LYME DISEASE

Looking for first hand accounts of early symptoms and treatment options. Thanks.

Why not just Google? I am sure there is a website devoted to Lyme Disease.

www.webmd.com

is a good place to start.

my roommate just got lymes about a month ago, so this isnt firsthand but close enough.

early symptoms pretty nonspecfic, generally you feel tired and crappy, muscle/joint/neck pain, headache, fever. bullseye rash where tick bite was was the big tipoff. you might not have actually seen the tick but if you see the target-looking rash it was definitely there. treat asap since there are long term complications if you dont.

treated with doxycyline, which will also clear your chlamydia up as a bonus. other antibiotics can be substituted as well.

The earliest symtom is a red rash. Usually spreads outwards in a "bullseye" pattern, i.e. there are a series of red rings, but if I remember correctly, it will take a little while before that occurs. Supposedly the rash will also itch, but I didn't let it get that far when I had it last summer. If you let it wait you'll start getting feverish, sore joints, etc., but I wouldn't wait that long.

When I got treated last summer they put me on dioxycyclene (I think that's correct spelling), two pills a day. Didn't affect my running at all, except for the fact that the medecine causes you to absorb more sun, so I had to run in a t-shirt for the three weeks I was on it. I also had it 10 years ago, the only thing I remember is that the medicine I took was strawberry-banana and tasted great.

Basically if you've found a tick on yourself and the spot is now red, you want a doctor to take a look at it.

Anytime you pull a tick off you that looks like it has bitten you...gorged with blood etc...call your doc for a test. My sister-in-law pulled one off..got tested a week later and the antibodies for Lyme were already present..nip it in the bud.

In Amy Tan's book The Opposite of Fate, one of the last chapters is about her getting Lyme Disease.

There's lots of good info that she spent time researching after getting lyme disease herself.

ok this story might gross some of you out, but bear with me if you don't mind...

a few summers ago i was camping out, and the first morning out there, i woke up with a tick on my penis. i frantically yanked it out (in hindsight, probably not the smartest thing i've ever done). anyway, i thought that was the end of the story.

later that day, i noticed it was itching and starting to swell in that area.

i was at a campsite in the middle of nowhere and was gonna be there until the end of that week, so i didn't think going to a doctor was feasible. anyway, during the first few days after, the area really swelled a lot. like it looked pretty nasty - plus it itched.

anyway, a bout a week or two later, the swelling had gone down but there was still a really small mark where the tick had been.

fast forward to now...my penis, when stretched out (ie, with a boner), has a bunch of really small bumps on it. like this is all around the shaft of the penis, except not so much around where the tick was. you can only really see the bumps when it's stretched out..

im assuming this has happend because of that tick bite (just a guess)

NOW i know i need to see a doctor, but what kind of doctor would yall suggest? i haven't gone yet for a number of reasons (health insurance problems, mainly), but i have decided that i need to go anyway. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

luv2run wrote:

Why not just Google? I am sure there is a website devoted to Lyme Disease.

http://www.webmd.com

is a good place to start.

Hi luv2run,

I have done my research on this topic, what I'm am looking for is just what I'm getting on this thread first hand or my Sister went through type stuff. This is the season for LD and with more runners on the trails and off road it is an issue that needs to be addressed.

I've read some of your posts and you strike me as a very bright young runner,please add your thoughts on prevention/lowering risks of catching LD,Thanks.

Keeping healthy is as much a part of running as tempo workouts or foot flicking drills. You can not do well if your not well.

My state is infested with Lyme Disease. About a month ago I was running through a heavily wooded area. On my drive home I found a dog tick crawling on my arm. I pulled over to the side of the highway to get it off. After I got home I noticed a dear tick on my upper thigh, luckily it hadn\'t settled in yet. Those woods are one of my favorite places to run but I probably won\'t go back there until the late fall so there isn\'t as much brush to rub up against.

