The Latest on Lyme

A vaccine may soon be available. In the meantime, here’s how to protect yourself from ticks.

- Debby Waldman

WHILE STUDYING ABROAD in Australia in 2016, Ryann McIntire began experiencing severe joint pain, unstable blood-sugar levels, brain fog and other debilitating symptoms. It got so bad that the then-21-year-old flew home to Massachusetts early in search of answers.

After a friend suggested that she might have Lyme disease, McIntire asked her doctor for a blood test, which confirmed she had the antibodies in her system. That result, as well as her symptoms in the years prior, led McIntire's doctor to conclude that she had been living with Lyme disease for more than a decade most likely since an elementary-school field trip in the early 2000s near her home in Cape Cod, after which a nurse pulled a tick from her scalp.