Daily Survival Guide

[macdobhran]

How to Recognize Lyme Disease
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• A round, "bull's-eye" rash on the skin, which may be very small or up to twelve inches across.


• Rashes or skin bruising that mimic common skin problems, including hives, eczema, sunburn, poison ivy, and flea bites. The rash will look like a bruise on those with dark skin color.


• Flu-like symptoms days or weeks after a bite: aches and pains in muscles and joints, low-grade fever, and fatigue.


• Other systemic symptoms can include: jaw pain and difficulty chewing; frequent or painful urination and/or repeated urinary tract infections; respiratory infection, cough, asthma, and pneumonia; ear pain, hearing loss, ringing, sensitivity to noise; sore throat, swollen glands, cough, hoarseness, difficulty swallowing; headaches, facial paralysis, seizures, meningitis, stiff neck; burning, tingling, or prickling sensations; loss of reflexes, loss of coordination; stomach pain, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, loss of appetite; and irregular heartbeat, palpitations, heart block, enlarged heart, fainting, inflammation of muscle or membrane, shortness of breath, and chest pain.

Comments

[netsearcher.livejournal.com]

The blood tests are notoriously unreliable. The first time I went to my doctor with the rash I knew that. She asked if I wanted to have one, saying the health dept likes to see stats (why I can't imagine since the test is unreliable). I was self pay, so I'd be footing the bill for that nonsense. I asked her if she'd change the recommended treatment of doxy if the test came back negative. She said absolutely NOT.

I passed on the test. :-p
http://www.drugs.com/doxycycline.html says it's ok to take the iron supplement while on it, but not within 2 hours of each other. The idea is not to have them being absorbed at the same time. And nobody told me about that either - I only knew because I'd read the computer printout that the pharmacy provided with the vial of pills. There's important stuff on those, but I think a lot of people don't read them and just go by what the vial label says. :(

If the tick (that you know of) wasn't attached for 24 hours, why were you being treated? I don't think it's the norm to dose a patient (who has no symptoms) just for being bitten, unless the tick itself is returned for testing and comes back positive.

[mizjawnson.livejournal.com]

I had a rash. Actually, I had two rashes, but one was athlete's foot not on my foot and the two were almost right next to each other.

I got the tick bite during the night - I remember because I felt a sharp sting and sort-of woke-up. I just ignored it and went back to sleep. In the morning, that's where the tick was. We didn't think to keep the tick.

I got a bulls-eye style rash and went to the nurse's office at work. He told me to get immediate treatment. The doc's office couldn't see me for 2 weeks, so I went to urgent care. They did the doxycycline treatment as a precaution - as well as doing the first blood test.

When I followed up with my doc (and trust, I'm using the term "doc" loosely), she had me finish out the first round of doxy, wait some weeks, get tested again, get the (negative) results, put me back on doxy, wait again, get tested again, get the (negative) results, and then we were going to consider our treatment options when I requested to get a copy of my test results.

[netsearcher.livejournal.com]

If you didn't have any symptoms after the round of doxy, I would have not bothered with the other tests. I'm not sure what the point was. Basically, if it looks like Lyme, and it smells like Lyme, it should be treated as Lyme.

[mizjawnson.livejournal.com]

The point of the additional tests was that I was under the care of Dr. Quacker Jacks!

(The office also once tested me, in office - against my insurance policies, for Norovirus when I had an upset stomach. They also had my husband on an injection schedule - and then repeatedly failed to have his injection in stock.)