THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here's some news just for summertime. You hear about this every year, Lyme disease and those darn ticks. Researchers say that a quick dose of antibiotics can prevent Lyme disease. "Quick" is the operative word here. The drug needs to be taken within days of being bitten by a deer tick. That's the little bugger that spreads the disease. There are about 15,000 cases of Lyme disease each year in the United States. Out here with us is our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. I saw that you were watching with some trepidation those little bugs.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, you have to be careful.
CHEN: I don't know where they go out and get these things to take pictures of them. But anyway, we've got questions for the Web chat about all this.
GUPTA: Sure, let's hear them.
CHEN: Brady Behrens: "What are the side effects, if any, from using Doxycycline?"
GUPTA: Well, Doxycycline does have side effects. They are nausea, vomiting, G.I. upset certainly are things that you see with Doxycycline, about 5 to 10 percent of the time. It should be -- it's important to note again that Doxycycline should only be used if you find a tick, and it's a tick that causes Lyme disease. This isn't something you should use to prevent Lyme disease. That's an important point.
CHEN: OK, wait, I have to hold up my hand here and say what is Doxycycline?
GUPTA: What is Doxycycline?
CHEN: Uh-huh.
GUPTA: It's an antibiotic. It's part of the Tetracycline group of antibiotics. All the side effects that people sort of think of when they take antibiotics, G.I. upset, maybe even nausea or vomiting, occasionally can be caused by this.
CHEN: Right, but still probably better off than having Lyme disease. OK. GUPTA: That is right.
CHEN: Kirk Furlotte: "Won't the antibiotics weaken your immune system and make you more susceptible next time?" This comes up a lot in antibiotics.
GUPTA: Yes, and people should worry about that, because antibiotics should not be overused, Antibiotics typically don't weaken your immune system, though. The bacteria, viruses, things like that may weaken your immune system. If you take antibiotics, the risk is that you might actually make the bacteria less resistant -- more resisant, actually, to the Doxycycline, and therefore the Doxycycline won't be as effective next time. So we're talking about an issue of resistance versus weakening your immune system.
CHEN: All right, we've got a question from the morning online editorial meeting. This is Randall's question: "What are the long- term effects of Lyme disease?"
GUPTA: Great question, and it's important to know that typically, Lyme disease, all the effects of it will resolve on their own. And only 60 percent of the time will you have things like joint pain, arthritic-type pain, which people most commonly associate with Lyme disease. Fifteen percent of the time it might actually progress to something like a meningitis or a facial nerve palsy, or a swelling of the optic nerve, which could cause blindness -- pretty rare. Five percent of the time it can actually cause problems with the heart -- heart block or an arrhythmia of the heart, and that's when things start to get a little tricky and people start to worry about that.
CHEN: That's pretty scary.
GUPTA: So Lyme disease is serious, but those things are pretty rare. The chance of actually getting Lyme disease, if you're bitten by one of these ticks, is only about 3 percent, even if you're not treated.
CHEN: OK. We've got another question from the live Web chat now. Brian, I don't even want to venture on your last name -- oh. I have to -- Indrelunas -- Indrelunas. I'm trying, Brian, I'm trying: "How do ticks cause Lyme disease?"
That is a good question.
GUPTA: That is a good question, and his name's almost as hard to pronounce as the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, which is Burgdorferi, which was my favorite bacteria in medical school.
CHEN: Burgdorferi...
GUPTA: Right, and these ticks are actually vectors for this bacteria, and it's as simple as that. The ticks essentially bite you, you get bit by a tick, it will deposit one of these, or several of these bacteria, which get into your bloodstream. It can cause all the things that we've been talking about.
CHEN: And that's the bull's-eye that you are looking at.
GUPTA: That's what you see, right. You see a bull's-eye, and that sort of pattern should make you concerned enough to probably go see you doctor about maybe getting these antibiotics.
CHEN: Or if you see that you've already been hit by a deer tick, you probably ought to call him.
GUPTA: That's right.
CHEN: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta from our medical unit, thanks very much for being with us. Wear long socks.
GUPTA: Protective clothing, absolutely.
CHEN: All right, thanks. Do you need more information about Lyme disease? Well, if you can't ask Dr. Gupta, you can check in with the Lyme Disease Foundation. It has a site with a whole lot of information about this. It even has picture galleries of the ticks if, for some reason, you like to look at that sort of thing, that carry the disease, and the rashes that their bites leave.
You can access that site from our site, cnn.com/newssite, if you've forgotten that. Hot Sites featured on the left side of our page will get you right there.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
|
![[CNN.com]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/newsnet/cnnlogo.gray.gif){kind=small}
TOP STORIES![[SI.com]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/si.logo.gif){kind=logo}
SPORTS
All Scoreboards
![[CNN Money]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/fn.logo.newsnet.gif){kind=logo}
(