Diagnosis and Treatments for Lyme Disease

5. Challenges with Diagnosing Lyme Disease

The most challenging thing about diagnosing Lyme disease for practitioners is that other than the bullseye rash, there are no specific symptoms. Diagnosis relies on clinical signs that may or may not be supported by the results of a blood test, and, unfortunately, research shows that emergency room physicians are not always able to diagnose Lyme disease based on clinical judgment alone.

Research also shows that 40 percent of patients diagnosed with Lyme disease have signs of stage 2 or 3, indicating that a delayed diagnosis is pretty standard.