iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

I visited NH and all I got was this lousy tick bite. Tell me about Lyme Disease

Started by slowzuki, June 28, 2006, 08:25:10 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

slowzuki

I visited NH monday and tues and on tues am when I got up I discovered what I later identified as a deer tick nymph just about the waistband of my pants.  Went to the drug store and got a tick removal tool and got it off in one piece.

I read that the lyme disease infection rates in NH are 50%-70% of deer ticks are carriers.  We don't really have them here at home and doctors don't really know how to approach it.

What should I be doing?

SwampDonkey

I don't know what to tell ya. But, something sure reached out and grabbed ahold of me real hard the last few days. Every muscle in my body yesterday afternoon and last night was in cronic pain and my kneck has been stiff for 3 days. On monday I wasn't sure I was going to get out of the woods and on the drive back I was some dizzy character. I still have a slight fever along with this mess and I noticed a few red blotches that don't itch on my arms. I'm sure it's some kind of immune response to something.  ::)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Dan_Shade

did you keep the tick?

you may get a bull's eye with a lot of swelling at the tick bite.  If you do, then go to the doctor, and they will give you doxycycline to combat the bacteria that causes lyme disease.

there is a lot of info out there on lyme disease.  I seem to remember a 3 week time period of getting the antibiotic if you are infected.  I also think the tick has to be imbedded for 72 hours to give you the disease.
Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

SwampDonkey

I've recently heard on public radio (CBC) that most folks in New Brunswick that have got the lymes disease ended up going out of province for treatment because our health care practioners are not prepared to deal with it and have misdiagnosed it on many occassions.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Dan_Shade

i believe that typically the symptoms don't show up for a few years, which can make diagnosis difficult, couple that with the fact that lyme can affect any and all of the systems in your body doesn't make it any easier to diagnose it.

Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

UNCLEBUCK

 The deer tick I think is quite small compared to the normal tick . I hate em all and spray my boots with "off" or "raid" to keep them from attacking me but I just yank em off and make sure I take a scalding hot shower every night .  Have had a few that left a swelling red bump and I dont know if its in my mind but have had fever and tired for 2 days after a red bump was left.   Not sure of anything with ticks except I hate them . Still better than snowsnakes I think ?   yikes_smiley
UNCLEBUCK    bridge burner/bridge mender

asy

Gosh Buck, you've sure got some CRITTERS at your place!

I would HATE to live somewhere there were ticks. Never mind the hot shower, I'd require someone to check me EVERY DAY. I'd be terrified there was one on my back and I couldn't see it!

asy :D
Never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake.
There cannot be a crisis next week. ~My schedule is already full..

simonmeridew

Hi Slow
The following is not medical advice, for informative purposes only. Seek medical advice from your doctor. :   
Deer ticks are tiny: this time of year about the size of this period.  '.'  The carrier rate is probably much lower than you have seen reported. Also
most authorities claim it must be on you for 24 hours before it's imbedded enough to bite, somewhat longer to infect if it is infact a carrier, which is unlikely. Symptoms typially show up about two to three weeks after infection, showing a large "bullseye" at the site of bite, red, maybe 2 inches in diameter. Some have reported no bullseye. Symptoms can be quite variable and can appear months later. Best bet, start doxycycline 100 mg: 1 or 2 daily. Also since the lyme organism is a spirochete, easily available penicillin or amoxicillin is also effective. I had three on my legs when I came back from Cape May NJ a couple of years ago. I took amoxicillin 500 mg 4 times a day for at least 3 weeks. Like I said see your own MD.
PS The moose I shot 6 years ago was COVERED  with ticks, both wood ticks and deer tics. I would estimate several thousand. Creepy
simonmeridew
Kubota L4400, Farmi 351

Bill

Lyme disease

A couple years back a lady friend and I both picked up ticks that were tiny on a Saturday and by Sunday we had them off. Monday we had small bullseyes and independently went to diiferent doctors. Both doctors immediately put us on antibiotics - sorry i don't remember the type - while they let their tests run. Both tests came back negative but we were told that was typical since the test was run so quickly after the bite so our doctors had us finish the antibotic treatment anyway . We're both fine now.

Some of what I recall was that the symptoms tend to be flu like and go dormant in awhile - however - the infection is only growing internally ( could be over a year or more ) . A guy at the company I worked for had an advanced case - they didn't catch it till more than a year after the bite. He was a mess with all kinds of neurological damage that can't be reversed.

My thought would be to see a doctor for a lyme disease test and the course of antibiotics if at all any question.

Hope all is well with you and yours . . .

Gary_C

All good advice here. It is important to note that not all people have the bullseye rash. Also the tests are somewhat inconclusive.

If you have been exposed, in your case bitten, the doctor will usually opt for the safest option which is to give the antibotics. So please seek your doctors advice immediately. If he is uncertain on what to do, there is help and advice available.
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

RSteiner

Quote from: asy on June 29, 2006, 04:47:04 AM
Gosh Buck, you've sure got some CRITTERS at your place!

I would HATE to live somewhere there were ticks. Never mind the hot shower, I'd require someone to check me EVERY DAY. I'd be terrified there was one on my back and I couldn't see it!

asy :D

I don't like those things either!!! 

I have lived in New Hampshire so far all my life and have not really had a tick bite yet.  Twice I found one on my clothes and once found one on the skin of my leg which had not bitten yet.  Years ago you didn't have to worry about these nasty little bugs.

If we have spent the day in an area where we think ticks would be my wife and I both check the areas of our bodies we I can not see.  The relationship between a man and his wife is now measured by these little bugs.  When anybody asks how we are getting along we say, well we are still picking ticks.

Randy
Randy

asy

hehehe Good one Randy.

