Lyme disease(please read)

[kidwell77]

I was wondering if any of you in the boat racing family have had any experience with this disease? If you or someone you know has had any dealings with this I would love to know the details. Thanks Kelly Kidwell Y77

[canoecty]

Lyme Disease

Kelly;
Lots of experience here (upstate NY) with Lyme. Currently have a friend trying to get a correct diagnosis. Here's a link to the best article you could read:
Charlie is a wildlife photographer and field editor for Deer & Deer Hunting magazine. He's been through all this personally. He's a good friend, if necessary I could put you ion touch with him.
Good luck;
Dave Curtis
58-N

[canoecty]

Sorry; link got lost

http://www.charliealsheimer.com/ca/a.../art_lyme.html

[DiGia54D]

I had lyme about 8 years ago and it actually comes back every couple of years. I was on Doxacyiline(spelling is wrong) . You will know when you have it. Everything hurts from lower back up. Hair hurts, skin hurts and the SUN hurts. I actually caught the tick that gave it to me. It feels almost like having a bad flu for a long period of time

[kidwell77]

Thanks for the info,Please keep it coming.My problems all started from a tick bite back in 96.Have had every symtom of lyme at one time or the other since.Have had about every medical test you can imagine with no results.I finally got a test done(western blot test) that shows lyme positive but the doctors here still say it doesn't exsits in MO and refuse too treat it.It has know come to a point I had too quit racing and not been able to work for 4 months.Have not even been building boats or engines for anyone for the last month.Anyone knowing me thats unheard of.Any info you guys can provide I would be grateful for. thanks Kelly 77

[brian]

Sounds like dumb doctors..... like you never leave the state.... Just tell them you were in Michigan deer hunting naked for 3 weeks. When they ask you why you were naked just tell them you wanted to see if they were listening. Then tell them to treat you!

Some times if it sounds like a duck, acts like a duck and looks like a duck.....it is a DUCK!

Hope you fell better soon.

[sam]

I was bit the first time in about 95 or 96. Tests showed negative, but I slowly got sicker for about 10 years before I started getting better on my own without any treatment (that doesn't usually happen). I was very slowly recovering when I got bit again about 2 years ago. That time my doctor gave me Doxycycline just because I was showing a nice 3 inch bullseye mark; no tests and no follow up ... but man did I start feeling better! A few days after finishing the Doxycycline I felt better than I had in 8 or 9 years and from June of 2009 until June of this year I felt progressively better each week. In June I started having some pain near my left eye that felt like a mild sinus infection ... it came and went and Leeann suggested it might just be allergies. Then my left ankle started to hurt as if I had sprained it ... a few days later it started swelling. When it didn't go down in a couple weeks I went to the doctor ...

X-ray .... negative
Uric acid .... normal
Liver function ... normal
3 different Lyme disease tests including Western Blot ... all equivocal but leaning to positive. I can see one or 2 being equivocal, but all 3? that kinda says something

Then it hit me that the pain in my cheek is not a sinus infection ... Bell's palsy!
add that to the fact that I am starting to have some arthritis pain in my elbows again ...

it adds up to a reoccurrence of Lyme disease, so my doctor gave me another script for Doxycycline on Tuesday of this week.

My doctor does not want to admit that it is reoccurring without being bit again, but I am certain I was not bit a 3rd time.

The problem with Lyme disease is that it can manifest itself very differently from person to person. In one person, like me the first time around, it just looked like arthritis that runs in my family. I think I had flu like symptoms for 4 or 5 days after being bit the first time, but I used to catch a bad cold or the flu just about every late July. I thought nothing of it. This time it looks like gout. Other people get symptoms that look like MS, others ALS. Some people appear to have Lupus or Alzheimer's. People who are unlucky get symptoms that look like more than one thing wrong with them at the same time.

This isn't a duck, its a chameleon.

The first time around, at my worst, I was missing 2 days of work every week. On the days I could work, I felt sick until about 10am. I complained to my doctor who said the nausea was just a manifestation of the arthritis pain. I have not had any nausea since the first course of Doxycycline 2 years ago. I can stand and walk upright with no pain. I can work on a ladder for more than 10 minutes without having to take the next day off from work. I can stand on hard cement floors for more than 10 minutes ... actually indefinitely ... 6 years ago 10 minutes was my limit.


http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G7382#humandisease

Lyme disease is more common in New England the the mid-Atlantic ... tell them you got it in Jersey!

The actual bacteria is almost everywhere ... its just that there are very few ways to become infected with it outside of a tiny juvenile deer tick.

Doctors don't want to treat it for 2 reasons

1) insurance companies don't want to pay for it

2) they might be wrong it could be something else, and you might sue them.
You can hardly imagine the ruckus my being there causes at my doctor's office. One PA almost got fired because she ordered the tests; but she was RIGHT, DUH!!!

[Mark Monkres]

If a doctor in Missouri said it isn't there, maybe he needs to talk to 3 of my freinds that contracted it

[krazy karl]

Lyme's Disease

We have Lyme's Disease in Calif. I believe it can now be found just about anywhere in the US. A neighbor who lived across the street form me in Conn was one of the very first to get it. We lived just a few miles from Lyme Conn. The disease was finally identified by the staff at Yale University Hospital. He was pretty much disabled by the time it was identified and treatment started. The treatment was pretty much experimental for him as he was one of the first. He had had symptoms for a couple of years before researchers identified the disease.

I also knew a guy in Alturas Calif who had it for years before it was treated. Doctors had been running tests on him for quite awhile with no results. He did his own research and finally told the doctor to test for Lyme's which they hadn't done because the disease didn't exist in Calif at the time. It came back positive. He had arthritis, rheumatic damage, memory problems and I believe kidney damage from the disease, which were all permanent.

It is a very serious disease and as a former County Agricultural Commissioner we advised residents to get tested immediately if they suspected anything and sent quite a few ticks off for testing.
kk