Medical PSA

If this is as bad as they believe it to be then don't mess around if you are showing symptoms. I've had/have Lyme disease (there is debate on whether the spirochetes that cause it are ever really gone/dead) and it is no fun. Neither is the course of doxycycline used to fight it. Actually, I'm not sure which was worse.

That said, in my case my wife found the tick on my shoulder. Two weeks later the rash showed up where the tick had been and I felt like I had a rotten case of the flu.

Off to the doc who started me on the Doxy sent me to the hospital for the tests.

Which came back negative. And she told me to stop the antibiotics.

Listened to her about as well as I listen to anyone else and continued the treatment anyway. This was in September of 2001 when false negatives, especially early in an infection, were high.

3 other people who worked n the same office as me and live in the same area also had symptoms that year. All went to the same doc and all had the same result, but they stopped the treatments. In one case the woman still suffers serious problems all these years later because it was another 9 months until she was properly diagnosed.

I still feel like I get a summer flu or two every year, along with some joint pains, especially in my fingers. Going to the gym seems to help with both and I admit some of it could be my approaching middle age.

The point being, if the doc tells you it's negative don't take no for an answer. Have them test again for both Lyme and now this new Borrelia miyamotoi, especially until the medical community gets up to speed on it.

CBSLocal:

New Tick-Borne Illness Could Be Worse Than Lyme Disease
Doctors May Not Even Know To Look For Borrelia Miyamotoi Infection

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A new disease spread by deer ticks has already infected 100,000 New Yorkers since the state first started keeping track.

As CBS 2’s Dr. Max Gomez reported, the new deer tick-borne illness resembles Lyme disease, but is a different malady altogether – and it could be even worse.

The common deer tick is capable of spreading dangerous germs into the human bloodstream with its bite. However, Lyme disease is one of many diseases that ticks carry.

The latest disease is related to Lyme, and an infected person will suffer similar symptoms.
 “Patients with this illness will develop, perhaps, fever, headache, flu-like symptoms, muscle pains — so they’ll have typical Lyme-like flu symptoms in the spring, summer, early fall,” said Dr. Brian Fallon of Columbia University. “But most of them will not develop the typical rash that you see with Lyme disease.”

Fallon, a renowned expert on Lyme disease at the New York Psychiatric Institute, said the importance of the new bacterium – called Borrelia miyamotoi — is that it might explain cases of what looked like chronic Lyme disease, but did not test positive for Lyme.

“The problem is that the diagnosis is going to be missed, because doctors aren’t going to think about Borrelia miyamotoi because they don’t know about it. And number two, if they test for Lyme disease, it will test negative, and the rash won’t be there,” Fallon said. “So they are not going to treat with the antibiotics, so the patient will have an infection staying in their system longer than it should.

While there is no test yet for the germ, the good news is that it appears the same antibiotic that kills Lyme disease also works – if it is given in the right doses and started early in the infection.

Remember, it takes a tick bite to get Lyme disease or the new bug, and the tick usually has to feed on your blood for at least 24 hours.

If you have been outdoors, have someone else do a full body check, Gomez advised. Ticks are small – only about the size of a sesame seed.

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And one more thing. You don't have to go to the woods to catch Lyme. All four of us mentioned above got it in our own backyards and neighborhood.

So be on the lookout.

And if anyone -- AoW, Christine, Christian Soldier, Mrs. Pastorius, Epa -- aren't sure what to look for or need some help checking, well. . .

 

(aw c'mon. you didn't really think I could let that pass did you?)