Tick Bites and Rashes
Author: Paula Jackson Jones
Published: 07/15/2017
“But I
never saw a tick” and “I never got a bullseye rash” are two very common
comments I get when I talk to people who tested positive for a tick-borne
disease.
So why
is that?
The
most simple and straight forward answer would be that most tick-borne diseases
are transmitted by ticks in the nymph stage, which are no larger than a poppy
seed and not all tick-borne diseases produce the bullseye rash, in fact most do
not.
Photo: Tick Encounter Resource Center |
My 2009
tick bite looked like someone took a paintbrush and painted the side of my
torso. Nothing even remotely close to a bullseye!
The
Maine CDC reports that over 50% of all ticks in Maine carry a tick-borne
disease and only 50% of positive reported cases recall a rash. Should you find and remove a tick from your body, you cannot tell simply
by looking at that tick what it is carrying.
You can identify the species but there are no indicators what, if
anything, it is carrying.
Research
has shown us that there are many different kinds of diseases and various
strains of those diseases and many of the symptoms of those diseases have been
identified. But what happens when you’re bit by a tick carrying more than one tick-borne
disease? How does that affect the testing and furthermore, how does it affect
your symptoms?
This is
where we need to start thinking about this as a TICK-BORNE DISEASE and move
away from thinking constantly about Lyme Disease. Getting a tick bite and going
to your doctor to be tested for Lyme Disease, you could easily miss the mark of
picking up another tick-borne disease because the basic Lyme test conducted in
most PCP offices, the ELISA test, is only looking for one strain of Lyme
Disease and is, at best, sixty-five percent accurate if tested at the right
time. If you test too soon or too late, you can get a false negative. Maine LawLD597 states that Lyme Disease can be difficult to diagnose, that a negative
test doesn’t mean that you don’t have it and encourages re-testing in a couple
of weeks.
Just
recently, the federal CDC released a statement about the faultiness of the
current testing and is working on a test that is like DNA testing that
(hopefully) will have a wider range of detection with a much stronger
sensitivity and a more accurate result.
So,
with unreliable testing and the unknown of what a tick that bit you could be
carrying ~ how does one have peace of mind when living in an endemic region?
Simple
~ don’t wait to be bit! Have prevention practices in place to use on a regular
basis. Make it part of your daily
routine. Whatever repellent you prefer for your skin, use it! Make sure that
your clothing is treated with permethrin and for those who are concerned about
the environment, buy products and clothing already pre-treated with permethrin that
are safe and effective. Treat where you
work and play. Contact a licensed provider or there are do-it-yourself
products. And don’t forget your pets who are more than capable of carrying
those ticks in from the outside. And if you find a tick, test ~ don’t
flush! Send it off to be tested and find
out what you’ve been exposed to.
With
many tick-borne diseases producing common symptoms such headaches, joint pain,
stiff neck, fever, generalize fatigue and not all of them producing the classic
bullseye rash ~ we need to change how we think about tick-borne diseases and
when we have been bitten, in order to get a proper diagnosis and receive the
right treatment, know what to test for!
As a survivor of late stage neurological Lyme complicated by four tick-borne co-infections that was misdiagnosed and mistreated for over 18 months ~ I speak from a place of experience. With treatment lasting three years, my road to remission was a difficult one, one that I did not think that I would survive.
And so raising awareness, fostering education, advocating for change and supporting those afflicted by this disease find their way back to health and wellness has become a full-time job for me ~ a personal calling if you would, to expose myths, outdated guidelines and protocols and challenge the injustices all too many Lyme patients face ~ because all lives matter!!
~ Paula
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