Joe was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Exposure to the Borrelia burgdorferi spirochete (syphilis is a spirochete) has turned this healthy forester into a debilitated man who is now on disability. Lyme disease has wrecked his career, his future health, and potential earnings. Even after treatment Joe has memory lapses and numbness in his fingers. Every day his arthritic pain tortures him and makes even getting up in the mornings a painful experience.
This feature is for you, Joe.
In 1883 a German physician records the first case of what is now known as Lyme disease. Medical science swept the condition under the rug for nearly 100 years. In 1975, a mysterious clustering of arthritis occurred among children in Lyme, Connecticut. Researchers probed the mystery and named the condition Lyme disease.
Antibiotic therapy is now the main treatment and spiral-shaped Borrelia burgdorferi is the bacterium associated with the disease. This creature is found in mammal blood upon infection and is transmitted by the tick "spitome" or saliva. The spirochete is transfered when the tick feeds on a desirable host. Roughly 17,000 infections are reported in the United States each year. The illness often goes unreported and the real numbers are probably higher.
The wood or black-legged deer tick (genus-Ixodes) has been identified as the key to its spread. This condition had been described in medical literature dating back to the turn of the century but surprisingly little research has been done until recently.
The number of cases, as well as endemic regions in the United States, have been increasing. Lyme disease is reported in nearly every state in the U.S. There are concentrated areas in the northeast, mid-Atlantic states, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and northern California. Lyme disease is endemic to Europe and Asia.
