Tick-borne borreliosis: symptoms and course of the disease

Tick borreliosis is an infectious disease of natural focal origin caused by spirochetes. It is transmitted by ticks, with the affected skin, nervous and cardiovascular systems. The disease has a recurring course.

Tick-borne borreliosis: symptoms and etiology

The causative agents of this disease are the bacteria of the group of microaerophiles V. Afzelii, V. Burgdorferi and V. Garinii. These negative spirochetes multiply only in the environment where the serum is contained. Wild animals are the habitat of Ixodes ticks, which are the main carriers of tick-borne encephalitis and borreliosis.

Borrelia enter the animal's body through the tick bite and are naturally released with feces. The person is more often infected by a transmissible way, as well as animals (with a bite). You can get infected if you get to the human skin the feces of these mites and subsequently their rubbing with strong combs until the formation of wounds. It is not impossible to get infected if the sucking mite is removed incorrectly, so the pathogen can enter the wound.

Infectious disease is registered annually throughout the territory of Russia. It should be noted that tick-borne borreliosis occurs 3 times more often than in tick-borne encephalitis. The incubation period averages two weeks. The clinical picture is characterized by headache, nausea, chills, weakness, joint and muscle pain, drowsiness.

The temperature can rise to 40 C, and may remain subfebrile. You can also see an increase in regional lymph nodes. The main sign is the appearance of a round erythema in the bite zone, which resembles a ring of red color, accompanied by severe itching, soreness, swelling and burning sensation - it is possible to immediately determine borreliosis from these manifestations. Symptoms can also indicate tick-borne encephalitis, so medical attention is required.

This stain can remain on the skin for several months, and can disappear without a trace without therapy. When carrying out etiotropic therapy of erythema, after 10 days independently passes, leaving a small pigmentation. In its place can remain an inconspicuous scar. In rare cases, daughter erythema are formed, they are much smaller in size than the primary spot, and without condensation in the center.

But often, in addition to spots, there is no clinical picture indicating borreliosis. Symptoms can be completely absent and not accompanied by intoxication. And maybe vice versa - the absence of erythema and the presence of intoxication, which significantly complicates the diagnosis of this disease.

It is necessary to know that the primary allergic signs at a tick bite do not always indicate tick-borne borreliosis. Symptoms can also be different and not significant. After sucking the tick, the place of the bite can not swell and not hurt, and after two days completely disappear. But on the second or third week there are cardiac and neurological complications.

High probability of development of serous meningitis and craniocerebral neuritis with violation of sensory and motor functions. As a rule, neurologic disorders approximately a month later pass through another, but relapses are possible. Cardinal disorders include: pericarditis, myocarditis, changes in the heart rate.

But for a long time painful sensations in the joints, myalgia and asthenia persist. At the last stage arthritis develops, which transform into a chronic form and constantly recur.

Borreliosis treatment

People with severe illness should be hospitalized in an infectious inpatient facility. The patient necessarily takes an analysis for borreliosis and conducts a serological study NERF - an indirect immunofluorescence reaction.

For treatment, etiotropic medicament preparations (penicillin, tetracycline, cephalosporins or doxycycline) are used. In the late stages of the disease, patients are treated in specialized clinics under the supervision of narrow specialists. After the treatment, patients for several years are registered with the therapist or infectious disease specialist.