Joints

Joint pain and stiffness, often intermittent, are early Lyme symptoms. Your joints may be inflamed, warm to the touch, painful, and swollen. You may have stiffness and limited range of motion in some joints (1). Pain may move around. Sometimes your knees may hurt, whereas other times it’s your neck or your heels. You may also have bursitis (16). Bursae are the thin cushions between bone and surrounding tissue. The pain may be severe, and it may be transitory. More than one joint may be affected. Most often the large joints are involved (12Trusted Source). People often attribute joint problems to age, genetics, or sports. Lyme should be added to that list, as these statistics indicate:

• One study estimates that 80 percent of people with untreated Lyme have muscle and joint symptoms (17).
• Fifty percent of people with untreated Lyme have intermittent episodes of arthritis (17).
• Two-thirds of people have their first episode of joint pain within six months of the infection (18).
• Use of anti-inflammatory drugs may mask the actual number of people with joint swelling (19).