Something to Grapple with: How Wily Lyme Disease Prowls the Body From animals to humans, Lyme disease is affecting many individuals across the world. With symptoms such as fatigue and pain, Lyme disease can range from being debilitating to consuming your entire life. Scientists had very little research to find why the disease persists so long in the body until researchers at the University of Toronto investigated that the bacterium Borrelia Burgdorferi is the problem. It actually attaches to the…
My entire family has struggled with Lyme Disease for numerous years. Lyme disease is an infection caused by being bitten by an infected tick. The first symptom is usually a large, expanding rash around the area of the tick bite. Other symptoms may include a stiff-neck, chills, fever, swollen lymph nodes, headaches, fatigue, muscle aches, and joint pain. It all started when I was five years old. My sister, Natalie who was three at the time, had a little bite on her leg. We didn’t know what it was…
variabilis, a tick commonly found on humans and dogs, is commonly studied in order to increase awareness of the risks that are associated with tick bites (Estrada-Pena et al. 1999). Ticks have the ability to cause paralyses, toxicoses, allergic reactions, and are vectors of many viruses, including rickerrsial, bacterial and protozoan pathogens (Estrada-Pena et al. 1999). Dermacentor variabilis is often found on humans that have been exposed to infested vegetation (Estrada-Pena et al. 1999). This…
You Need a Title My mother was diagnosed with Lyme disease when I was eight years old. When caught early, Lyme disease can be quickly cured with a few rounds of antibiotics. However, if not caught in time, the bacteria which causes Lyme spreads like wildfire and hides in the hardest-to-reach areas of a person's body. My mom was not lucky enough to catch it early. For years she has tried different medications, diets, and back surgery to help alleviate her pain. It pained me to watch her struggle…
list of natural and diverse enemies of ticks. Certain microbes, some mammals, several types of generalist arthropod predators, and even certain types of birds make up the majority of the list. Oxpeckers are one type of bird known for eating ticks. There has been indications they also cause damage to the host of the tick they are eating. Guinea hens, chickens and other ground feeding birds are also known to feast on ticks. Mammals groom and birds preen ticks and various other parasites off both…
etc. Long after Lyme disease came about, a man named Allen Steere and others began to think that this disease comes from ticks, specifically a deer tick. Many people believe that the white-tailed deer is the host from which the deer tick gets it sustenance, but in reality, the deer don’t had the spirochete that causes the disease. It’s been found, though, that white-footed mouse do. Larval ticks are close to the ground so the mouse is easier to feed on, which then the ticks get infected and can…
Introduction: Babesiosis is an intra-erythrocytic parasitic infection, transmitted by a tick bite, rarely by blood transfusion and transplacental. Historically, babesiosis is primarily zoonotic medical condition and humans are the incidental host. It is second most common condition transmitted by Ixodes Scapularis. Among several species, B. Microti is the most common specie of babesiosis, prevalent in the Northeastern and upper Midwestern areas of the United States, during the period of…
Introduction Over thousands of microorganisms discovered cause human diseases. One of the infectious microorganisms is the spirochete bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which belongs to the genus Borrelia and family Spirochaetaceae. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), B. burgdorferi was first isolated in 1982 by a zoologist and microbiologist Willy Burgdorfer, Ph.D., thus the name burgdorferi. Lyme disease, which is caused by the bacterium B.…
domestic dogs. The natural host is a tick, Amblyomma maculatum. It reaches its sexual maturity in this tick. The tick obtains gametocytes from the neutrophils or monocytes in the peripheral blood of a dog. The gametocytes the come together to form an ookinete. The ookinete then go into the stomach of the tick and become an oocyst. Several Sporocysts form inside of an oocyst and these sporocysts contain 12-24 sporozoites. Dogs can get this infection by ingesting a tick with the sporulated oocysts…
contracting infectious disease, we do not realize that our environment is home to numerous of organisms that are harmful. For example, a single bite of a bug such as a tick can completely change your life. A tick bite can potentially lead to Lyme disease, which can become a severe illness. According to Sanjuna (et al 2018) “about 300,000 new cases per year are recorded world wide” (p.1) turning into the leading cause of tick borne diseases. There are several components of Lyme disease which need…