It’s a good time to interact and share with Lyme. You and I may bemoan the weather, but Dani loves it.

As the world gets warmer and wetter, they’re partying. Ten years ago, the wooded valley I call home had two distinct tick seasons, from mid-March to June, with a short period beginning in the fall. Last year I had my first litter in early February and my dog’s last in November, but it continued non-stop all summer.

Dani is the original robber. They lurk on the tips of blades of grass in and around forests, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to pass by. They want free food, but it ends up being a losing deal for us. The ticks suck our blood and develop Lyme disease, a bacterial infection with very unpleasant consequences.

I’ve just been diagnosed with Lyme disease, so I’m paying attention to this. To make matters worse, I have had this disease for about 8 years without treatment. That’s why many doctors won’t recognize you if you have the disease, and I don’t want that to happen to anyone.

There are two fundamentals to understand about Lyme disease, and they are closely related. While early diagnosis is essential, it is also very difficult to obtain. Speed ​​is everything. There is no organ or corner of the central nervous system that the Lyme disease bacteria won’t destroy if given the chance.

So how do you know if you’ve been exposed to Lyme disease? Many people have never seen the tick that can infect them. It is 1mm long and gets stuck, becomes infected and then falls off. Some will devour it, burying their heads in your flesh and swelling up. The longer you stay, the greater the risk of infection. Thankfully, dog tick removers work great for us too.

Official advice is that the first visual clue of infection is a circular red rash that appears around the tick bite site. This is where the medical industry begins to turmoil.

In 2016, I was bitten by a tick and developed a circular rash, so I underwent surgery. The nurse said it wasn’t Lyme disease (it was bright red from center to edge and didn’t match the bull’s eye picture on the screen). No treatment was offered and I was as ignorant as the nurses at the time.Now you know that Any Any type of rash or blisters (not a rash) that may be associated with ticks should be treated as Lyme disease. We also know that in many cases of Lyme disease, there is no rash.

Things get even worse for patients and doctors. Blood tests produce an equal number of false positives and false negatives in up to 25% of cases. So even if your doctor suspects Lyme disease, which is most likely not the case, test results can often be wrong (and many other results too), some say up to 50% of the time. Masu.

The next problem is the doctor. Once the bacteria starts working, your symptoms may include heart disease, influenza, minor strokes, dementia, diabetic neuropathy, fatigue syndrome, Bell’s palsy, arthritis, intestinal and organ dysfunction of any kind, viral infections, and Parkinson’s disease. It may be mistaken for disease or sagging. upon. Sufferers are constantly exhausted and, in my experience, can sometimes look unevenly gray. This last speckled observation is not in the textbook, but it should be in the textbook.

No other symptom is more familiar to doctors. And to see what’s familiar, a quick look around the waiting room reveals what’s obvious. The majority of patients are obese and have diabetes, coronary heart disease, etc. Most people who are not obese tend to age as they get older. I’ve had a few kids sniffle, and I’ve had one or two adults lose an argument over a power tool. But there is no free tick remover dispenser. There are no warning signs or leaflets on how to avoid Lyme disease. It’s invisible.

Standing in most clinics, you would never guess that Lyme disease is the most prevalent insect/parasite-borne disease in North America and Europe, and one of the fastest-growing infectious diseases in both countries. Probably. That’s big. According to the CDC, nearly half a million Americans contract the disease each year. Many more people are infected but undiagnosed in both North America and Europe. There are many challenges for many people.

Here’s why it took me 8 years to get treatment. As mentioned above, I first visited my doctor’s surgery in 2016 with a circular red rash caused by mites. A patient treated with antibiotics at this stage, in most cases, quickly recovers to 100%. Therefore, medical guidelines say to treat first and then confirm the diagnosis. Although the risks of antibiotics are very low, the consequences of delayed treatment are serious. In my case, medical ignorance led to an incorrect diagnosis.

Trouble started slowly. Within two years, I began to experience worrying levels of fatigue and pain. Despite numerous visits to the doctor, scans and tests, nothing was revealed. Growing more and more worried, I remembered the tick rash and ordered a Lymes test. It’s back to negative. No one told us how inaccurate the tests were, and still are.

Fast forward to more scans, tests, a gallbladder removal that was supposed to solve my problems (and didn’t), a second negative Lyme test, and more. I was a little medical mystery. Then, this fall, I paid for a third test and it came out positive. The next day, my doctor retested both her standard LISA and Western immunoblot tests. Both tested positive. Including Western immunoblot, he is as good as a positive diagnosis if he has 3 positives in a week.

Problems arise when discovery is delayed in this way. Over time, Lyme bacteria attacks and disrupts the autonomic nervous system, which controls everything that happens unconsciously, including blood pressure, breathing, heart rate, and digestion. They also mess with our short-term memory, so when you stop to make a cup of coffee, you might have to remind yourself that you’re writing about lime. That’s very disconcerting. Oddly enough, I never forget why I thinned out the adjectives or moved the subclauses to the bottom of the paragraph. That’s why my blood pressure spikes from 180:140 to 80:50 and why my heart sometimes sounds like The Muppets drummer Animal playing crazy rhythms with one hand. And as drugs are added to treat symptoms, cause and effect become complex.

If it’s hard to get a diagnosis, it’s even harder to get rid of Lyme disease. Symptoms can last long after antibiotics have finished, and the longer you have been sick, the longer your symptoms will last. If this happens, researchers will refer to the information below very carefully. After treatment not lime, length- or Chronic-Rhymes. This may sound like semantics, but it’s important.

I was treated with two courses of antibiotics (a version of Sledgehammer, then Piledriver), but it’s highly unlikely that any of the bacteria survived this onslaught. they are dead. So I now live with the damage that Lyme bacteria has caused, especially to my nervous system. I felt like shit then, and I still feel that way now. This could take years to repair.

Imagine a human-scale recreation of a desolate battlefield. The war ends, the troops return home, and all that is left is a landscape of devastation and dysfunction. Eventually, the land will recover, the trees will grow back, and all unexploded ordnance will be removed. How long will this take? I don’t know. Welcome to post-Lyme disease treatment.

Footnote: Whole genome sequencing Borrelia burgdorferi, The tick-borne bacteria that cause Lyme disease have been shown to be extremely diverse and complex. This is thought to explain multiple symptoms of Lyme disease, from severe arthritis in children to fatigue and debilitating joint, neurological, and cardiovascular effects in adults.

For further reading, we recommend Lyme experts at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University.

A vaccine will soon be developed (currently in stage 3 trials). And it’s about time.