Combatting Lyme Disease

Recently my dear friend was tested for Lyme Disease at the urging of several of her doctors.  I took a bit of my spare time and learned a bit about what Lyme Disease is and how it can be dealt with.  I thought I'd share it here since it didn't seem that my internet searches turned up as much as I had hoped it would.  Maybe this will be helpful for someone, somewhere, someday.  :)

Adult Deer Tick

Lyme Disease is caused by a bacteria that is introduced to the body through a deer tick bite.  If the bacterial infection isn't defeated quickly it will continue to multiply in the body and begin to affect various parts of the body with an array of symptoms ranging from:

Stage 1: Circular rash and flu-like symptoms

Stage 2: Muscle and joint pains, heart palpitations and dizzyness, neurological problems and head aches.

Stage 3: Chronic symptoms affecting nearly every part of the body that can even lead to motor sensory impairment in the lower parts of the body (think paralysis).

The short of the story is that this bacterial infection has been found in the tissues of the skin, muscle, joint, heart and nervous systems.  It has the potential to make a big mess of a person's life!

It's a recent 'discovery' (the 1970's) which  makes me wonder why, in years gone by, it wasn't recognized as a disease.  That got me thinking quite a bit!   Why would a bacterial infection be-all-of-the-sudden newly discovered in recent years?  I'm inclined to think that it has more to do with the lifestyles and health of people today than it does with the bacteria or the tick.