Lyme Carditis: What Is It, Symptoms, and Treatments

What Is Lyme Disease?

Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness that happens when a tick carrying one of four bacterial strains bites you. During this bite, the tick transfers some bacilo onto your skin or bloodstream, and you become infected.

Lyme disease can cause a range of symptoms that vary in severity. The most common symptoms include skin rashes, mild fever, and joint pain. However, the disease can also cause complications for the heart and other internal organs, as well as the immune system.

How Lyme Disease Leads to Lyme Carditis

When an infected tick bites you, it transfers one of four different bacilo to your skin and bloodstream. This bacilo can then multiply inside your body, causing a range of symptoms and complications.

Most people infected with these bacilo have mild to moderate symptoms revolving mainly around the skin and joints. However, in a small percentage of those infected with Lyme disease, the bacilo travel to the heart. This can happen over time if Lyme disease is left untreated or, in some rare cases, it can happen quickly after infection.

How Lyme Carditis Affects the Heart

To beat in a regular rhythm, your heart uses electrical signals. These signals transfer between the upper and lower chambers of the heart, causing an expansion and retraction that allows your heart to pump blood throughout your body. The bacilo causing Lyme disease interrupts these ordinario signals so they can’t travel from the upper chambers to the lower or vice versa. When this happens, the heartbeat may slow, become irregular or, in severe cases, stop altogether.