Since I'm not married, I'll have to look for volunteers. :D

asy :D
Never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake.
There cannot be a crisis next week. ~My schedule is already full..

raycon

My back rock wall is in Lyme,CT. Namesake of the disease.

Plenty of ticks in our woods and fields thats for sure.  When I pull off a tick I put tea tree oil on the bite site it and start taking Selenium (200 mg).
  If sometime with in the next month you spike a fever, lose your appetite, head aches, etc get checked for lymes.  If the bulls eye appears not necessairily at the bite site get to the doctor. Treated quickly it should not linger long. Left untreated things can get nasty.
I'd not worry about it to much just head to a doctor if symptoms appear.
Lot of stuff..

SwampDonkey

Well I had to go to the hospital today to see what's up in my case. The nurse came in with a basket full of viles and needles and such and jabbed one of them big needles in the arm and filled....I don't know after counting ten of them viles how many litres she sucked out. But, I had to ask her after awhile if I was suppose to fill the whole Dang basketful. SHe said not quite, but I don't think many were left empty. Then had to go in that room of porcelain for the sample. Anyway, they got tested while I waited for 2 hours for the doc to come back after surgery. Said nothing detectable, no infections, white blood count good etc. Gave me a prescription for muscle relaxers.....  :-\ and said if that don't work we'll test for arthuritis. I ain't never had that in my life, and it don't seem to me it happens overnight. Seems to me its a progressive disease ain't it?

SwampDonkey the guinee pig. 

All I know is too many more nights of this muscle pain business and I'm gonna be ready for scientific study.  ::) :P
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Gary_C

SwampDonkey

Please read this:  Lyme Diagnosis

If necessary do as I did once when I had the same symptoms as you have and took a copy of this to the doctor.  Basically it says that the tests are unreliable and if you have been exposed to an area where there are ticks present, have a rash and or fever, you should be treated with antibiotics. The risks of not treating far out weigh the potential over use of antibotics. 
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

Bill

I agree completely - my tests came back negative even though I had the "classic" ( which may have disappeared before you even knew to look for it ) bullseye. Far more wise to do the antibiotics than be an invalid later  . . . Make sure the doc understands that lyme disease throws off many different symptoms in different people. I don't want to be sounding like I'm trying to give medical advice - just making sure you get a good going over and cure .

Hope all goes well . . .

slowzuki

Well I went to the doc and they won't give anti-biotics unless you get the bullseye or get flu-like symtoms or if you saved the tick and they can test it.  I'm a little nervous now.  Keeping an eye on the bit.

I wish I could just get them, it is just a 15$ prescription...

gary

Can you go to a different doctor? I have had to go to as many as 6 doctors before to find one that would do what I wanted done.

SwampDonkey

Last couple nights I haven't had to take muscle relaxers and I don't have that cursed muscle aches any more. I take an Ibuprofin once in the morning and evening. Things are looking up, I hope.  ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

UNCLEBUCK

Getting to the doctor ,thats the hard part .  Whats a little tick I say , boy am I going to crash and burn someday .

Hey SwampD, I can take 1200 milligrams ibuprofen and still muscle pain, take 1 bayer aspirin and pain gone .  I went to a cardiology specialist to find that out ,he said all people react differently to different meds and told me to find the one that works best for me .   What you got your pains from? ticks?
UNCLEBUCK    bridge burner/bridge mender

Bill

FWIW

Without meaning to sound like a broken record the darn lyme disease goes into this kinda remission - where there are no outward symptoms - and then comes back much much later as nasty problems most doctors don't think to associate with lyme disease ( like neurological stuff ) and its too late to reverse the damage. The doc's here are so worried about "false" negatives that they'll treat you with antibiotics if you have had a (small) tick bite or a bullseye or flu like symptoms after a tick bite just because the consequences of untreated lyme disease can't be reversed. There have been cases here where the tick has fallen off ( abrasion by clothing and such ) or the bullseye didn't appear ( like no one saw it or knew to look for it till well after it was gone ) so doc's here have been doing the "CYA" thing and prescribing the anitbiotics.

Again not meaning to beat a dead horse - only having seen a guy a work that got Lyme disease several years ago and it wasn't treated till recently - well they can't rebuild the damage it did so now he's pretty messed up.

Hope all goes well with you and yours . . .    and you have a really good doc taking care of you

bugmeist

If you go to our web page  www.bugshirt.com , scroll down our home page to a link that says " click here for 1 woman's story of Lyme Disease...."   

There is lots of resourse info on her site as well as her (fairly scary) personal experience with Lyme.

I know from talking to many folks who have had it that it is not something to take casually!
100 acres, Lucas 618, Universal Tractor w/loader, chainsaws, cant hooks and not enough time to play!
Fear is temporary...regret is forever.   www.bugshirt.com

johnjbc

Was out in the field looking for some Locust posts last night and when setting in my chair afterwards I felt something crawling up the back of my knee. Got him before he got me.
LT40HDG24, Case VAC, Kubota L48, Case 580B, Cat 977H, Bobcat 773

Modat22

My dad and I both got lyme desease 3 or 4 years ago, luckily we had the tattle tail red rash around the tick bite and knew what we had from reading about it.

The doctor didn't want to do anything even with the rash as an indicator but after 8 months my dad started feeling really bad and I was having joint pains in my ancles and felt generally lathargic, We went back to the doctor and basically complaining until  he started us on a 4 month treatment with heavy antibiotics and we got better. We've had no problems since but I've heard that lyme never truely goes away and requires further treatments (I'm unsure if this is correct or not, please correct me if you know otherwise)
remember man that thy are dust.

asy

Never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake.
There cannot be a crisis next week. ~My schedule is already full..

Thank You Sponsors!