So many have been affected, and yet there’s still no
consensus about treatment. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control
dictates statistics and treatment, and they’re so far off base on tick-borne
illness that it’s a joke. Except it isn’t funny. I’ve been infected with
babesia, a Lyme co-infection so expensive to test for that it’s impossible for
the Red Cross to screen blood donors. As a result, the public blood supply is
contaminated with it. I wrote an article about this when I worked for the
newspaper. That was years ago, and I doubt the situation has improved. If
anything, it’s probably gotten worse.
Because there’s no standard of treatment, doctors’ responses
to tick bites depend on whatever reading they’ve done on their own—or what they
had for breakfast. I’m lucky that my doctor gives me whatever I ask for. Some
will prescribe only two doxycycline pills; others go for a 7- or 10-day course
of treatment. Going back a bunch of years, I asked my doctor for a 30-day
supply, and got it. But then my veterinarian said, “Only one month? We treat
dogs for two months.” So I upped it
to two months.
In the beginning I didn’t know the importance of taking a
good probiotic when you’re taking antibiotics, and the effects linger. With
chronic Lyme and babesiosis, I try to keep symptoms to a minimum without antibiotics
these days. The two biggest helps are juicing vegetables and getting lots of
rest. And I learned the hard way this month to steer clear of online arguments,
no matter how passionately I feel about the topic. Stress makes everything
worse.
When Hazel got lime, she was diagnosed in the vet office within 30 minutes. 30 days on antibiotics and she has just been tested clear of it this spring. It seems like vets are much more on the ball with this than doctors.
ReplyDeleteIt's frightening. And everywhere.
ReplyDeleteTicks terrify me for all these reasons.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of the responses I got when I had systemic thrush after e.coli. So much of what happened to me was dependent on what the doctor was interested in or had personally read. One thought nystatin would do the trick, no worries about treating the baby. Another put me on a week of diflucan and gentian violet and nystatin for the baby. Guess which one worked. Sometimes you have to be aggressive.
Oh Susan, that really sucks. I joke that the ticks might stop me coming to the US, but I can see that this is not funny, and not a joke for you at all. The thought that the blood supply is infected is horrific. And yes, stress makes everything worse. FTS, man.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry you have to deal with this Susan. You do seem educated on the topic. My husband knows someone at NIH who works on Lyme disease studies. (he is a statistician for the allergies and infectious diseases branch of NIH).
ReplyDeleteI worry for my kids since they are out and about in the woods and I don't think they are diligent about looking for ticks when they are hiking or when they get home.
I was bitten by a deer tick in Mississippi several years ago, but I did not show any symptoms of Lyme.
I was just ranting about this yesterday with a friend. We're doing so much better at keeping our dogs healthy than ourselves.
ReplyDeleteSorry that you are going through this, Susan. We should be dealing with this public health crisis better than we are.