Beltway Animal Clinic & Hospital

612 Edmondson Ave., Catonsville MD 21228          

Tel: (410) 744-6660  Fax: 461-5505

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A) Detailed Information on 20 Common Pet Poisons:-

A Guide to Pets Common Poisons:Please click to view

B) Lyme Disease:

We recommend vaccinating your dogs early in spring together with using some of the safe, efffective and convenient new insecticides all summer. (Call 410-744-6660 for detailed information). Things can get more serious and more involved if precautions are not taken early.

Introduction

In the early 1970s, a mysterious clustering of arthritis cases occurred among children in Lyme, Connecticut, and surrounding towns. Medical researchers soon recognized the illness as a distinct disease, which they called Lyme disease. They subsequently described the clinical features of Lyme disease, established the usefulness of antibiotic therapy in its treatment, identified the deer tick as the key to its spread, and isolated the bacterium that caused it.

Lyme disease is still mistaken for other ailments, and it continues to pose many other challenges: it can be difficult to diagnose because of the inadequacies of today's laboratory tests, and it can be troublesome to treat in its later phases. Development of a vaccine to prevent Lyme disease is underway.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Public Health Service, conducts and supports biomedical research aimed at meeting the challenges of Lyme disease. This brochure presents the most recently available information on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of Lyme disease.

How Lyme Disease Became Known

Lyme disease was first recognized in 1975 after researchers investigated why unusually large numbers of children were being diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in Lyme, Connecticut, and two neighboring towns. The investigators discovered that most of the affected children lived near wooded areas that harbored ticks. They also found that the children's first symptoms typically started in the summer months coinciding with the height of the tick season. Several of the patients interviewed reported having a skin rash just before developing their arthritis, and many also recalled being bitten by a tick at the rash site. Further investigations resulted in the discovery that tiny deer ticks infected with a spiral-shaped bacterium or spirochete (which was later named Borrelia burgdorferi) were responsible for the outbreak of arthritis in Lyme.

Symptoms of Lyme Disease

Erythema Migrans. In most people, the first symptom of Lyme disease is a red rash known as erythema migrans (EM). The telltale rash starts as a small red spot at the site of the tick bite. The spot expands over a period of days or weeks, forming a circular or ovalshaped rash. Sometimes the rash resembles a bull's eye, appearing as a red ring surrounding a clear area with a red center. The rash, which can range in size from that of a dime to the entire width of a person's back, appears within a few weeks of a tick bite and usually occurs at the site of a bite. As infection spreads, rashes can appear at different sites on the body.

Arthritis. After several months of being infected by B. burgdorferi, slightly more than half of those people not treated with antibiotics develop recurrent attacks of painful and swollen joints that last a few days to a few months. The arthritis can shift from one joint to another; the knee is most commonly affected. About 10 to 20 percent of untreated patients will go on to develop chronic arthritis.

Neurological Symptoms. Lyme disease can also affect the nervous system, causing symptoms such as stiff neck and severe headache (meningitis), temporary paralysis of facial muscles (Bell's palsy), numbness, pain or weakness in the limbs, or poor motor coordination. More subtle changes such as memory loss, difficulty with concentration, and a change in mood or sleeping habits have also been associated with Lyme disease.

Heart Problems. Fewer than one out of ten Lyme disease patients develops heart problems, such as an irregular heartbeat, which can be signalled by dizziness or shortness of breath. These symptoms rarely last more than a few days or weeks. Such heart abnormalities generally surface several weeks after infection.

How Lyme Disease Is Diagnosed

Lyme disease may be difficult to diagnose because many of its symptoms mimic those of other disorders. In addition, the only distinctive hallmark unique to Lyme disease-the erythema migrans rash-is absent in at least one-fourth of the people who become infected. The results of recent studies indicate that an infected tick must be attached to a person's skin for at least 2 days to transmit the Lyme bacteria. Although a tick bite is an important clue for diagnosis, many patients cannot recall having been bitten recently by a tick. This is not surprising because the tick is tiny, and a tick bite is usually painless.

Blood Tests. Unfortunately, the Lyme disease microbe itself is difficult to isolate or culture from body tissues or fluids. Most physicians look for evidence of antibodies against B. burgdorferi in the blood to confirm the bacterium's role as the cause of a patient's symptoms. Antibodies are molecules or small substances tailor-made by the immune system to lock onto and destroy specific microbial invaders.

The antibody test used most often is called an ELISA test. When an ELISA is positive, it should be confirmed with a second, more specific test, called a Western blot.

Lyme Disease Prevention

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