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Bartonella/CSD or Lyme? Antibiotics and tinnitus/stomach pain?
I never saw a tick on me, but a deer ked, and found this mark on my neck right after. I read this flea can spread both Lyme and Bartonella (which can cause cat scratch disease?)
My doctor kept saying for weeks that it looks nothing like Lyme, but then said maybe it’s best I take antibiotics anyway.
He didn’t seem to know anything about Bartonella.
He gave me Doxycycline and I was supposed to take it for 10 days. But then I learned, as I already have tinnitus for many years and major issues with my ears and stomach lining, Doxy is not a good option for me as it can permanently make these symptoms worse. Is that true?
I was given Amoxicillin instead, but from my understanding it only treats Lyme, not Bartonella, while Doxy treats both?
So now I don’t know what to do. Do you think this looks like Lyme, or Bartonella/CSD?
Aside from the mark I’ve had a bit of a temperature, body ache, head ache and fatigue. But I have so many other health issues it’s hard to know if it has anything to do with the mark at all.
I really don’t want my tinnitus or stomach to get worse, and especially not in vain.
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@emmabell
I'm not a doctor, but I do think your rash looks like a classic Lyme bullseye rash. Many doctors don't know a lot about this, and not all patients who get Lyme get a rash, so that can't be a determining factor. This lab does blood testing for various Co-infections https://igenex.com/the-igenex-advantage/
Here are a few useful links about Lyme disease and co-infections and their treatment that I ran across while searching.
https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/co-infections/about-co-infections/
https://www.idsociety.org/practice-guideline/lyme-disease/#null
https://lymediseaseassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/BurrGuide200810.pdf
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/14787210.2014.940900
You had the temperature, body aches, head ache and fatigue at the same time as the rash, and that kind of supports the possibility of infection. I know you are worried about tinnitus, and lots of drugs and antibiotics are ototoxic and cause tinnitus and may damage the hair cells in the inner ear that function for hearing. Some are worse than others, and that information is hard to find sometimes, but then again, Lyme disease can be missed and become chronic causing problems over a lifetime and that is very often misdiagnosed. If you are the beginning of this now, what you choose now may determine your future health. Everything has a risk to benefit ratio, and if you do no treatment and have an infection, you live with the consequences of no treatment.
You may need a Lyme specialist to figure this out and those may be found in a group called ILADS. This is from the ILADS website. https://www.ilads.org/patient-care/ilads-treatment-guidelines/