Lyme Disease

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Mar 11, 2015

what type of precaution you put the patient on the hospital with Lyme Disease?

What does your research show? Have you reviewed CDC guidelines?

senay · Mar 11, 2015

yes i have but it stills unclear to me. i would put him in standard precaution because once you remove the tick, there is no way how it gets transmitted to clinicians or other patients. however, let's say the patient is a chemo patient and got Lyme Disease...what would you do?

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Mar 11, 2015

Standard precautions is the answer. Not all chemo patients need neutropenic precautions.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Mar 19, 2015

yes i have but it stills unclear to me. i would put him in standard precaution because once you remove the tick, there is no way how it gets transmitted to clinicians or other patients. however, let's say the patient is a chemo patient and got Lyme Disease...what would you do?

Why would the patient being on chemo change the precautions for him having Lyme Disease? He already has a disease that cannot be spread in the hospital so no further precautions are necessary. I didn't take a single day off work when I had Lyme Disease last summer. It's only possible to spread from an infected deer tick.

warthawg · Mar 21, 2015

Well once the tick has attached it's self to the host it takes about 36-48 hours for the bacterium to be transmitted to the host. Then within 3-30 days the host should start to show signs of infection with fever, chills, joint aches swollen lymphnodes, this stage is called the early localized stage.

There are a few host's that will overlap into the late disseminated stage which usually takes months to years post tick bite. May develop what is called PTLDS-Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome. Patient will require LARGE dosages of antibiotics. The problem with this senario is that this treatment can be harmful to the patient because of the large dosages of antibiotics to the host over a long period of time. treatment should include a 14-21 day cycle of antibiotics to include Doxcyline for adults and children older than 8 years of age, and Cefuroxine and Amoxicillin for adults and younger kids or women who may be pregnant.