🎙Ask a Doc: What is Lyme Disease & How to Treat & Prevent Ep 142

October 04, 2023

🎙Ask a Doc: What is Lyme Disease & How to Treat & Prevent Ep 142

Episode Transcript

What is Lyme disease, how to we treat it and what are the strides being made toward its prevention? Dr. Michael Koren, a renowned cardiologist and medical researcher, explores the mystery of Lyme disease—a tick-borne illness first discovered in the 70s and 80s. He sheds light on its causative bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi the symptoms, and the cruciality of early detection and treatment. Then he dives into the hopeful future of Lyme disease prevention with current research and development efforts for Lyme disease vaccines. If you're a hiker, an outdoors person, or reside in an area with a dense deer tick population, this could be a game-changer. Dr. Koren invites you to participate in this monumental change by participating in clinical research. Join us and contribute to mitigating the debilitating consequences of this disease. After all, prevention is better than cure, right?

Be a part of advancing science by participating in clinical research.

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Narrator: 0:01

Welcome to MedEvidence, where we help you navigate the truth behind medical research with unbiased, evidence-proven facts, powered by ENCORE Research Group and hosted by cardiologist and top medical researcher, Dr. Michael Koren. Dr. Koran, I heard there is a Lyme disease vaccine being developed for all of us frequent hikers and outdoorsmen. What's your take on that?

Dr. Michael Koren: 0:24

Well, thank you for the question and interesting you bring that up because to my knowledge there is no approved Lyme disease vaccine. However, we're working on it so as we speak, there's some real excitement about this. So just for everybody out there, lyme disease is a tick-borne illness that was originally discovered in Lyme, Connecticut. So interesting little trivia fact, it was discovered in the 1970s and 80s and the bacteria that the tick transmits to humans is called Borrelia, and it's actually a Borrelia species that was named after the discoverer of that particular bacteria named Dr. Burgdorfer. So it's called Borrelia burgdorferi, and this is the bacteria that goes through a tick, or an ictity species that causes the problem.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:14

So typically what happens? You're out there hiking, you may not be covered up, you get a tick bite. The tick then will eventually cause a rash to occur, which is the first stage of the illness. Then it could be associated with a fever and sometimes chills.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:27

And if you don't discover it which is very common because sometimes you get tick bites in places that are not obvious you can get to a second phase or even a third phase, and then it gets very, very tricky to diagnose and often people have these longstanding inflammatory conditions that allude initial evaluations and that leads to the need for a long-term treatment approach.

Dr. Michael Koren: 1:50

So if you catch it early, you can take antibiotics that knock out that bacteria. But if you don't catch it early which is common then you're prone to getting this long-term Lyme disease syndrome, which can really be very debilitating. So people who are at high risk for exposure for example, people are hikers or people are outdoors a lot, especially in certain communities that are known to have a lot of deer ticks, for example we would advise that you keep your eyes and ears open about this clinical research, which will be able to give you a shot so that you're not prone to the devastating consequences of this disease. And if you're in an area where you have access to a center that's actually studying the Lyme disease vaccine, give us a shout. We may be able to get you involved.

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MedEvidence! Truth Behind the Data

Dr. Michael Koren, Michelle McCormick

Welcome to the MedEvidence podcast, hosted by Dr. Michael Koren and Michelle McCormick. MedEvidence, where we help you navigate the real truth behind medical research with both a clinical and research perspective. In this podcast, we will have discussions with physicians that have extensive experience in patient care and research. How do you know that something works? In medicine, we conduct clinical trials to see if things work! Now, let’s get to the Truth Behind the Data.