Lyme disease was first found in a group children in Lyme, Connecticut.
Symptoms and enviromental conditions suggested that the disease was .
transmitted by an arthropod, deer ticks. Further investigation into the cause.
of the disease showed that it is caused by a bacterium, Borrelia burgdorfei.
Physicians actually first observed this disease in the early twentieth .
century, in Europe, when patients with a red, slowly expanding rash, which .
was associated with ticks, started to appear. The physicians proposed that .
it was caused by a bacteria. In the 1940's physicians began to treat this .
kind of rash with penicillin. Then in the mid-1970's, physicians observed a .
group of children with arthritis. Researchers found that the use of penicillin .
shortened the duration of the rash and also reduced the risk of subsequent .
arthritis. In 1984, evidence was found that the B. burgdorferi caused Lyme .
disease when it was cultured from the blood of patients from the rash area. .
Lyme disease was nationally notified as a disease in Janurary 1991.
You get this disease from Ixodes ticks which are much smaller than dog.
or cattle ticks. The tick gives you the bacteria by feeding off the blood. They .
insert their mouths into the skin and slowly take in blood. They are most .
likely to transmit the bacteria after feeding for two or more days. .
The first sign of having the first stages of the disease is bull's-eye rash.
around the bite. Accompanied by this are migrans, a fever, malaise, fatigue, .
headaches, muscle and joint aches. The severity of the symptoms may vary .
from person to person. The incubation period until the onset of symptoms.
.
is normally seven to fourteen days but may be as short as three days or as.
long as thirty days. Later symptoms may cause disease of the nervous and .
musculoskeletal system. Late stages of the disease include swelling of major.
joints like the knees, sleep disturbance, fatigue, and personality changes.
