Lyme Disease: Diagnosis & Treatment
If you’ve been bitten by a black-legged tick and a bullseye rash has developed around the bite, then you could be dealing with Lyme disease. This is a common disease in the US and one that can lead to dangerous symptoms if left untreated. While most cases can be treated through antibiotics, you must know when to turn to our Dr. Olusegun Ogunlesi, a board-certified infectious disease specialist, for an evaluation. After all, most regular doctors and local ERs won’t be able to recognize or provide the proper tests to diagnose Lyme disease, but the team at Axelix Health Consulting can.
Symptoms of Lyme Disease
The problem is that it isn’t always clear whether someone may have Lyme disease or not because symptoms vary from person to person. Common symptoms of Lyme disease include,
- Fatigue
- Chills
- Fever
- Muscle and joint aches
- Swollen lymph nodes
- Erythema migrans (EM) rash (the classic “bullseye” rash)
Symptoms will usually appear anywhere from 3-30 days after the infection. Since these symptoms are not unique to Lyme disease, having a doctor that can spot the differences between Lyme disease and other infections is paramount. Dr. Ogunlesi has diagnosed countless Lyme disease cases and knows exactly what signs and symptoms to look for, as well as the proper tests to perform.
Diagnosing Lyme Disease
When you come into our practice, there are certain steps that we need to go through before we decide whether testing is right for you. We will ask you questions about your lifestyle to find out if it’s possible that you came in contact with an infected tick. We will also go through your symptoms and rule out other possible causes. From there, we will perform a simple blood test that will check for specific antibodies. If the blood test comes back positive, we will need to perform another blood test to confirm.
Lyme Disease Treatment
The good news is that if you treat Lyme disease early enough most patients make a full recovery. Lyme disease requires antibiotics to treat the infection and the dose and duration of the antibiotic treatment will depend on your age and the type of antibiotics our infectious disease specialist prescribes. If you are unable to take antibiotics, make sure to talk with us about other treatment options available to you. In some cases when symptoms have caused further complications or impacted the heart or neurological system, intravenous antibiotics are the best way to treat these more serious cases.