Chronic Lyme & Tick-Borne Diseases Q & A
Each year in the United States, almost 400,000 people contract Lyme disease through a tick bite. If left untreated, this disease can turn your body into a multi-front battleground as it ravages various body systems. And the news doesn’t get better when it comes to medical help, as Lyme and other tick-borne diseases are often misdiagnosed. At Environmental Health Center–Buffalo (EHC Buffalo), environmental and integrative medicine specialist Dr. Kalpana Patel has extensive experience helping her patients get properly diagnosed in order to find the right treatment. If you’re dealing with chronic Lyme disease and are in or around Buffalo, NY, call the office, schedule an appointment using the online booking tool, or call for a phone consultation.
What is Lyme disease?
Lyme disease is transmitted by ticks, which can deliver spiral-shaped bacteria-spirochete called Borrelia burgdorferi or Borrelia mayonii through their bites. In the eastern part of the US, the carrier is typically a deer tick.
When caught early, Lyme disease can be successfully treated. Unfortunately, many cases are misdiagnosed and chronic Lyme disease can set in, creating serious health problems that can involve almost every system in the human body.
In fact, many victims of chronic Lyme disease suffer from co-infections, so no two cases are alike as the different bacteria attack your body without bias, affecting different systems in different people.
What other diseases are passed through ticks?
Lyme disease isn’t the only problem when it comes to ticks, which can also pass on the following diseases:
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Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
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Babesiosis.
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Bartonella infection.
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Anaplasmosis.
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Southern tick-associated rash illness.
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Relapsing fever.
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Tularemia.
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Colorado tick fever.
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Powassan encephalitis.
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Q fever.
The bottom line is that if you’ve been bitten by a tick, you should monitor the area closely for any rash or reaction and have an expert like Dr. Patel take a look. While most tick bites present nothing more than a nuisance, the threat of any of the diseases listed above should prompt you to err on the side of caution when it comes to tick bites.
How is Lyme disease diagnosed?
This question is arguably one of the biggest problems when it comes to Lyme disease. There’s no single test for Lyme disease — it is a clinical diagnosis supported by lab tests. Chronic Lyme disease often mimics other health problems, sending doctors on a wild goose chase.
This is why a specialist like Dr. Patel is so important: through her thorough understanding of the disease, she knows what to look out for and what important markers indicate the presence of the insidious spiral-shaped bacteria.
Dr. Patel understands how Lyme disease can affect multiple systems, especially if there’s a co-infection, which means that the tick also carries other bacteria that cause another infection in addition to Lyme disease.
What are the treatments for Lyme and other tick-borne diseases?
In its early stages, a strong course of antibiotics is usually sufficient in battling tick-borne diseases. If your disease was left untreated, however, the battleground is constantly moving throughout your body.
Again, this is why a specialist in tick-borne diseases, such as Dr. Patel, is crucial in treating your chronic condition, because she understands the cascading effect of these diseases and works to regain control over your health.
If you’re frustrated by the lack of proper care when it comes to your chronic Lyme disease or other tick-borne disease, call EHC Buffalo to get the help you need. Or you can schedule a consultation online using the booking tool.
Lyme disease is treatable, but when it goes undetected, giving the infection time to spread throughout your body, it can cause long-term damage to your nervous system as well as various joints of your body. At EHC Buffalo, New York (NY), our trained specialist ensures that patients complaining of typical symptoms are administered the relevant tests to rule out the presence of the tick disease effectively. Once the tests prove the same, immediate medication accompanied by minimally invasive methods are started to stop this tick-borne disease to spread further. The approach at EHC Buffalo is to get to the root cause and use the body’s own healing strengths to get rid of the same.
Are you suffering from regular bouts of chills and fever accompanied by headaches? Have you noticed the swelling of your lymph nodes and irritating pain in the joints and the muscles? Has a distinct body ache been constantly nagging you? And are there some rashes that have started to appear at a single or multiple point on your body? If so, then it is time to call us at EHC Buffalo, New York. You have, in all probability, contracted Lyme disease, as all these are symptoms of the same. Of course, it would be wrong to simply generalize, which is why it is best to seek professional advice from a specialist.
Call us today or write to us to fix an appointment with the best doctor in town in Buffalo, NY, to seek immediate attention and a cure for the troublesome pain forever.