LYME’s disease

Do they give any antibiotics if it is past 6 months? She has been sick for a while now

I’m pretty sure it’s just called Lyme disease. Shania Twain has it

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Do they give any antibiotics if it is past 6 months? She has been sick for a while now

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I'm not a doctor but I have gone through an episode where I thought I had lyme disease. I went for a consultation within days after I noticed a spot on my arm where I thought a tick latched on to me. I took a 5 day course of doxycycline and that was it. After reading more about how it's transmitted I don't think I had much chance of contracting it.

In some cases the symptoms are hard to pin down as a case of lyme disease, especially so much later in the process after the initial infection (if there is one).

It takes about 24 hours for a tick that's latched on to your skin to transmit lyme disease. It doesn't happen easily and requires a lot of time which would include the host not recognizing there's a tick latched to their body for up to 24 hours.

Did this person visit anywhere that lyme disease ticks are widely present? Like the northeast?

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The chances that you might get Lyme disease from a single tick bite depend on the type of tick, where you acquired it, and how long it was attached to you. Many types of ticks bite people in the U.S., but only blacklegged ticks transmit the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. Furthermore, only blacklegged ticks in the highly endemic areas of the northeastern and north central U.S. are commonly infected. Finally, blacklegged ticks need to be attached for at least 24 hours before they can transmit Lyme disease. This is why it’s so important to remove them promptly and to check your body daily for ticks if you live in an endemic area.

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Check this website

I got it about 2 years ago in S Alabama.
Doctors originally told me I had cancer.
Scary 2.5 weeks, until a virologist told me I had mono plus Lyme disease.
Got like 2 weeks of dyoxocilyn or whatever, and am now as fan as an overweight American male can be. No diet restrictions or any lingering effects.
I did receive a call shortly thereafter from the AL dept of health, wanting to know where I was, where I had been, etc., which was a little weird.

I have several friends that have it and one has to have transfusions twice a year. So I take it pretty seriously. I found two rocks on me this week. Called my doctor and he started me on a precautionary dose of antibiotics. On spot was about 1.5” circle. And after 3 days of meds the spot is now the size of a dime and light red. Hopefully all goes well.

LYME’s is a terrible disease and something I would hate to catch

What made you get checked?

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If you go camping with your kids Check them thoroughly during and after Pulled one off my child after a camping trip

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And after playing with outside animals! I got one playing with a farm goat when I was 4 and have been paranoid about ticks since. Use bug spray to prevent them, especially around the ankles.

Don’t mean to belabor this subject but it’s important because, untreated, Lyme(and other associated tick-borne illnesses) can wreck a person. Sadly, that’s not necessary.

The Dr. I used used to work for the National Institutes of Health. He hated the CDC and said their use of the western blot test as a gold standard for Lyme was not always the case but they’d switched to that recently at the time of my issues.

There are often overlooked variables that might be in play. I spent 30 years as a wildlife biologist for AL DNR - specialized in deer. Handled deer all the time. The place I picked up Lyme was a notable quail plantation. They had folks from all over east of the Mississippi bringing in dogs for field trials and hunts. Many from the NE where Lyme is prevalent. It’s not a stretch to suggest some ticks carrying Lyme could’ve been translocated there. I can’t blame a Dr. for not taking that into consideration as he didn’t have that info - hell, I didn’t think about that possibility until after I’d been treated. Point is - geography is not necessarily a barrier to Lyme.

The thing my Dr. said to me that still resonates is “do you want a positive Lyme test or do you want me to treat all the clinical symptoms you have and hopefully make you better?”

My insurance refused to pay for any of my treatments. I had about $1,400 out of pocket but totally worth it. At that time there was a test by a lab in Cali that was 60% accurate and cost $5K. Now that test is 80% accurate and about $1,400. Prob worth it to make insurance do their part.

Don’t get hung up on some BS - if one is displaying all the classic maladies of Lyme - seek proven medical help and let them do their thing. There’s nothing to lose.