He will pay the price later. Early Lyme disease can be asymptomatic, and that can turn out to be bad news indeed. The untreated infection can dig in and eventually inflame the joints and heart and also cause neurological damage. This can all come as a big surprise. For one thing, there is no reliable diagnostic test that can warn of problems that may arise later.
Many people end up visiting one doctor after another, trying to get a handle on their symptoms.
But that doesn't help to stop the waxing and waning symptoms, which can also include memory loss, fatigue, sleep disturbances and mood swings. There are fierce arguments among medical and public health experts about how many people actually get Lyme disease. The federal government counts about 16,000 cases per year across the country. The figures are disproportionately high for the Northeast, upper Midwest and Pacific Coast areas. Academic types, at least according to the nonacademics, tend to downplay the numbers.