Patterns of Prolonged Malaise in Lyme Disease

Even when patients with Lyme disease are identified and treated promptly, the infection can cause ongoing chronic complaints. However, the nature and patterns of these symptoms still are not fully understood. CDC researchers used a large insurance database to assemble a cohort of almost 25,000 children and adults (age, <65) in the U.S. with newly diagnosed and treated Lyme disease. Their symptoms during the year following diagnosis, as recorded in billing codes for specific variants of pain, fatigue, and cognitive difficulty, were compared with those reported by almost 125,000 age- and sex-matched controls without Lyme diagnoses.