When Lyme disease is most prevalent

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta Georgia June, July and August are the months that you are most likely to contract Lyme disease in. During these months, more people are actively exposed to ticks because more people are outside doing activities.

How many people catch Lyme disease each year?

According to the Center for Disease Control there are thirty thousand reported cases of Lyme disease each year. It is believed that the actual number of cases may be a lot higher than that, but many cases of Lyme disease may either go unreported to medical professionals, or they may be misdiagnosed as another condition. The Center for Disease Control believes that the number of actual cases of Lyme disease may be ten times the number that is actually reported each year.

What exactly is Lyme disease?

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection spread by the bite of the black legged deer tick that is found predominantly in the northeast and the Midwestern states.

What are the symptoms of the disease?

The first thing that people with Lyme disease will notice is a bull’s eye red rash around the bite mark. The bull’s eye red rash may develop a few days after you have been bitten by an infected tick, and it may not appear for several weeks after the initial bite. This rash is often accompanied by flu like symptoms of body aches, extreme fatigue, and fevers.

Why is Lyme disease so hard to diagnose?

The people who get Lyme disease may not even know they were bitten by an infected tick. If you do not see the tick, but see the bull’s eye red rash, you may not associate the rash you are seeing with Lyme disease.

One of the biggest reasons that Lyme disease is hard to identify and diagnose is that not everyone that gets bitten by an infected tick will have the tell-tale rash as one of their symptoms. The person may just feel fatigued and have vague flu like symptoms.

When people do develop the bull’s-eye rash, it could occur a few days after they are bitten, or it could occur a few weeks after they are bitten. This makes pinpointing what the person was doing when they got infected almost impossible.

How to protect yourself from being bitten by an infected tick

The best treatment for Lyme disease is to prevent yourself from being bitten by an infected tick. The best preventions methods are:

  • For you to use an insect repellant that contains at least twenty percent DEET. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, you should never use products containing DEET on children who are less than two months of age.
  • Wear long pants, long sleeved shirts, socks and shoes when you will be in the woods.
  • Wear light colored clothing so ticks are easy to spot
  • Check yourself daily for ticks after you come indoors