Possible tic bite now RA acting up

[spfister]

Hi to everyone:

It’s been awhile since I was last on here because the minocin I’ve been taking since April 2010 has really improved my symptoms. I went from a 800 RA factor to 80 and had been feeling much better.

Now last Thursday I went to wash my face in the morning and there was a scab on my temple pretty large like a huge pea size and I had no idea where it came from. If I remember right it was kind of of like when Maz found a tick on her hairline. I just panicked and pulled it right off with a clump of hair also. I didn’t see a tick in the scab that I peeled off but I saw a small bug in the sink soon after that but it really didn’t look like a tick, and wasn’t sure if it came from the scab. Well afterwards the spot it bit swelled and got hot and my eye swelled partially shut and itched a lot.

Now five days later the spot seems normal but it seems like when I wake up I’m in a lot of pain shoulders and neck and feel tired, so I guess I should go get the test for lymes to make sure it wasn’t. We live in a very wooded area of Minnesota and have many deer in the back yard so we live in a high lymes area.

Just wanted to get you guys suggestions, Is there a time line to getting tested for Lymes like is sooner better.
Thanks for all your help in the past, and hope you all are improving on the antibiotic treatment.

PS
Also one other thing I always had bad asthma since being a teenager. My allergist said I was one of his worst cases. I had been hospitalized many times and had a lot of pneumonia’s. Well about five weeks ago My tooth that had root canal abscessed and I was told to get it out ASAP, so had it pulled the next day. Well my asthma is just about gone since then I hardly know it’s there. I only have used my inhaler a couple of times where before it was all day long and then I couldn’t breath well. Just to pass this info along for people wondering if a root canal tooth was also causing some of their health problems 😕 I wish I had it removed a long time had I only know the difference. My root canal tooth was always kinda sore also.

Take Care
Shari

[Maz]

Hi Shari,

First, what fabulous news to hear your RF has come down from 800 to 80 in 15 months!!! Way to go sticking with the course – this really does exemplify for others how it can take a year or two to really see amazing changes in lab markers and that while sometimes these improve before symptoms, sometimes it happens the other way, too – symptoms improve before lab markers. Good to hear you got that bad tooth out, too, as this brooding type of tooth infection can really keep RA bubbling away under the surface in some folk. How great it’s also impacted your asthma so positively.

As you’re living in such a Lyme endemic region, is it possible you might already have Lyme…maybe also coinfections? Just wondering as asthma-like symptoms (air hunger) can be a symptom of babesiosis, which is a pretty common tickborne infection….just a thought to consider.

I do know how you feel finding the tick in or near the hairline – it absolutely creeped me out, I dug it out with my fingersnails and threw it out the car window when I found that first tick on me. I also didn’t realize the devastation such a tiny bug could have on my health. Nowadays, I try not to panic quite so much when I find a tick on me (thankfully, touch wood, not for a while now) and will attempt to get it out as ILADs directs, and then save it in a baggie. Tick testing is a lot cheaper than human testing and probably a bit more accurate….ticks can be sent to IGeneX and it can save a lot of angst, waiting and wondering if it was infected and possibly transferred on to you. The reaction you had may have been a histamine reaction, which is common with tickbites. It doesn’t necessarily mean any infections have been passed (if caught quickly enough), but the problem is that if ticks caught early aren’t removed appropriately, it’s possible to also squeeze their gut contents into us.

The good news is that you’re already on a tetracycline…however, you’re on a low, pulsed dose and if you did get infected, this might not be enough to kill an early infection. I’m not a doctor, so can’t tell you how to adjust your meds in this instance, but when my daughter was bitten a couple years ago, my LLMD put her on Doryx 100mg 3 x times a day for two months, just to give it a good blasting. We didn’t want to take any risks, knowing how Lyme had affected me.

Bulls-eyes only appear about 50% of the time and, if they do, they can sometimes takes hours to weeks to show up. They’re also not always classical bulls-eyes – harder to discern in the hairline.

Can only share what I’d do….I’d talk to my doc about the possible tick bite and ask if it would be prudent to increase my dose or switch to doxy for a month or two. Since realizing I had Lyme, I have been bitten again, and, as I was on the same dose of mino you are currently on, my doc was upset that I hadn’t told him about the bite (waited for my next appt), as he would have increased my dose immediately, he said.

The thing about Lyme testing is that it is horribly inaccurate in the weeks immediately following a tick bite. Lots of reasons for this, but this might be another good reason to consult your doc or a LLMD (if your current doc isn’t Lyme Literate). It’s possible you’ve had Lyme a long time, as you are in a Lyme endemic area already, but it can take some folk a good long time before they create enough antibody to test, even on IGeneX labs with a first tick exposure. So, I think I personally wouldn’t wait for test results, though I might get them run later. Initially, I’d be wanting to ensure my current antibiotics dose was sufficient to give a nice early blast to potential infection.

The nasty side-bar about Lyme is that being infected once doesn’t preclude re-infection, as the body doesn’t build immunity to it. Multiple bites over time also increases the chances of being infected with multiple strains of the organism and additional coinfections. This is just informational and not to concern you. 😉 Really just meaning to say that each tick bite should be addressed as it happens.

Another consideration is that the recently removed infected tooth might also have something to do with your increased pain levels. I also had two molars removed in May and went through a spat of some return of pain that had long been gone. The body tries to encapsulate infections most of the time, so removal might release some of that into the body, as well as other toxins, as from mercury fillings, for instance.

Shari, if you need a LLMD list, just let us know and we’d be happy to send the MN list to you. Let us know what you figure out with all this and wishing you well.

[spfister]

Thanks for the info Maz:

I called to get in with one of the Llmd on the list I received awhile back but he was no longer at the number provided. So could you send another list for the Minnesota area Llmd’s.

I will check with the Doctor I see for the minocin therapy first and see what he thinks I guess. When I talked to to nurse for infectious disease she said to start with my primary DR first. So I’m not sure if you can just go in to see the Llmd without being referred.

I was tested for lymes when I started the minocin treatment but it showed nothing, that was the Western Blot I guess.

What shows on the bottom of for my treatment is wrong I will update I am on 100 mg Mon Wed Fri. I never went up to 100 twice a day Mon Wed Fri because I was doing so well. So possibly I could go up to the 200 Mon Wed Fri since that is what I was suppose to do initially.

About what you said about the tooth could be possible part of the problem since I had so much infection in there. I made sure to have the Dr remove the tissue underneath the tooth also since I heard infection can be in the tissue that is left normally behind.

Thanks,
Shari

[Author]

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