Paranoia -- lyme disease

[danaeris]

So I never got fully checked for ticks after the trip to Annwfn.

I had this hard tender little bump that felt like a zit underneath my hairline (sort of just above where the head meets the neck, and a little to the left, and I had dragon_spirit check it, but she said it was a zit. Iirc, Q said the same thing.

Then, in the same region, I had some swelling. It was tender to the touch much like a swollen lymph node would be, but it was warm to the touch and felt mushy rather than the hardness of a swollen lymph node. Around the same time, one of my other lymph nodes that often swells up for no apparent reason and then goes down again was doing its thing.

I asked a few people to look at the swollen thing, and none of them could see any discoloration, but I imagine it was hard to see through the hair.

More lately my joints and old injuries have been aching particularly badly when they've hardly bothered me at all in months, and I've been sleeping a lot (ten hours last night, thirteen the day before that). Both of these are symptoms of lyme disease.

Am I being paranoid? Because I feel really anxious and concerned about possibly having gotten lyme disease.


Good signs:
-the rash that occurs after a tick bite with lyme disease is supposed to expand to an average of 5-6 inches in diameter. My swelling was more like 1.5 inches in diameter
-the rash that accompanies lyme disease is supposed to persist 3-5 weeks. Mine is already gone, and lasted... Well, I noticed it last Friday and I know I had it Monday but I don't think I had it yesterday, so it lasted 4-5 days
-mine was painful, lyme disease rash is usually not painful or itchy

Bad signs:
-I have had chills, achey joints, headache, and fatigue since the rash showed up. In fact, old injuries which haven't bothered me in ages have been randomly aching and making walking painful. Knees, which haven't ached since I started working out, have been aching so much I couldn't sleep.
-the range of size for the rash is 2-24", so my swelling is really near the smaller size
-they appear an average of 1-2 weeks after disease transmission (range 3-30 days), and my rash appeared a little under a week after Annwfn
-ticks prefer places like the nape of the neck
-swelling of nearby lymph glands is also an early symptom, and one of mine was swollen the same day the swelling appeared where the zit had been.


So far I have been unable to find any information on the presence or lack thereof of lyme disease in that area. What county is Ukiah in? I figure that should give me a good idea...

I'm seriously contemplating making an appointment to see a doctor somewhere about this. Lyme disease is not something you fuck with, and if I have it I want to treat it as early as possible.

Comments

[cobweb.livejournal.com]

Peeto had lyme disease. The tick came from Dunstable, MA where his parents live. We didn't discover the bite until we were half way across the country on the way to Burning Man. It was extremely obvious that it was a lyme tick bite because of the red "bullseye" rash that covered his entire leg. He went a couple of weeks before seeing the doctor, and when he did it was in NV and they had never seen a case of lyme disease before. Luckily, the Doctor had gone to school in Boston and therefore was familiar with lyme tick bites. They treated Peeto with amoxicillin and he was fine within a month - no lasting symptoms.

If I were you I would get checked out.

In any case, here is a frequency map for lyme disease:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/riskmap.htm

[qedrakmar.livejournal.com]

Frankly, it sounds like you have the flu, but it certainly couldn't hurt to get checked out...

[evergrey.livejournal.com]

Go get it checked out, honey. Better ot be wrong and have taken action than to be right and have taken none.

[dragon-spirit.livejournal.com]

If you have Lyme disease, there will be a very obvious bullseye-shaped rash around the site of the bite. I've known hundreds of people who've spent lots of time in the woods in California, and only one of them got Lyme disease. I'd say it's extremely unlikely. Lyme disease is something you're more likely to get if you live in the country and have a dog then if you just spend the night there once.

Lyme disease is a darling boogeyman of the media. They like to scare people to get ratings - it's their job. If you're still concerned, I'd say find a doctor and ask them to look at it. But I think your chances of getting it are extremely slim. 8)

[emmett-the-sane.livejournal.com]

Echoed. I grew up in the woods in California, getting ticks attached to me on several occasions, and I never even heard of lyme disease before the last few years. Which is to say, nobody that I knew ever had it, that I heard of.

But, still, if it'd relieve the worry, see a doctor.

[lawbard.livejournal.com]

If you have a doubt...then go get checked. Its a WHOLE lot easier to go get checked and find out that its nothing, than to not get checked and find out the hard way that you're infected.

Lot easier on the knees too to do this.

Go get checked.

[battlehampster.livejournal.com]

There should be a circle of redness around the bite if it is lyme disease. A lot of people decribe it as a target. Ukiah is in Ukiah county. I don't think there have been any cases of lyme disease in northern California.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

gah, lyme disease. yeah, don't fuck withthat. my county on long island has the highest kyme deisease rate in the country. we were trained to check for ticks after walking through the grasses at montauk, because it was not unusual to find them. and i knew people who got lyme disease.

but it does sound like your rash was not quite right for lyme disease and it's ubnlikely in california. maybe it was another type of bug?

[coffeekitty.livejournal.com]

even if it's not Lyme disease, that cluster of symptoms sounds awfully suggestive of some sort of viral infection. i'd see a doctor.