Borrelia burgdorferiCDC; JAMICE HANEY CARR, CLAUDIA MOLINS
It starts with a tick bite. This may be followed by the characteristic bullseye rash. And then the other symptoms of Lyme disease appear. Fever, fatigue, body aches, and headaches can all set in.
For most patients diagnosed with Lyme disease, the symptoms fade as the infection is cleared following a course of antibiotics. But for a small subset of the population, these symptoms can continue for months or years—even when diagnostic test results suggest the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, have been wiped out. Patients who present with what epidemiologist Eugene Shapiro of Yale Medical School calls “medically unexplained symptoms” are often left to seek alternative (and sometimes dangerous) treatments with limited success.
The medical community is split on post-treatment Lyme disease ...
