Lyme Disease

Anyone had/have it? I thought I had some weird summer flu thing but went to the doctor and apparently it's Lyme Disease from a tick bite a few weeks back. Bummer news for sure.

All of you living in tick areas, check yourselves after being outside. I definitely got lazy about this and have been bitten numerous times over the years. You just don't think it will happen to you... wrong approach to take.

Nate said:

Anyone had/have it? I thought I had some weird summer flu thing but went to the doctor and apparently it's Lyme Disease from a tick bite a few weeks back. Bummer news for sure.

All of you living in tick areas, check yourselves after being outside. I definitely got lazy about this and have been bitten numerous times over the years. You just don't think it will happen to you... wrong approach to take.

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Not a bummer at all. A bummer would be not realizing that it is ravaging your body until permanent damage to your joints and nervous system has been done.

Good pick up by your doc.

I actually picked it up... not the Doc. Above I should have stated that intially I thought it was some summer flu thing. After 5 days of semi-flu like symptoms (fever, chills, body aches, fatique), I started checking and realized it looked more like phase 1 Lyme Disease. I went in and specifically requested a LD blood test.

Still a potential bummer in that many cases have not responded well to the antibiotic course and turned chronic (or initially appeared to have responded and then recurred). I'm hopeful but you never know...

Bottom line regardless is if you're in an area with ticks, don't get complacent about checking yourself.

Nate said:

I actually picked it up... not the Doc. Above I should have stated that intially I thought it was some summer flu thing. After 5 days of semi-flu like symptoms (fever, chills, body aches, fatique), I started checking and realized it looked more like phase 1 Lyme Disease. I went in and specifically requested a LD blood test.

Still a potential bummer in that many cases have not responded well to the antibiotic course and turned chronic (or initially appeared to have responded and then recurred). I'm hopeful but you never know...

Bottom line regardless is if you're in an area with ticks, don't get complacent about checking yourself.

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That would be pretty rare actually due to modern antibiotics combined with a stringent manufacturing process.

Either way, good for you in catching it.

Good luck with the treatment.

Great thread! Glad you caught it.

There are several tick-borne diseases but lyme disease is prevalent. Deer ticks (generally small) are the primary, if not only, carrier of lyme disease. Dog ticks (larger) carry other diseases (e.g. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever). Check yourselves for ticks after being in the grass/woods. Yes, check all of those nooks and crannies! Despite popular belief, ticks don't fall out of trees. They typically rest on the edge of low-lying foliage (e.g., a blade of grass) with there fore-legs open-armed waiting for a passer-by to latch onto. Humans aren't their normal hosts. Since their normal host animals are close to the ground, that's where they wait. They can crawl up the human body (undetected) in a matter of minutes, so tuck your pants into your socks when possible.

The good news is, if you have a tick feeding on you and you catch it within 24 hrs and pull it off, your chance of disease is nil (it's really more like 48 hrs, but the books won't tell you that). The way to pull it off is to take a pair of tweezers and grab the body of the tick just behind the head. Apply a constant outward pressure. In a few minutes, the tick just can't hold on anymore and lets go. This way ensures you don't leave the head attached to you, increasing your chance of contracting a disease. Don't use rubbing alcohol (until after tick removal) or oil or soap or whatever, just tweezers.

also remember that all of the lower 48 have ticks

and keep an eye on your dogs and cats cause they will carry them into your home where a tick can latch onto you inside your home

My preferred method of tick removal is to blow out a match and hold the heated tip on the soft underbelly of the basturd. Then it'll let go with no pulling involved. Tough to do on a squirming child, however.

my little brother had it and his joints ached all the time, the doctors didn't believe him and it wasn't until he demanded a blood test that they discovered it... my parents thought of filing a suit against the doctor for ignoring my brothers symptoms for over 1.5 months... but they decided to drop it b/c my brother pulled through and to this day is doing well...

best of luck and here's to a fast recovery!

I know 3 people who have gotten it here in NC, even though most doctors say you can't get it in this state. My friend got misdiagnosed for 6 months before they caught it. Even if your state isn't on the lyme disease map, keep your eyes open for it.

Funny... I got it right around Memorial Day. One week into the antibiotics I felt a lot better. Two plus weeks on, I am back to normal. Except the pills make me get sunburned very easily.

Just last week I pulled a tick out my nephew's ear. It wasn't in the canal but in one of the folds. Luckily it had just latched on but man that was gross. They live in a wooded area and have two dogs that run around in the woods. I bet this won't be that kid's last tick.

Nate said:

Anyone had/have it? I thought I had some weird summer flu thing but went to the doctor and apparently it's Lyme Disease from a tick bite a few weeks back. Bummer news for sure.

