Lyme disease often goes undiagnosed “due to the breadth and migratory nature of its symptoms.“
Grammy award-winning pop star Justin Timberlake, 44, recently took to Instagram to share his diagnosis of Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that he said was “relentlessly debilitating, both mentally and physically.” His statement comes on the heels of criticism from fans who felt he was under-performing during his recent world tour.
“When I first got the diagnosis I was shocked for sure,” the post stated. “But, at least I could understand why I would be onstage and in a massive amount of nerve pain or, just feeling crazy fatigue or sickness.”
Lyme disease is an infectious disease caused by borrelia burgdorferi, a bacterial species that can spread to people and animals from the bite of a deer tick — also called a black-legged tick — carrying the bacteria, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Experts say ticks that carry the bacteria live throughout most of the United States, although the incidence of Lyme disease is far less prevalent in California than it is in the American Northeast, Midwest and mid-Atlantic states. (The disease is named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut, where an outbreak was first identified in the 1970s.)
In California, western black-legged ticks are carriers of Lyme disease and are commonly found in northern coastal counties and in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, according to the California Department of Public Health.
