DENOMINATION

• Fever appellant

DEFINITION

The Lyme illness is a sharp inflammatory illness characterized by changes in the skin joined symptoms "as of flu", caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, and transmitted by the sting of a tick of deer or rat.

CAUSES, INCIDENCE AND FACTORS OF RISK

The Lyme illness was described for the first time in the city of Lyme, Connecticut, in 1975. Since then, cases have been described in many other places. It is an endemic illness in many parts of the world.

The deer and the rats, which serve as host to the tick, are the animals more often infected, but the domestic animals also are guests in the cycle of reproduction of the ticks (adult larva - ninfa-forma). In the nymph's stadium they are very small and they can already be infected by the Borrelia burgdorferi, being in this phase when the broadcast risk to the man is more important since his place in hair areas (English, hair, armpits) can happen unnoticed. Most of the infections happens in summer.

When an infected individual is a louses bearer, these can be infected across the blood, what converts them into transmitters of the illness to other persons. The transmission for blood, saliva or other secretions has remained discarded.

This illness is difficult to diagnose since his symptoms they imitate those of other illnesses. First turns out to be in the area of the sting a very typical eruption, although the sting cannot be evident. A few months later, a muscular palsy accompanied by inflammation appears in the joints, neurological symptoms and, sometimes, cardiac alterations.

The initial infection is called an illness of primary Lyme. From this one there develop the secondary E.L. and the tertiary E.L.

PREVENTION

It is based in avoiding the exhibition to the ticks and to the louses.

When it goes of excursion, or I walked along infected ticks areas, I used long pants and boots to protect the legs. Use blunt and upper intermediate. The ticks see better on textiles of clear colors that in the dark ones, what is better to start them of the clothes. Look often as well as to his domestic animal. If it finds some tick, take it immediately with a tweezer and propulsion carefully outside. The application of a repellent one for insects can be helpful on having gone to the field.

SYMPTOMS

• Prick or red injury inflamed (eritema migratory) next to the sting, is an injury circinada red that makes the center free.
• Expansion of the red injury that goes to more as the days happen, can last from 3 until 30 days.
• Fever.
• Headache.
• Lethargy.
• Muscular pains.
• Rigid neck.
• Inflammation in the knees and other joints.
• General pain.
• Strange or unusual behavior.

ANALYSIS AND TEST

• Physical examination (cutaneous injury), history of sting, typical symptoms (signs gripales persistent with knees arthritis).La appearance of signs of arthritis or neurological injuries can differ in months or years to the sting.
• Antibodies B or burgdorferi for inmunofluorescencia (IFA) or ELISA. The value of these analyses has not been normalized completely, and can have false positives and negatives, especially in the initial phases (skin) of the illness

TREATMENT

Antibiotics are prescribed as lú stages and declarations: eritromicina, tetraciclina, doxiciclina, cefuroxima and penicillin. The oral tetraciclina does not prescribe children who do not have the definitive teeth since it can discolor the teeth that are still forming.

There is not known the real efficacy of the precocious treatment in the appearance of neurological injuries, for what this treatment does not seem to guarantee the absence of complications in this sense.

The anti-inflammatory ones are prescribed to relieve the rigidity in the joints.

PROGNOSIS

If it is diagnosed soon (in the first stages) the illness is treated by antibiotics. If it is left without treating there can be complications in the joints, the heart and the nervous system.

COMPLICATIONS

• Illness of Lyme would help (rheumatisms)
• Illness of tertiary Lyme (neurological affectation)

TO SEE ALSO

• Ticks
• Illnesses transmitted by the ticks

WHAT DOCTOR CAN TREAT ME?

Call his doctor if there develop the symptoms of the illness of Lyme.

• DERMATOLOGISTS
• SPECIALISTS IN INFECTIOUS ILLNESSES
• SPECIALISTS IN INTERNAL MEDICINE

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