Lyme Disease, eh?

I guess it was bound to happen through the years of outdoors life and travel. Several weeks ago, our last night fishing lahontans in Washington State, Amelia had two ticks crawling on her. As she showered she found another one beginning to bite her and she dug it out of her stomach. I woke up the previous morning with a large, raised welt of an insect bite on the inside of my upper arm. Ticks were in the room, likely having come into the hotel room on our fishing gear and/or our friends' dogs. Dogs and gear were through the room, on and off the beds, and it's not like ticks don't crawl.

I do know that the next afternoon I was dizzy as hell, to the point I couldn't stand up. That weekend I had a fever, then not, headaches, neck pain, fatigue, and remained so dizzy that to walk I had to focus on a stationary object. I didn't make it far at all. Seeing the doctor, he wanted to give it a few days to see if it was simply something viral. 5 days later, while the fever symptoms came down, my other symptoms became worse. I could sit at the computer because it's stationary. I couldn't walk around the block or even up the stairs for lack of energy plus the dizziness felt like I was in a fun house. I had violent, random shivers to the point (hide your eyes ladies) I barely hit the bowl when peeing. My eyes went from stinging to not. I typically run like a furnace for body temps but my hands went purple and cold. I moved slowly, I was constantly tired. I was sweating just sitting, though my body temp was normal. I changed clothes 3 to 5 times a day. Night time I flooded the sheets even though I wasn't hot. 10 days in, still no change. I didn't have a cold or the flu. I thought I could go fishing but my body laughed at me.

Now here's the fun part. If you don't treat it as Lyme disease and the symptoms simply wane but don't go away, then you get into a second phase of Lyme. The second phase really gets into the disseminated disease, with symptoms varying wildly in a variety of your body's systems, which further complicates the diagnosis and often keeps you from doing much of anything. Sometimes the impacts are extremely serious and you can get knocked on your ass for a year or two. Lyme is not contagious, the infected person is the end of the line.

The idea is to knock it down with antibiotics for 3 or 4 weeks and try to rid your system it. Even at that, there's a chance of treatment failure due to late diagnosis, insufficient treatment, or just aggressiveness of the infection. But in the early stages you don't / can't even know that you have Lyme disease because it takes a few weeks for it to fully show in your body's systems.

So, I was put on antibiotics and the fever, head fog, and dizziness went away. However, my energy level remained low and I just wanted to sleep all the time - this for a fellow who typically gets 6hrs or so a night. In the past 4 or 5 days I have begun to regain my energy levels, just in time to open at Fortress Lake. But, curiously, I began to develop other symptoms. The bugger of it all is that I have numb tingling, itching on my knees, nose, ears, and hands. I landed one particular fish and it took a moment to release it. My hands ached for 4 or 5 minutes to the point I damned near wanted to cry. I was immobilized in pain. The nervous system can get really screwed up. If I take anything warmer than a luke warm shower my body fries. Anything cooler and I freeze. I have been able to wade in glacial water all my life but I can't stand to touch anything but luke water or I'm in serious agony. I now twitch randomly in the morning as well, which is really spooky. My hands are puffy. And I have migrating joint pain. It's a new symptom every other day. And the antibiotics have me so sensitive to the sun that even wearing 70 block sunscreen my ears blistered and scabbed, and anything open to the sun burns with the same sunblock. I have another week to go on antibiotics. I'm hoping for the best right now.

Amelia has spoken to the tick experts in the Pacific NW and there's no doubt this is Lyme disease. In the USA there are upwards of 16,000 cases per year. While I got unlucky, the 1 to 3 % of tick bites that manifest into Lyme disease have to come from somewhere. I guess I am the unlucky part of that average. Hopefully the treatment kicks this thing out. Right now my doctor is seeing my lingering symptoms as the end game of the cycle and the last of the antibiotics should flush it out. Hope so. Phase two gets more serious and treatment more involved.

So, in future, no doggies in my room when fishing in tick zones. Fishing gear will be stored outside. I'll wear waders even though I don't need to for the fishing. And every day I'll do a rigorous check of my clothing and body for ticks. I'd like to encourage you to do the same when you're in tick country. I wouldn't wish this for anyone else.

http://www.canlyme.com/

"The minimum time a tick needs to be attached to humans in order for the Lyme bacteria to be transmitted is estimated to be 24 to 48 hours, HOWEVER this applies only to the laboratory setting. In real life as a person moves, scratches, brushes up against things, sleeps and rolls over, the tick can be compressed causing its stomach contents to expel into the victim at any time. Recent incomplete attachment to an infected host could also cause tick saliva to be infective."

There are absolutely no absolutes with this. Just check yourselves for ticks. You don't want this.

Cheers