Thank you very much for the kind words, earwicker. I'm glad to serve as a cautionary tale.

BClark, I'm sorry to hear you had to deal with this, but hopefully you found a good doc that will treat you properly. Can you let us know what's happened? Don''t want to be nosy, just want to be sure you got care.

apl4eris wrote:Thank you very much for the kind words, earwicker. I'm glad to serve as a cautionary tale.

BClark, I'm sorry to hear you had to deal with this, but hopefully you found a good doc that will treat you properly. Can you let us know what's happened? Don''t want to be nosy, just want to be sure you got care.

oh yea thanks for the concern. went to a clinic and got some antibiotics. nothing progressed to a bullseye rash or whatever before that, and headaches have subsided, so it should be ok.

BClark wrote:

apl4eris wrote:Thank you very much for the kind words, earwicker. I'm glad to serve as a cautionary tale.

BClark, I'm sorry to hear you had to deal with this, but hopefully you found a good doc that will treat you properly. Can you let us know what's happened? Don''t want to be nosy, just want to be sure you got care.

oh yea thanks for the concern. went to a clinic and got some antibiotics. nothing progressed to a bullseye rash or whatever before that, and headaches have subsided, so it should be ok.

Glad you got the antibios.

I think my husband spudboy mentioned this in his post, but I want to stress this point - the "classic" bullseye rash is a misnomer. In Lyme, any rash coming from a tick bite, along with clinical Lyme symptoms, is diagnostic. The rash doesn't even originate at the bite location in every case. Of all Lyme diagnoses, only 30-40 percent remember or get a rash. Of those rashes, a minority become a bullseye.

The vast majority of Lyme rashes are NOT bullseye, but can have many different appearances. This is really important for anyone that might be at risk. Don't write off any tick bite with symptoms, but if you have a rash along with any Lyme symptoms, it is considered diagnostic.

I understand that to most people it may seem an odd thing to harp on about, and I was sick for years before I listened to the people that brought up Lyme. I had no idea. I have had trips to the ER and hospital stays for heart problems from Lyme carditis, have hypercoagulation, arthritis in every joint, aseptic meningitis, encephalopathy, cognitive changes, memory loss, spasms, seizures, swallowing problems, chronic pain in joints, muscles, tendons, nerves, the list goes on and on. This disease is called the new "great imitator" (moniker used to belong to syphillis, its only close genetic cousin), as it can be the cause of many conditions that "seem" like other diseases: Rheumatoid Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, MS, ALS, CFS, Alzhemier's, Autism, and so on. It can go dormant for many years, and then present itself when your immune system is lowered, when you're stressed or sick from something else. For me, it was gradual, felt like I was just sickly for a while, then muscle pains, tendon problems, then joint swelling, I was writing everything off and getting wrong diagnoses, until I couldn't leave the house. It took years to get to that point.

This is not something to treat lightly at the outset. What I mean by that is that you may not be getting the proper antibiotics or the proper length of antibiotic treatment - I dont want to scare on the one hand, but I hate to see anyone not go in with the facts on the other, and end up relapsing further down the line in months or years because it wasn't completely killed off with adequate treatment.

This bug is very different from the run of the mill bacteria - it takes 8-24 hours to reproduce - compare that to around what, around 20 minutes for the strep infection, which is a more typical bacterial lifecycle. That means a course of antibiotics must run for much longer, to address the same number of reproductive cycles and kill it off effectively. Also, the type of antibiotic is very important. Some won't be able to kill it if they can reach it, and others can't reach it if it's gotten into the Central Nervous System - which can take as little as 12-24 hours after the tick has infected you.


I debated whether to go into so much detail, and also spill my personal health information in such a public way, but it's very important that you and anyone else that might be in your position down the road, takes this very seriously and does the research to get the proper info, doctors and treatment at the very beginning, when all the difference can be made. If I can be of any help please let me know. I just had to say something in case it might help anyone.

Very important, and I forgot to say this before:

The current ILADS Lyme treatment protocol for a recent infection is *3 months* of the proper antibiotics, along with clinical diagnosis and treatment for any possible coinfections.


***I'm not not a doctor and don't play one on the teevee.


edit: additional info re: treatment protocol

yeah, get that sorted as soon as possible and make sure you get the appropriate antibiotics. I've had this a couple of times from living/working in a forest where there is a large deer population. the first time I had the bullseye rash, (luckily in retrospect because the 2nd time I had nowt and wouldn't have know jack) thought it was odd, went to a doctor, who said it was nothing to worry about. saw another doctor a couple of months later for something else, mentioned that i'd been having headaches, told him of the rash. luckily, he'd heard of the disease (it wasn't that well known in france at the time), got me tested and after 1/2 false starts, treated. I was lucky. as were my wife and kids who were consequentally bitten by ticks. this disease is a real fucker, but if you catch it early enough it responds very well to the RIGHT antibiotics. get the right treatment and you'll be fine. I was tested again recently after having been bitten again and was all clear.

spudboy was it?? sorry if i've got your name wrong. really sorry to read to your post about your wife. really. I know I'm very lucky not to have to face this. horrible that you're having to go through it. best of luck.