The number of reported cases of lyme disease is on the rise in Illinois, but no cases have been reported in DeKalb County in the last two years.

Rosemary Lane, Director of the University Health Service, said the last case of lyme disease treated at the health center was during the summer of 1987. However, the student contracted the disease outside of Illinois.

Lyme disease is transmitted when a deer tick, called Ixodes dammini, bites and imbeds itself in a human’s or other animal’s skin.

Lyme disease was first officially recognized in the United States in Old Lyme, Conn., in 1975, but the disease was not an officially reportable one in Illinois until May of 1988, when the state legislature approved its recognition.

Twelve cases were confirmed during that year. Through September of 1989, 49 cases had been confirmed in Illinois, said Ellen Schoenberg, training coordinator of the communicable disease program for the Illinois Department of Public Health.

If a tick cannot deeply imbed itself, Shoenberg said, it can be pulled out of the skin with tweezers, and the disease will be prevented. She warns it should be pulled straight out, and not ever burned or smothered.

The first symptoms of the disease will appear within three to 32 days after the tick has become imbedded. The first signs of the disease include chills, fatigue, nausea and lethargy, said Schoenberg.

The second stage of the disease appears after several weeks or months have passed. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, “some people may develop complications involving the heart and/or nervous system.”

Symptoms of the second stage may include irregular heart beat, painful joints or tendons, meningitis and other conditions involving peripheral nerves.

Long term sufferers of lyme disease most often experience arthritis in large joints, including knees, hips and shoulders. Schoenberg said if the disease is not treated during the third stage, permanent discomfort could occur, including the need for a walking aid.

Schoenberg said in early periods of the disease, the symptoms appear and seem to leave and return sporadically. But, she said, “as the infection remains, symptoms don’t subside as they did earlier.”

When the disease takes effect, “prompt treatment with appropriate antibiotics during the first stages of the illness can cure the infection and prevent later complications,” the health department said, but “treatment during later stages of the disease often requires more intensified antibiotic therapy.”

Schoenberg said that, generally, the longer treatment is delayed, the longer and more intense it has to be in order to fully recover.