Tic-toc ... Tick bite

[cosmic88]

Ok, so Ehrlichiosis is bullshit. Very similar to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, the Ehrlichia chaffeensis I have just needs a cooler name.

While camping a couple weeks ago I discovered one small, red tick on me and removed it in fairly short order from my hip. Had em before throughout my life of backpacking and outdoor recreation and thought no big deal. Well, over the course of the next week the bite site became spread out with more little red dots....hmmm. The weekend after the bite I took my family out fishing and partying on a small island in South Florida and the sun was strong. So when I got what appeared to be a bad sunburn on the top of my hands and fingers I was not really surprised.

When the "burn" blistered exactly like a second degree heat burn I thought, well that is odd. A couple days later I started feelin like shit and I figured it's something I caught from the two runny nosed, coughing kids at home. Then it got hard and painful to swallow, fever, lymph nodes in my neck so swollen my hearing decreased noticeably...Eustachian tubes closed up from swelling.

A wee bit of research, blood work done and two weeks of slowly progressive symptoms leads me to this warning. For all of us who love the outdoors and camping be very careful with those little blood sucking bastards. If you see any expansion of the bite site or any red blotches anywhere, even completely disparate areas of your body, deal with it immediately. It took two weeks for the disease to fully mature. Now the fifteen day regimen of Doxycycline is in effect and I await the death of the little buggers floating around in my blood. My message to them...

 

[57loboy]

Ticks and such were "routine" nuisances for us in the North East.... The bugs and such we've got here are something we had to get used to when we moved down from CT. Fire ants are what piss me off the most. Venom in those bastards isn't something you get a tolerance to, it gets worse with exposure. Tiny things with a mission to bite you, plain and simple. EpiPen a necessity now thanks to multiple (increasingly severe) reactions to bites over the past 4 years.

I second your messaging to the little bastards.

 

[Paul Grant]

Our dog got bite by a tick three years ago. He had been bitten many times over the years and already was diagnosed with Lyme's. This time he developed anaplasmosis another variant of these deseases transmitted by ticks. It quickly developed into immune mediated hemolytic anemia. He's been on prednisone to suppress his autoimmune system and will be for the rest of his life. IMHA usually kills dogs within a year or so. We've been lucky he's lasted as long as he has but he's no where near the dog he once was.

 

[Eliot]

Ticks are like dirty needles, they tend to carry a cocktail of nasty diseases. Make sure you treat this adequately. I'm of the opinion that 15 days of Doxy isn't enough, but it works for some people. If your symptoms continue, or should they return in a few weeks, then go back to the doctor with all possible speed.

 

[Paul Grant]

I agree. When I was diagnosed with Lyme's I went through a normal course of 15 days on Doxy. Within days of completing the cycle I was back at the doctor's office. He put me on Doxy for 30 days and I was finally back to normal.