Lyme Disease: A Case Study

Lyme disease first took notice as pediatric arthritis incidents in Lyme, Connecticut dating back to 1970. It has since then become a grim public health distress in Europe and certain areas in the United States. Additionally, it has been the most common vector-borne disease in the United States (Glass et al., 1995). Lyme disease is a growing epidemic according to Nichols (2013) and is thought to be widely unreported since becoming a nationally classifiable disease in 1991. True numbers may indicate hundreds of thousand cases. Because of its rapid increase, the cultivation of vaccine that is safe and effective has become a priority (Steere et al., 1998).

The suspect of such disease is a spirochete bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. It is transmitted

Typical clinical manifestations include headache, fatigue, fever, and a distinguishable skin rash known as erythema migrans. Lyme disease is diagnosed based on the signs, symptoms, and possible exposure to the infected ticks; but due to different manifestations, positive diagnosis can be difficult (Goossens, van den Bogaard, & Nohlmans, 1999). It is imperative to comprehend the pretest probability of the disease when making a diagnosis and interpreting lab results because over diagnosis has led to various needless uses of antibiotics. Areas that are prevalent have the highest pretest probability (Nichols,

It said that recommended treatment for all cases of Borrelia burgdorferi is antibiotics. Patients treated during the early stages of Lyme disease recover quickly and completely, given that they received the appropriate antibiotics. Additionally, the length of treatment and method of administration depends on the stage of illness. Antibiotics given orally include amoxicillin, cefuroxime axetil or doxycycline. Ceftriaxone or penicillin antibiotics are given to those patients with cardiac or neurological forms of illness intravenously. Treatment for symptom by symptom can also be used, including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID), intra-articular injection of corticosteroids, or disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (Nichols, 2013).

Patients treated for Lyme disease for a long period of time continue to experience lingering symptoms of fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, headache, and memory and concentration difficulties after treatment. These prolong symptoms can last for six months or more and is called chronic Lyme disease but properly known as post-Lyme disease syndrome (PLDS). The exact cause of PLDS has not yet been uncovered, but some health care providers tell their patients that PLDS reflects the persistent of Borrelia burgdorferi (Nichols,