This new disease, similar to Lyme disease, also causes chronic muscle pain, fatigue, and headache, but is much less responsive to antibiotic treatment. Having shown up in the United States in 2013, it spread to the United Kingdom in 2015.
Eight-legged biting ticks are often described as "summer's unwelcome guest." For about 30,000 people a year in the United States and about 250,000 people a year in other countries of the Northern Hemisphere, ticks become the harbingers of Lyme disease, a chronic infection that causes rashes, muscle aches that just won't go away, chronic fatigue, and a variety of neurological symptoms. The ubiquity of the disease is something we can blame on travel.
The microorganism that causes Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferii, has been around for thousands of years. The 5,000-year-old corpse of Ötzi the Iceman, discovered by hikers in the Alps of Austria, was found to harbor the disease. Even today, nearby Slovenia has the world's highest rates of the infection.The symptoms of the infection we now call Lyme disease were first described in 1764 by a Scottish physician named John Walker who had looked after a sick man on Deer Island (Jura) off the western Scottish coast. "Exquisite pain in the muscles," he wrote, caused by a "red worm." When Scottish people started emigrating to the United States in large numbers, also in the eighteenth century, the tick that carried the disease caught a ride with them, and it was in the United States that the disease flourished. An explorer of New England named John Josselyn had noted "there be infinite numbers of tikes (ticks) hanging upon the bushes in summer time that will cleave to man's garments and creep into his breeches eating themselves in a short time into the very flesh of a man. I have seen the stockins (stockings) of those that have gone through the woods covered with them." When the infection that causes "exquisite pain" met the "infinite numbers of ticks" in New England, it became a disease that would plague millions of people for hundreds of years, right down to the present.
Who Gets Lyme Disease? What Are the Symptoms of Lyme Disease?
In the United States, Europe, and Russia, Lyme disease is an infection most common in children (aged 5 to 12) and the active elderly (aged 60 to 69). The reason these two groups are most susceptible to the condition is that ticks have to remain attached to the skin 24 to 48 hours to transmit the infectious microorganism. Children younger than 5 usually don't play "roll down the hill" or take long hikes in dry grassy woodlands, people over 70 don't usually do a lot of hiking, and adults tend to notice ticks before they stay on the skin long enough to transmit the germ. Because of the shapes of hair, and the ease with which ticks can attach themselves to hair follicles, Lyme disease is much more common in whites than in other racial groups. However, anyone of any age can come down with the infection.
The initial symptoms of Lyme disease are not especially unpleasant. Usually a ring-shaped rash breaks out around the site of the bite.
If the skin is not deficient in vitamin D, the lymphatic system may be able to stop the infection from spreading. Vitamin D helps the body fight the infection at every stage.
If the infection is able to break out of the site of the initial bite, then a variety of odd symptoms may occur. There can be:
- Chronic muscle pain,
- Fever, chills, and sweats,
- Headaches,
- Insomnia,
- Unexplained lactation (in women),
- Hair loss,
- Loss of bladder control,
- Mood swings,
- Depression,
and about two dozen other symptoms. Because Borrelia burgdorferii is able to "roll into a ball" to protect itself, it is unusually resistant to antibiotic treatment. Lyme disease becomes a chronic health problem that resists medical intervention. However, Lyme disease turns out not to be the worst Borrelia infection carried by ticks.
What You Need To Know About Borrelia Miyamotoi Disease (BMD)
Borrelia miyamotoi disease (BMD) is a tick-borne infection that can cause even more severe symptoms than Lyme disease. BMD is also much harder to prevent and much harder to treat.
Lyme disease is spread by adult female blacklegged ticks that grow to about 1/4 inch (3 mm) wide and up to 1/2 inch (6 mm) long. An adult female tick has a red tail (the "red worm" described by the eighteenth century doctor). This red tail is opposite the mouth of the tick, which is attached to the skin. Adult male blacklegged ticks are about half as big, and don't have red hind parts. Adult ticks have a dark brown exoskeleton that makes them relatively easy to see on skin.
BMD is spread by unfed tick larvae that are less than 1/10 of an inch (about 1 mm) long. These immature ticks do not have a dark exoskeleton, and are much more difficult to identify, especially on white skin. Because larvae survive into the fall and winter months, they not only are less noticeable, they may appear outside of the usual "tick season." The larvae may attach themselves to the skin of hikers out to enjoy beautiful autumn scenes or taking shelter in wooded areas during a sudden snow squall. Most cases of BMD occur during the Northern Hemisphere summer months of July and August, but the infection can occur any time of year.
The symptoms caused by BMD are much more severe than those caused by Lyme disease. Among BMD patients in the United States, about 50 percent are suffering a potentially fatal condition called septic shock during their first visit with the doctor. BMD can also cause encephalitis, inflammation of the brain. A combination of intravenous antibiotics that have to be administered in the hospital often resolves symptoms, but the IV's may have to be administered around the clock for as long as two weeks.
BMD was first reported in Russia in 2011. It appeared in the US in 2013. In 2015, the organism that causes the infection was found in ticks in the UK and all over Europe, from Hungary to Norway.
Wherever there is a risk of Lyme disease, there is now a risk of BMD. What can you do to protect yourself?
The answer is not to stay inside and watch TV. You can still enjoy all your regular outdoor activities. Here are some practical ways to avoid ticks:
- Wear white clothing in summer so you can more easily see adult ticks, but darker clothing in fall and early winter so you can more easily see tick larvae.
- Wear long pants, tucked into your socks.
- Wear long-sleeved shirts or blouses that are tight around the wrists.
- Keep your pets tick-free.
- Perform daily inspections of your skin, especially in hairy areas.
- Keep brush and piles of leaves away from your home and yard.
- Don't sit on wood piles.
- Avoid walking through high grass.
- Maintain your vitamin D levels, through supplementation if necessary. Vitamin D helps your body fight tick-borne infections.