All of you living in tick areas, check yourselves after being outside. I definitely got lazy about this and have been bitten numerous times over the years. You just don't think it will happen to you... wrong approach to take.

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I spend a good bit of time hunting and hiking in the woods. The week before Memorial Day I got a deer tick that latched on to me while turkey hunting. Luckily I discovered it just the next day. It had buried it's head in deep and my wife tore it apart while trying to remove it. I had a bid red mark around the bite and could feel the discormfort only after a day. Needless to say I went to see Doc the very next day. He said since we caught it early he would only need to give me a single day dose, after looking how red the bite was he said he was giving me the full three week dose. Just finished the treatment about a week ago and never developed any syptoms.

Got an e-mail several days after I got the tick bite. It had a great way to remove a tick that is latched on hard. Use liquid dish detergent on a q-tip and swirl it on the tick. Causes the tick to back out and the tick usually sticks to the q-tip to remove it. I'll use this method in the future to remove any ticks. Last weekend after hiking my wife and I removed about 7 ticks from the dogs and ourselves. I will be checking myself any time I'm out in the woods again.

I work for the governemnt. I used to approve rural subdivisions for onsite sewage dispossal (approve lot sizes bassed on soil suitability for septic systems). On some very large phases of subdivisions (40-100 acres) I would have to spend a couple of days looking at soil in some pretty raw land. One day I pulled over 40 ticks off me (attached and unattached-and of course, the chiggers). My wife would get theose hard to reach ones (redneck foreplay). No matter how throrough we were, some would get missed for a little while (~24hrs). I had some of those symtoms a a few summers ago, but they passed without going to the doctor. At the time, I didn't even think about Rocky mt, or lymes. I later figured I cought west nile.

Proofman said:

I later figured I cought west nile.

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Very possible. When healthy adults get this, it's usually asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic.

CDC's tick removal:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/Lyme/ld_tickremoval.htm

I live about 1/2 hour from the town that gave Lyme disease it's name. I know quite a few people that have had it, and it can get pretty nasty if it goes untreated for long. The girl I dated for most of high school spent almost a year in the hospital between 7th and 8th grade because she was misdiagnosed and when the docs finally got it right she was in pretty bad shape.

Proofman said:

I work for the governemnt. I used to approve rural subdivisions for onsite sewage dispossal (approve lot sizes bassed on soil suitability for septic systems). On some very large phases of subdivisions (40-100 acres) I would have to spend a couple of days looking at soil in some pretty raw land. One day I pulled over 40 ticks off me (attached and unattached-and of course, the chiggers). My wife would get theose hard to reach ones (redneck foreplay). No matter how throrough we were, some would get missed for a little while (~24hrs). I had some of those symtoms a a few summers ago, but they passed without going to the doctor. At the time, I didn't even think about Rocky mt, or lymes. I later figured I cought west nile.

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Two thoughts on your post: First, "redneck foreplay"...lol!!

Second, if you got Lyme dz and haven't been treated, then you still have it. Your PRIMARY symptoms have gone away, but without a course of antibiotics, some real nasty and unrecoverable things can happen later on. It isn't just that the same symptoms you had before could come back; we are talking much more serious stuff here. I urge you to make an appt with your doctor ASAP and tell him the exact same thing you just posted. (He/She will very much enjoy the redneck foreplay comment, as well. Us docs don't get to laugh enough as it is.)

Bedlam said:

I urge you to make an appt with your doctor ASAP and tell him the exact same thing you just posted. (He/She will very much enjoy the redneck foreplay comment, as well. Us docs don't get to laugh enough as it is.)

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Yeah, Ihave an appointment withmy doc thurs. So I will mention it to him. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a good idea.

I picked it up in Germany when I was living there. I had what a thought was a spider bite on my leg. After a few days, it began to ache and looked like a bullseye target as an inflamed circle grew around the bite. I went to the doctor and with one look he said Lyme Disease.

21 days of antibiotics took care of it.

My dad got it back in '88. Doctor's wouldn't do the test because "Lymes disease isn't in kansas" but it was in every surrounding state...ticks don't cross borders. They didn't listen until he had a stroke. Luckily he only had some minor memory loss. The illness went away as soon as the antibiotics started.

xamers said:

Not a bummer at all. A bummer would be not realizing that it is ravaging your body until permanent damage to your joints and nervous system has been done.

Good pick up by your doc.

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MrFebtober has a relative who has had lyme disease, misdiagnosed, for years. The damage is very very bad, and is permanent. She's on so many drugs - she's only 30-something but this disease has aged her tremendously.