Tick Borne Illness

Originally posted on Living the Lyme Life in September of 2008. I have altered it a bit to fit the Tick Lady blog.

I often get questions about Lyme Disease. The most often question I get is, "How did you get that?" Once I tell them, it is generally followed by, "Where did you get it?" I can answer them by saying here (North Carolina) which is followed by a look of shock and confusion. Then they quizzically ask, "Really? I thought it was only in the New England states." Those statements are even made to me by physicians at a local hospital.

They are small. Some are small as the size of the period at the end of this sentence. However, little ticks carry big diseases. Some diseases that are most often heard of are Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Not only are there other tick borne illnesses, but each disease has many different strains making it difficult to diagnose and to treat.

There are several diagnostic tests for tick borne illnesses, but those tests only test for a few of the strains of each illness causing many false negatives. The best lab in the United States to test for Tick Borne Illness is IgeneX in Palo Alto California, but even they don’t test for all the strains of each illness.

Lyme Disease is a spiral bacteria. It bores into your cells and hides. Because of it’s corkscrew shape, it travels into your tissue and hides itself in healthy cells. Therefore, your own immune system doesn’t start to fight it since it doesn’t even realize that there is bacteria there. The borrelia (Lyme Disease) bacteria also can change form when in a “hostile” environment (example: when attacked by antibiotics) and can form into cysts which are safe from most antibiotics.

Lyme Disease reacts differently in each person and there can be a multitude of symptoms. Some people infected with the Lyme bacteria have over 75 symptoms. Even though most people associate joint pain with Lyme Disease, not everyone with Lyme Disease has joint pain. Also another marker of the disease is a bulls eye rash near the site of the tick bite.

Even though physicians call this a tell tale sign of Lyme, many people do not even get the bulls eye rash. The other problem is that sometimes the rash may be in an area where it can not be detected. An example of this would be on your scalp under hair. Because the bacterium multiplies so quickly, when the bacterium is killed it creates toxins which often make the patient feel worse on antibiotics.

There are two types of physicians that treat Lyme Disease. It is a very controversial illness and the two types of physicians believe different things. One particular group of doctors believes that long term antibiotics is not the answer. That if you are on antibiotics for more than a month and still have symptoms that you have Post Lyme Syndrome. The other group of doctors believe that if you have symptoms of Lyme Disease (or any of the other tick borne illnesses) that you still have Lyme. Most Chronic Lyme patients side on the group of doctors that believe in long term antibiotics.

The reason Lyme Disease is so difficult to diagnose is that it causes multi-system symptoms. If you don't know you've been bitten by a tick, it is even more difficult to get a diagnosis. You may ask how can you not know you've been bitten by a tick. Wouldn't you know right away? Not necessarily. First thing is that ticks inject their saliva into your blood stream when they bite and their saliva is numbing.

If you are extremely sensitive, you might feel them crawling on you and you might feel the bite. Are you itching yet? I am. :) However a lot of people may not feel them crawling or the tick may take a ride up the side of the pants and have very minimal skin contact until they actually attach. Once they attach, they feed on your blood until they are full. Then they back out and you never know they were there. And also if they crawl up into your scalp, you may not ever see the tick. You might have an itchy spot, but you just figure you've got itchy skin.

Lyme Disease can cause flu-like symptoms, joint pain, muscle aches, fatigue, headaches, rashes, muscle twitches, sore throat, sensitivity to lights, seizures, ringing in the ears, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, sweating, heart pain, poor balance, dizziness, mood swings, sleep deprivation, over sleeping, memory loss, speech difficulty, reproduction & sexual dysfunction, low body temperature, continued infections, increased allergies, and many many more.


These are some of the best websites that I have found on Lyme Disease and the last one is a newsletter for tick borne illnesses and other public health issues.

http://www.canlyme.com/patsymptoms.html

http://www.carolinalyme.org/

http://www.truthaboutlymedisease.com

http://www.nclyme.org/

http://www.publichealthalert.org/

Jennifer ~
The Tick Lady