Don’t let the name fool you. Whether it’s Lyme, Lime Disease, or Lymes Disease, this infectious disease is nothing to sneeze (or scratch) at.

Several Ixodes species of ticks are known to carry the Lyme bacteria in the U.S., mostly in the Northeast, Midwest, and Northwest, and all over Canada. An infected tick is called a vector, meaning it does not get Lyme Disease itself but is a carrier, transmitting it from one host to another. Common Lyme hosts are mice and other small rodents, deer, some birds, horses, dogs, and humans.

Tick Lifecycle

Ticks go through four life stages: egg, larva, nymph, and adult. The last three stages need a blood meal to survive. An uninfected tick feeding on an animal that has the Lyme bacteria spirochete, the corkscrew-shaped Borrelia burgdorferi, will ingest the bacteria and store it in its gut and salivary glands. Infected ticks stay infected throughout their two-year lifespan and can pass on Lyme to more than one host.

Both nymphs and adult ticks, found mainly in wooded and deep grassy areas, transmit Lyme disease. Ixodes nymphs, the size of a poppy seed, are active from May to August. Adults, about the size of a sesame seed, are most active in early Spring and late summer through the Fall.

Infected ticks transmit Lyme by staying attached to the host for 24-48 hours, allowing the bacteria to enter the host’s blood stream. However, the length of time of attachment depends on how host body movements affect the tick.

Unless you’re on the lookout for ticks on your body, you may not even know when you’ve been bitten. Being so tiny, the ticks are hard to see. And the bite is hard to feel.

Other Possible Modes of Transmission

There are two factors about Lyme you won’t see much written about – yet. First, some people with Lyme have never been around ticks. Some Lime Disease doctors and researchers believe that other biting insects like mosquitoes, fleas, mites, and flies can transmit the disease. If true, this greatly expands the possible geographic locations where one might get Lyme.

Second, most Lyme websites and most doctors say getting Lyme from another person is very rare to impossible. But they may be wrong. Lyme is often diagnosed in multiple members of a family, including young children.

Some doctors suspect that Lyme may be a sexually transmitted disease, similar to the spirochete Syphilis, suggesting that it could be passed by kissing, sexual intercourse, or from mother to unborn child during pregnancy. If true, this also greatly expands the places one could get, or pass on, Lyme.

We’ll certainly be monitoring the Lime disease news for scientific confirmation or disconfirmation of these two speculations and report it here.

• See Lyme Disease Symptoms for more on the stages of Lyme.
• See Getting Rid of Lyme for information on Lyme treatment.

People with chronic Lyme may or may not know how they got it. What’s important is getting proper treatment, which isn’t always easy.

If you’ve been diagnosed with Lyme Disease, we’ll soon be telling you about how membership on this site could help save both your health and your sanity.