced ear, nose and throat symptoms, which the study authors describe as a “common manifestation”. The most common complaint was tinnitus (77% of participants), followed by dizziness and light-headedness (54%), headaches (39%) and unilateral sensorineural hearing loss, or hearing loss in one ear (17%).
Arthritis
One of the most common symptoms of Lyme disease that Edwards sees in young people is arthritis. It often happens the same way: children show up in the emergency room in late autumn with large, swollen knees and possibly a slight fever. Sometimes they limp or are unable to put weight on their legs. “It’s not really that painful — it hurts, but it’s not debilitating,” he says. “Everyone asks, ‘Are you injured?’ But it turns out they have arthritis caused by a tick bite that they may not have even known about in the summer. “In fact, this is the most common way Lyme disease presents in children,” Edwards says. Children usually get better after starting a course of antibiotics. The problem is that not all doctors see the connection, which can delay diagnosis and proper treatment.
Debilitating fatigue
Research shows that Lyme disease can cause persistent fatigue, even when diagnosed and treated early. In one study, participants with Lyme disease were 8 to 15 times more likely to report moderate or severe fatigue than those who had never had the disease.
This matches the experience of Caitlin Durcan, 27, who contracted Lyme disease after being bitten by a tick while working at a summer camp in New York State. She experienced numerous symptoms for months — migraines, puberty-like emotional instability, brain fog, swollen eyes — before finding a doctor who prescribed an aggressive treatment regimen that largely alleviated her symptoms. Durcan was in college at the time, and one of the worst symptoms of the illness was overwhelming fatigue. “I felt constantly sluggish and tired,” he recalls. “I would go to class, come home and sleep for three hours. I would get up, go to class, come home and sleep. I couldn’t stay awake for a single day, and my friends said, ‘It’s obvious that something is very wrong.'”
Durcan, who never experienced traditional symptoms such as a rash or fever, says that his experience of recovering from Lyme disease completely changed his outlook on life. He was so relieved to be himself again that he began stepping out of his comfort zone, taking advantage of social opportunities and signing up for his first half marathon. He encourages others struggling with Lyme disease symptoms to continue standing up for themselves. “It’s a very tricky, strange disease, and it affects everyone differently,” she says. “It’s very important to find a doctor who believes you, understands that what you’re saying is true, and wants to help you.”
source: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/7-surprising-symptoms-lyme-disease-191530303.html
(C) Lyme Borreliosis Foundation