~!@#$%^&*()_+{}|:"?`-=[]\;',./

Your state is infested with Lyme Disease or ticks? Just because you have a tick, doesn't mean that you will contract Lyme. It is very rare in many places in the country including places where the ticks are the worst (for example Missouri). Other problems are more common in these areas (and are often more dangerous) like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. There is one severe symptom of this disease... death.

NJ. Both. Deer ticks and lyme disease are a real problem in my state. I know a few people that have had lyme disease. Everyone knows someone who's had it or has it.

I'm just going to repeat this because it seems like stupid advice and doesn't seem to really have a purpose.

Next time you're at the library look up Amy Tan (wrote The Joy Luck Club) and look up her book of musings, The Opposite of Fate. One of the last chapters is about her getting lyme disease and she talks about doctors not having a valid treatment and you must ask for something special? I can't recall the details, I read it a while ago for an English paper.

Anyways it would take 15 minutes to read once you're at the library or book store and has all the advice you need on prevention, symptoms, and what to do if you get lyme disease.

Thanks for that Any Tan thing I'll try to follow that up.The Doc and the Web can only tell you about normal ranges*in most cases*in general. First hand stuff helps put a human face on an all too clinical a situation.

Last year about this time I was searching the posts of Lets run to figure out why I had been having all of this back trouble. I thought it was piriformis syndrome and ran through XC with the help of lots of anti-inflammatory drugs although I was just tired all the time. After the season was over, I was dianosed with Lyme disease and have been on antibiotics since then incuding doxycycline, IV rocephin, and now ceftin and hydroxychloroquine. I've been able to come back to running and am almost completely better but I have learned way too much about this poorly understood disease.

-less than 1/2 get the "bulls-eye" rash

-most people never recall being bitten by the tick (since most deer ticks feeding are nymphs the size of a poppy seed)

-symptoms can be different for everyone (often begins with flu like symptoms then progresses through muscular, arthritis, or neurological problems if not caught early)

-the longer you have it before it is diagnosed, the longer treatment will have to be

-the CDC reported 25,000 cases last year but it is estimated that 10 times that many occur due to missed diagnoses attributed to other disease like MS, ALS, and "running overuse" as with me

-some people are not cured by the standard short term antibiotic treatment so if symptoms never go away or return, don't let then tell you that you were "re-infected." Go back on antibiotics.

-coinfections can be transmitted by ticks in addition to LD

-If left untreated, LD is not fatal, but can lead to severe cognition, memory, neurological, arthralgia, and muscular problems.

-email me if you have any questions, healthboards.com has a great forum for LD as well

Thanks Delaware Runner,

I'll pass your E-mail address on to my friend if you do not mind. My friend will get the results back soon but it seems the Doc is pretty sure it's LD.Hope all continues to improve with you.Thanks for the website info,with so many sites out there it's hard to tell what is good and what isn't.My pal is at the MDs right now and will have more info after the meeting. Again thaks for the offer of help.Hearing from someone who is going/went through it helps more than the Docs words.

bump

Well Good Morning Wineturtle,

Funny you should start a thread on Lyme disease.

I was just diagnosed yesterday with Lyme Disease. I have a deep red with a purple center circle about 6x8 behind my right knee. It burns...I feel like my leg is on fire. I've been having a non stop headache for 9 days now and I'm extremely fatigued. My neck is stiff sore..and my joints ache. I have night sweats. I am now on antibiotics. I will have another blood test in 6 weeks. In the meantiime she advised no running, which for right now if fine with me because running is the futherest thing from my mind.

I will be monitored for the next 6 months or so. In the meantime, I'll be taking antibioics and watching what I eat..clean diet. ie. all organic and whole raw foods, nothing cooked.

Well, I'm off for a nap before I fall over. Thank you for starting the thread. It's been helpful to read about other runners who have gone through the same thing. Though I can't for the life of me imagine running through this right now. Maybe with some of the side effects ease up some.