What part of the body does Lyme disease affect?

Lyme disease can affect different body systems, such as the nervous system, joints, skin, and heart.

Where does Lyme disease live in the body?

It can affect any organ of the body, including the brain and nervous system, muscles and joints, and the heart. Patients with Lyme disease are frequently misdiagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, and various psychiatric illnesses, including depression.

How does lymes affect the body?

Typical symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. Lyme disease is diagnosed based on symptoms, physical findings (e.g., rash), and the possibility of exposure to infected ticks.

What part of the brain does Lyme disease affect?

Lyme disease appears to have two primary patterns of brain involvement on FDG PET scans, specific temporal lobe hypometabolism or a diffuse cortical hypometabolism. The involvement of the temporal lobes in both patterns is likely associated with the memory disturbances described in many of these patients.

What are the top 3 severe symptoms of Lyme disease?

These include fever, rash, facial paralysis, and arthritis. The appearance of the erythema migrans rash can vary widely.

What Does Lyme Disease Do To Your Body?

How do you feel when you have Lyme disease?

Erythema migrans is one of the hallmarks of Lyme disease, although not everyone with Lyme disease develops the rash. Some people develop this rash at more than one place on their bodies. Other symptoms. Fever, chills, fatigue, body aches, headache, neck stiffness and swollen lymph nodes can accompany the rash.

What are the 3 stages of Lyme disease?

What is Stage 4 Lyme disease?

Late persistent Lyme disease

If Lyme disease isn't promptly or effectively treated, damage to the joints, nerves, and brain may develop months or years after you become infected. It is the last and often the most serious stage of the disease.

How does Lyme disease affect the heart?

Lyme carditis is a rare infection that occurs when Lyme bacteria enters your heart tissue. The bacteria affects your heart's electrical system. Your heartbeat slows, and electrical signals have trouble traveling from your heart's upper chambers to the lower chambers. Doctors call this condition heart block.

Does Lyme disease make your legs hurt?

BODY ACHE. If you've contracted Lyme disease, you may experience muscle soreness or joint pain. Your knees are most likely to be affected, and joint pain can get more severe as the disease progresses.

What joints are affected by Lyme disease?

The main feature of Lyme arthritis is obvious swelling of one or a few joints. While the knees are affected most often, other large joints such as the shoulder, ankle, elbow, jaw, wrist, and hip can also be involved. The joint may feel warm to the touch or cause pain during movement.

Does Lyme disease affect your muscles?

Musculoskeletal involvement, particularly arthritis, is a common feature of Lyme disease. Early in the illness, patients may experience migratory musculoskeletal pain in joints, bursae, tendons, muscle, or bone in one or a few locations at a time, frequently lasting only hours or days in a given location.

Can Lyme disease cause hip pain?

Lyme disease

Though we typically think of the bullseye rash that's an early warning sign, lyme disease is systemic. It causes joint swelling and in turn, hip pain, which can be severe.

Does Lyme disease stay in your body forever?

No. Patients treated with antibiotics in the early stages of the infection usually recover rapidly and completely. Most patients who are treated in later stages of the disease also respond well to antibiotics, although some may have suffered long-term damage to the nervous system or joints.

Does Lyme disease affect your liver?

Elevated levels of liver enzyme activity are common during infection and other diseases and may indicate that the liver is a site of infection during human Lyme disease.

What happens if you go untreated for Lyme disease?

What happens if Lyme disease is untreated? Left untreated, Lyme disease can spread to joints and organs, causing significant damage. Arthritis, heart disease, and nervous system problems are common complications of untreated Lyme disease.

Does Lyme disease affect the lungs?

Interestingly, in the medical literature, a case has been reported of lyme disease and respiratory decompensation through diaphgramatic paralysis [15]. Also, Silva et al. described three cases of acute respiratory failure from neuroborreliosis, and these patients had encephalopathy and brainstem abnormalities [16].

Can Lyme cause blurred vision?

Lyme disease and related tick-borne illnesses can cause a sudden blurring of vision and other eye problems. Optic neuritis is inflammation of the optic nerve. The condition typically causes temporary vision loss in one eye and is often associated with multiple sclerosis (MS).

How does Lyme disease affect the digestive system?

Horowitz, MD notes that Lyme and co-infections can cause inflammation leading to issues such as abdominal pain, nausea, gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or reflux disease, with occasional vomiting.

Can Lyme cause weight gain?

Stubborn weight gain is not unusual in that the bacteria damage the metabolism, thyroid, adrenals, and gut. It's disheartening, truly.

Can Lyme disease affect your eyes?

Fortunately, involvement of the eye is uncommon in lyme disease. But when the eyes can be affected in many different ways by the disease. In the early stage of the disease, many persons have conjunctivitis. In this condition, commonly called pink eye, the eyes are red and uncomfortable, and there is a discharge of pus.

What are neurological symptoms of Lyme disease?

Neurological complications most often occur in the second stage of Lyme disease, with numbness, pain, weakness, Bell's palsy (paralysis of the facial muscles), visual disturbances, and meningitis symptoms such as fever, stiff neck, and severe headache.

How do doctors check for Lyme disease?

A doctor will test your blood for antibodies that are trying to fight the bacteria in your blood. One of these tests is called the ELISA test, and you'll often have a second test called the Western blot test to confirm you have Lyme disease. To treat Lyme disease, you may need to take antibiotics for up to a month.

What are symptoms of late stage Lyme disease?

What are long term effects of Lyme disease?

Chronic symptoms of Lyme are a much longer list and may include vertigo, ringing in the ears, short-term memory loss, light and sound sensitivity, mood swings, anxiety, depression, heart palpitations, and serious cardiac problems.