Life after a tick bite

Image from http://randolphcountyhealth.org/images/lyme_tick.jpg

When I started this blog, I had a ton of great ideas for topics that I wanted to write about. My list is still hanging around somewhere, but obviously I haven't gotten around to creating anything new.

There's kind of a good reason for that. The past few weeks I've been sick, and only recently discovered that I contracted Lyme Disease.

When I first got diagnosed, I felt like a bunch of singers should have burst in the door of the doctor's office and treat me to an "It's Lyme Disease" song-and-dance routine. I was happy to figure out why I kept feeling like crap for so long. I had enjoyed the hospitality of a local emergency room and seen every Nurse Practitioner at my family practice. I familiarized myself with the after-hours on-call physicians. As it turns out, the cause was completely unsurprising. Predictable, even.

I mean, I have been running around tick-infested pastures and forests all summer in a county that is an absolute hotbed for Lyme disease. I didn't keep that a secret from my doctors, but it still took a little while to get my diagnosis and treatment on the right track.

It was caught early. Antibiotics have been kicking butt. This will soon be a thing of the past.

However, I feel like the obligatory public service announcement is in order.

Check yourself. Pay attention to your health. If you're sick and not getting better, advocate for yourself. Report all of your symptoms, no matter how inconsequential they may seem.

I got bit on my back, so my regular tick check didn't catch it. My doctors were wonderful, but a simple examination would have revealed the tick bite and bullseye rash long before I was spiking fevers and sprouting red blotches all over myself. Before the blotches, everyone thought it was a particularly nasty cold that would resolve on its own. I didn't mention that I had a persistent headache with neck stiffness that didn't respond to painkillers. I thought that stress and anxiety issues were making everything seem worse than it actually was.

In the end, it was all connected to a nasty little bugger with a nasty bacterial friend.