Brief LifeStuff Update

As far as one can tell, less than a week into the process, the meds for Lyme Disease seem to be doing something positive for the one obvious, and one less obvious, sign of the disease: the bulls-eye rash and the headache that (given the weather and my head’s usual reaction to it) might have been from early Lyme or a weather-triggered sinus-migraine-thing.   A Lyme bull’s-eye rash typically grows and grows…mine had gone from approximately 1/4 – /8 inch itchy red spot after tick removal to a ring 3/4 inch in diameter in a few days;  it’s now just under 3/4 inch, a duller pink, no longer a clear ring.  The headache which coincided with the arrival of a storm last week (3 days after tick removal) hung on through the weekend and Monday but is now gone.

So we’re thinking it was probably Lyme, and having been treated early, it’s in retreat.  I still have more than a week of meds to go.

9 thoughts on “Brief LifeStuff Update

  1. Lyme is a ratbastard of a bug. When I was treated for mine the PA warned me that I might feel worse before I felt better – as the antibiotics killed the critter, the byproducts of its breakup would also trigger a physical reaction. I was extremely grateful that he had warned me – or I would have been running for the ER in a panic.
    Best of luck with killing the thing.

    1. Tuppenny: I think the only backlash I had–which might’ve been the bug itself, for that matter–was the headache getting worse for a couple of days, and feeling more vague malaise–lack of energy, sense of “just not right”–than before. But we caught it early. That also seems to be passing off, although the forced relative inactivity, due to staying indoors out of thunderstorms isn’t letting me continue the exercise and conditioning I was doing before.

      Ed: Me, too. I have a friend whose Lyme was not treated early–she was wrongly told she lived outside the area where it could be–and she developed a chronic form of it.

      Nadine: As we are a “ticky” area, with more than one species of tick around, and we do work out on the land, including in brush, we’re aware of ticks and monitor tick bites–alert for symptoms of possible tick-borne illnesses. I’m not sure how I let this one get that attached, actually. But it takes awhile for the bite site to start itching, if you don’t see them on their way to finding a site.

    1. It’s feeling better and I like that. I also like (a rare thing for a CenTX person to say) that the rain has quit for awhile (not too long a while I hope) and therefore concern about the septic system has eased. Few things are worse than feeling as if one might need the facilities, but being unsure if they’ll flush…in the modern world, that is

      The dog…well, the dog at this moment is not up to anything but making mischief, as Jack Russells are wont to do–busy-busy-busy–but I have been informed by the Plot Daemon that, as before, the dog WILL do something important to the plot sometime, and I should just relax and get on with it. Unfortunately, right now my brain can construct coherent nonfiction, or edit fiction, but is not cooperating with first-drafting anything. Every day I give it a go, and every day it says “Empty.” It has been empty before and refilled, so I know it will, but not exactly when. (The little Universes episode isn’t the same as actual fiction–it’s just an episode, and a day’s writing needs more than one episode so it’ll connect to something else. Or, as Miles Vorkosigan kept saying, “Forward momentum.”) But trying it daily is keeping the pump greased and in operating order.

  2. Glad to hear you caught the lyme in time! In australia lyme disease isn’t even recognized so people suffering the chronic version are in real trouble!

  3. ellen: According to the reading I’ve done online, the bacteria itself has relatives elsewhere in the world, some of which might cause a human illness, but I don’t know if a _Borrelia_ species infects ticks in Australia. Since it can be treated with the same medication as some other tickborne diseases (the Rickettsia group), if Lyme is subsumed into those as “tickborne rash disease,” anyone coming back from the USA with it should get the right treatment. Basically, anyone with an expanding rash after a tick bite–especially when accompanied by a headache and/or other symptoms–or a severe headache, fever, and malaise without a rash–needs treatment for a tick borne illness.

  4. Right. I know of some cases here from the media, but not where they picked it up, one girl lives locally ( more or less) and she is getting treatment overseas, I’ve been following her story….

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