Lyme Disease (Borreliosis) is endemic in the Northeast US, and probably always has been. That complicates diagnosis because so many people in the area have been exposed to the germ, and thus show some degree of antibodies to it. Many if not most cases of Lyme are subclinical and never diagnosed.
The spirochete-like bug is transmitted by the bite of a mostly-mouse-born tick called a Black-Legged Tick or Deer Tick. The Tick is much smaller than the common dog tick, and much harder to find on your body. Ordinary dog ticks are harmless, if annoying, and can not be confused with the Deer Tick.
Lyme Disease is readily treated with antibiotics, but about ten years ago one of those disease fads came along, so appealing to hypochondriacs and hysterics, called "Chronic Lyme."
As with other fake disease fads like Chronic Fatigue and, in my opinion, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Lyme believers often made themselves into invalids with vague aches and pains.
I thought the Chronic Lyme fad had passed into the history of medical faddism, but I see this odd and credulous article in The New Yorker: The Lyme Wars. The Lyme-disease infection rate is growing. So is the battle over how to treat it.
There are two serious errors right in the title. The infection rate is not growing: the diagnosis is growing and probably many people with aches and pains are being unnecessarily treated for Lyme just because they have been exposed to it at some point in their life. Second, I have never heard of any credible Infectious Disease doc in New England who had any question about how to treat real Lyme.
Here's one brief index to fad diagnoses but I am sure there is a better, more comprehensive one. The current fad is "gluten intolerance." There are a few quacks out there, but many more crocks.
