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Josue Pau
END1101/Massey
12/8/15

Chronic Lyme disease

Imagine waking up with a certain amount of spoons every day, for each task that you do
one spoon gets checked off and you are only able to do so much before your energy levels crash
and you start to feel fatigue. That is what it feels like to live with chronic lyme disease. People
often overlook this disease as non-important due to the fact that you can't physically tell if
someone has it or not. This is a disease that is spread by ticks, if you were to get bit by an
infected tick then you contract the disease- but this usually isn't the case with all tick bites. It is a
disease that is common here in the U.S., as well as Asia, Canada, and Europe. The ticks that can
spread the disease (here in the U.S.) are deer ticks and western black-legged ticks. Not treating
the Lyme effectively or ignoring it will cause victims to develop severe symptoms which will be
difficult to treat.
However, Lyme disease can be managed with the use of antibiotics. Being diagnosed
with Lyme doesnt necessarily mean that your life is coming to an end (although it might seem
like it), it just means that you cant do all of the things that you did before- you need to take it
slow day by day. Surprisingly, not many people know that this disease exists and are completely
unaware of it. We must raise awareness and teach others ways of preventing the contraction of
Lyme from ticks by avoiding any contact with ticks.

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Like every illness, Lyme has its symptoms. The first stage is noticing a rash at the spot
where you got bitten by the tick itself. Once you notice the rash you will start to experience
weakness in both your legs and arms, followed by some memory loss, as well as pain. Over time,
these symptoms will escalate and turn into arthritis, numbness on your hands/feet/back, and lead
to the loss of control over the muscles in your face. Fatigue is one of the main symptoms that you
will feel over all, your body will feel as if it has the flu and you wont want to move from your
bed- as if you were a vegetable.
Not only do the symptoms affect your body, but it affects your mind as well. About 62%
of patients who have Lyme disease feel depressed. Can you blame them? Feeling incapable of
living a happy healthy life is not
something that you can get over.
It gets lonely and isolating
when youre always in a room
taking loads of medicine while
everyone you know is outside
of that door living their lives.
You feel as if you have nothing
Figure 1. Above you can see a close up of a tick biting a
victim. This is how the contraction of Lyme disease starts.

left to live for and wonder if

your life is really worth living.

Other symptoms include fever, sweats, chills, neck pain, neuropathy, headaches, and issues with
sleep.
Clearly, the disease is capable of spreading to any part of your body. It usually damages
any body system as it progresses. This disease consumes you on the inside and you have no

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control over it. There is no cure to get rid of Lyme but there are medicines and treatments that
help make living with the disease possible and less painful. If you know someone who has Lyme
disease and they rarely go out with you and your friends- dont take it personal, theyre fighting a
battle within themselves and they need all the rest they can get. Most patients have confessed to
having less friends after being diagnosed due to the fact that they cant be as social as they were.
Getting diagnosed with Lyme is a clinical diagnosis. A combination of things determine if
you have the disease or not- the symptoms you may feel, your exposure to ticks, and of course
your medical history. If you get a negative result when testing for Lyme, it does not mean that
youre in the cleardiagnostics tests for the disease are insensitive meaning that you can still
have the disease even if the test result says otherwise. And if you do have Lyme and your test
results come out negative as well, it may be that you have a strain of the illness that the test
doesnt pick up on. Your immune system could possibly be over powered and it led to the false
positive result.
The most common tests are Western blot and ELISA (which means enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay). Both of these tests measure the antibodies but are indirect tests. Doctors
confirm that a patient has the disease with the Western blot test after that patient has already
taken an ELISA test. For about a month and a half after contracting Lyme these tests are not
trustworthy because most victims still have not developed the antibody response that the test
checks. This is why they have two-tier testing. Two-tier testing is the use of two tests, the first
test is a screening that detects any possibility of having Lyme, and the one that follows is to only
diagnose people who have the disease. Usually two-tier testing is highly specific.
Lets not forget that children are not unsusceptible from contracting Lyme disease either.
Children cant always fully describe what theyre feeling because they dont know how to

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communicate thoroughly so they tend to act out because something inside of them feels
uncomfortable and they dont know what. Parents usually think that theyre kids are just being
cranky or going through the terrible twos stage but in some cases, theyre experiencing
symptoms of Lyme disease.
The bodies of kids with Lyme disease are always hurting making them go through a lot of
suffering. Sometimes they might not get any sleep at night because the disease interrupts their
sleep, they wont feel like playing anymore. Since their parents and teachers probably dont
realize that they have the disease- theyll feel abandoned or even betrayed because they arent
getting any help from the adults in their life. The symptoms of Lyme are constantly changing and
arent specific so its only common sense that adults fail to see that a child has it.
Parents will often think that their child is making things up in order to get attention or to
persuade the parents into letting them stay home and miss out on school. But truly, they arent
lying and are actually suffering right in front of their eyes. In school kids with the disease go
through a lot of trouble with keeping up. Lyme leads to disabilities in learning which will make it
difficult for kids to succeed in their classes when they really want to- it can also cause the student
to act out. Kids are the ones that we need to protect the most from Lyme because since they are
significantly smaller than teens and adults, they are closer to the ground. Not to mention that they
already play in grass and roll around in leaves. Playing with their pets also increases their
possibility of contracting Lyme because the fur on pets is literally a magnet to ticks.
Most of us have pets, right? We bring animals into our home and treat them as a part of
our families and feed them and devote a lot of time and energy (and money) into taking care of
them- but we dont realize that animals can also contract and/or carry Lyme disease. The fur on
animals such as dogs, cats, and horses attract ticks the same way that blood attracts sharks or

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crumbs attracts ants. Im not saying to not have a pet or never go near an animal ever again, Im
just saying to be careful when rolling around with your dog or cuddling with your cat. If you are
the owner of a pet then you should always check them for ticks. I would recommend using tick
collars and other flea/tick treatments in order to avoid ticks from inhabiting your pets fur.
To sum up, Chronic Lyme disease is a real disease that can affect us all in ways we cant
imagine. Over time, Lyme can cause a plethora of symptoms that changes the way you are able
to live your life. Since tests for Lyme disease are insensitive, you shouldnt rely on a negative
test result because nothing is promised. Children are certainly not immune to getting the
disease. You should ask kids whats wrong if you see that they are irritable or take them to a
doctor to get them checked. Kids and people of all ages touch animals or own pets, when doing
so be careful because animal fur can attract ticks. Next time you see a child having a tantrum,
think twice about rolling your eyes. If you feel sick or see an uncommon rash on your body, go
to the doctors. And if you own any dogs or catsmaybe you shouldnt let them crawl into bed
with you tonight.

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