Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Lyme Disease for teens

Lyme disease
Teens are at high risk for Lyme disease because they spend a lot of time outdoors. You may play sports, or have an outdoor job, or just like to walk through the woods. Unfortunately, all these activities expose you to the hundreds of tiny ticks living in the brush and grasses, and some of those ticks carry Lyme disease.

Lyme disease - It is an infection caused by bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi) that causes skin rashes, fatigue, fever, chills, and pain and swelling in the muscles and joints. If left untreated, Lyme disease can lead to heart problems and even neurological (pertaining to the brain) disorders, such as the inability to move certain muscles.

What can you do about it? You might be tempted to stay inside during the summer (when ticks are most active), but there’s no need for that. There are plenty of ways to avoid ticks when you are outdoors in grassy and wooded areas. Even if a tick does bite you, there is only a small chance that the tick is carrying the Lyme bacteria, and even if it is, it takes 24-48 hours for a tick to infect you with the bacteria, so it is important to remove it as soon as possible. Also, it is useful to determine what kind of tick it is. Certain kinds of ticks don’t carry Lyme disease, but some carry other diseases.

If you are bitten by a tick that could carry Lyme disease (such as a Deer Tick, Western Black-Legged Tick, or Lone Star Tick), you need to watch for the first symptoms of the disease. Most people who have Lyme disease develop a bull’s-eye rash around the tick bite, but many people do not. Other early symptoms of Lyme are similar to the flu or mono, such as fever, fatigue, chills, headaches, and joint and muscle pain. If you have symptoms like these for several days, you should see your doctor. He might give you a blood test to see if you have Lyme disease.

If Lyme disease is left untreated, it can develop into late Lyme disease. Most people with late Lyme disease have an intense fatigue, arthritis, stiff neck, and fever, and a few experience paralysis in (inability to move) their face muscles or an irregular heartbeat.

Doctors usually treat Lyme disease with an antibiotic called doxycycline, taken in pill form for about a month. In more severe cases, however, you might have to take the pills for several months, or receive injections of antibiotics instead.

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