About 476,000 Americans are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year, making this tickborne infection relatively common in some areas of the country. But data suggests its reach is expanding, meaning more folks in other regions may get sick with Lyme, too.
Untreated Lyme disease can cause a fever, rash, facial paralysis, irregular heartbeat, and arthritis, and there’s a risk of experiencing drawn-out symptoms like fatigue, memory issues, and aches—sometimes even after you’ve been treated.
LymeAlert: A New At-Home Test
A new at-home test allows people to test ticks to see if they carry Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that primarily causes Lyme disease in the U.S. LymeAlert is now taking preorders for a single-use kit that the company says can detect that bacteria in a removed tick within 30 minutes.
The test is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but it’s not marketed to diagnose Lyme disease in people—it’s analyzing the tick itself for the presence of Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria.
Concerns About the Test
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend getting ticks tested for several reasons, including: labs that do tick testing aren’t required to have the high quality control standards used by diagnostic labs, and positive results don’t necessarily mean you’re infected.
Infectious disease doctors echo those concerns and add on a few more. William Schaffner, M.D., an infectious disease specialist and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, says that a positive test result for Borrelia burgdorferi in a tick does not provide clear information about the risk of infection.
There are a lot of unknowns about the number of false positives and false negatives with this test, says Thomas Russo, M.D., professor and chief of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo in New York. This is a concern.
How the Test Results Change What You Do Next
The test doesn’t necessarily change your course of action, says Amesh A. Adalja, M.D., a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. It doesn’t tell you whether the tick was attached long enough to transmit it, and it doesn’t override the criteria doctors already use to decide on preventive antibiotics.
If you develop symptoms of Lyme disease, your doctor will typically recommend that you take a blood test that looks for antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi, Dr. Russo points out. However, it can take several weeks after you’ve been infected for your immune system to make enough antibodies to be detected by the test, per the CDC.
Getting a positive test result with this could clue you in that Lyme disease is around and possibly even closer than you realized. A positive test can be a good wake-up call to double down on tick bite prevention efforts, like wearing bug spray with EPA-approved ingredients and doing regular tick checks for you and your pets.
Awareness and prevention are key to reducing the risk of infection. Being aware of the presence of infected ticks in your area can prompt you to take extra precautions, such as using reliable resources to learn more about the disease and its prevention.
They can also learn more about tick-borne illnesses and their prevention by visiting websites that provide information on disease risks.
It is also worth noting that people can take steps to protect themselves from tick-borne illnesses by being aware of their surroundings and taking precautions when spending time outdoors, and also by learning about heart health and the risks associated with it, such as a dangerous heart rate range.
Furthermore, people can learn about the benefits of using PEMF mats for recovery and overall well-being.
