Lyme disease

I don't know if it's still possible for you, but consult with your PCP about an enzyme titer specific to Lyme disease.

This is very real. I am fighting the co-infections of Lyme disease and Babesia (also tick borne). Another resource is Dr. Daniel Cameron, an epidemiologist and Lyme disease expert in New York. Just Google his name for videos and more.

https://danielcameronmd.com/can-you-have-lyme-disease-and-not-know-it/
I love the image of your aunt and mom going over you and finding the tick. Luckily, they suspected. You didn't get the antibiotic though, so maybe you preserved some of those spirochetes.

Thank you for the Information, I have already checked it out. I’m going to do a little more checking out.. Cause I do have a lot more questions about things. You have a great day and thank you

I grew up in Northern Indiana. I am your age. I got a “rock” (tick) stuck in my eyebrow when I was about 12. Our family would “camp out” - bring blankets out and sleep under the stars on the lawn on a summer night. After the rock, I was diagnosed with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and, I assume, treated in some way. I can’t remember all details but RMSF did not make sense to me because it is pancake flat where we lived so I remembered that and the “rock”. A decade later, Lyme became a thing. Another decade later alpha-gal became a thing. (I haven’t been able to stomach red meat since about the age of 13. I get sick.).
In my teens, my heart started to just start racing for no reason. My mom poopooed it because “everyone has that - you’re not special”. In my thirties, I had several bouts of bell’s palsy. After my second child, I developed a leg swelling and my doctor checked me for arthritis. It wasn’t arthritis tho, according to the x-rays. He checked my ANA and one doctor thought I had Lupus and told me to prepare my family to expect my death in 5 years. I found a small reference to Lyme in a book on arthritis and asked my family doctor to consider Lyme because I had all the markers. He started me on a 2 week trial of meds (too short) and I eventually found a Lyme specialist who diagnosed Lyme on symptoms, not tests. The Lyme tests often give inaccurate results. He treated me with Doxycycline and Probenicid for about a year. I had Herxheimer reactions to the dead bugs and he treated me until the Herx stopped. That was about 35 years ago. I have had nothing that was definitely Lyme since. My ANA went back to normal (considered an impossibility). I still can’t eat red meat though. That is probably permanent.

@mayo99824 thank you for the information. My oldest daughter and I were talking about the deer that are around her house that they just moved into and about the risk of Lyme disease That is when I remembered being bit. I know I was sick and had a fever for a number of days, but I was never taken in to a doctor. There was very little online and I’m gonna do more research on it. So your information was very important to me and my daughter. The only good thing I could say three of her children are in college or have graduated and only one left at home. But she will have to be careful mowing lawn
Thank you

@minnesota10
I have to say that, as kids, we were outside in the grass from dawn to dusk and the eyebrow is the only place a tick was recorded for me, that I remember. I have hypersensitive skin and can feel a mosquito or blackfly land on me so I rarely get bug bites. I don’t know if that was always the case or just after getting tick bitten. The tick has to be in place for a while to pass on Lyme.
There were probably fewer ticks around back then, in Indiana, as well. The point is, it may have been harder to get a tick. I am “paranoid” now about catching ticks but luckily I live in Alaska now - fewer ticks. I did have one fall out of the heat duct at my work once. Freaked me out.
I also follow the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” philosophy. I have had other parasites, but usually in my gut. Parasites don’t usually kill you but maybe some day we will find they also offer some protections to the host. All of my full bio family died decades ago.
Sadly, my sister died, of what was diagnosed as MS, at the age of 35 (40 years ago). She played outside less than my brother and I, but went camping with girl scouts, which I didn’t. Some doctors question whether some cases of MS are misdiagnosed, or undiagnosed, Lyme. MS also does not usually kill you but, in her case, it totally crippled her and destroyed her nervous system.
It reminds me that both my sister and I had major symptoms show up after pregnancy. I think that pregnancy causes your immune system to weaken temporarily so your body doesn’t reject the baby. Maybe this is why so many women get “autoimmune” diseases.

https://treatlyme.com/

@coloradom
thank you for the information.

@mayo99824 I have had now for over 6 years! Because I live in New Mexico doctors were hesitant to diagnosed Lyme.
The facts that I have learned is you learn that you may have been in Tick country and not realized it!
In my case I have played golf for over 70 years. all while living in the SW,
That all changed in my 30ths. I became involved in the golf industry representing ,Nike, Reebok, Ping, Cleveland Golf and many other companies!
Being in the industry I have played golf all over the US and the world!
Several us, including PGA Tour players. who have come down with Lyme! Including Jimmy Walker and his wife!
Our theory is, they spray the fairways for insects but not i the rough where they breed!
Anyway mine has degenerated my body both mentally and physically so I am at the stage of having to use a cane to walk!
Put 30 people in a room and they will all have different symptoms!
That's Lyme!
Those of us who have Late Stage Clinical Lyme know what it can do!
Thankfully Bobby Kennedy Jr. has come in and opened the door for those of us suffering from Lyme1
My Blessing to all of you Lyme sufferers!
We just learn to take One Day at a time!
RB