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I completely agree to treat the bite. I understand Red if you live in an area where you are bitten frequently that this could pose difficulty, and maybe you do get some type of immunity from repeaated exposure. But my older daughter has been so devasated by Lyme I would not hesitate to treat a bite with 3-4 weeks of abx. We just found a bullseye on my 3 yr old and she is on 6 weeks of abx, and I have made an appt for her with Dr. J - cannot go through this/let one of my kids go through this again.

Well I drop dead agree with treating a bullseye. That is a classic symptom as far as I am concerned. My wife some 6 years ago had classic Lyme symptoms in the summer without a bullseye. She had a fever with severe joint pain and headaches within days of removing a tick. Doxy knocked it right out so it must have been Lyme.

I am saying that unless someone has symptoms from the tick bite then you do not treat it. I say that with the irony that I had a large expanding rash and treated it moderately aggressively with 200 mg Doxy twice a day for 3 weeks. I still got bart. Now whether Lyme was present (the expanding rash???) I do not know. So I treated what I considered a classic Lyme symptom that being an expanding rash that started 2 days after tick removal. It was a week or two after starting antibiotics that the profound fatigue set in.

But I still stand by the statement that without rash or other symptoms then you do not treat every tick bite. Overuse of antibiotics is big problem in our culture.

I have a neighbor who I swear had classic Lyme for the past couple of years. I was begging her to see my LLMD. She would hang on my car window complaining of fatigue and joint pain and brain fog. I was going nuts trying to get her to move on it. Then one fateful day about 6 weeks ago pow she has a large rash from a tick bite. Good news is her regular doc said forget the test and jump on the doxy. Well low and behold the doxy for this latest bullseye completely knocked out all her previous symptoms. How lucky can one person be. Kill two birds (Lyme) with one stone. I swear this is a true story.

Red

 

I understand what you are saying but it is not clear to me that children or even adults will always show symptoms of any type after a bite from an infected tick. I wish we could have given my son a couple of weeks of ABX and all would have been right with the world. But children are different. We are coming up on two years to fix my son. I don't know that he has infection anymore but the neurological impacts have a long way to go to heal.

 

And thanks to Dut for posting the information on the use of ABX with farm animals. I immediately had the same thought.

We have the same problem with humans using too many antibiotics. Drug resistance is not just from farm animals but also getting worse because antibiotics have been given out like candy at halloween. With hundreds of thousands of people getting probably millions of tick bites a year you cannot just give out antibiotics prophylactically for every tick bite just on a very small chance that a few will get sick. Look at what has happened with antibacterial soap causing drug resistance. People want this fortress around us that is germ free but that model does not work.

Red

Red

Wow. You're on a forum where many have had to beg, plead, cry, in attempt to get antibiotics for their children, only to be at times refused - whether it be PANDAS/Lyme. When the physicians in my daughter's pediatrician's office comment about my daughter's overuse of abx, I tell them I wouldn't need to rely on daily abx if they would have treated her when she got a tick bite 6 years ago. I brought her in with joint pain but since there was no bullseye rash...no treatment.

I think you are confusing me with your Lyme illiterate doctor refusing treatment based on solid evidence that you presented many years ago. That solid evidence is the mother who knows the child better than anyone, telling the pediatrician that "my daughter had a tick bite and is now complaining about joint pain". For me that is good enough reason to treat the child. What I have been saying all along is that we should not put anybody and everybody on antibiotics the moment they have a tick. That is quite different than the story you tell. I could write on forever about the LLMDs who misdiagnosed me with Lyme 8 years ago but it was mold. And I could write on about the 2 different MDs who I saw last year out of state and out of pocket who did find bartonella but also found a way into my bank account to the tune of $10K for all the marked up tests/supplements/office visits and phone consults. Luckily for me I found a LLMD locally who my psychiatrist referred. I also went to a very large University based medical center where I ran a clinic myself for 16 years and saw their supposed "specialist" in bartonella. He told me flat out I no have bart. He said bart is "always" a self limiting disease except in HIV. And he rejected the PCR/DNA analysis from Galaxy Diagnostics as a "lab error" even though he admitted he never heard of Galaxy diagnostics nor Dr. Edward Breitschwerdt who is an infectious disease doctor at NCSU Vet school. He also was not aware that this genius in bartonella (over 130 peer reviewed papers on bart) also has a dual appointment in the infectious disease department of the same University medical school office I was sitting. My grand nephew was just diagnosed with PANDAS by Dr. Bouboulis. I am very aware of the h**l my niece is living right know with this PANDAS child.

I stand by my statement: having a tick bite does not lead to automatic antibiotic treatment.

The problem with doctors is they often do not listen to their patients.

Red

Her joint pain (not in the area of the tick bite) only lasted about a week. Major symtoms came about 9 months later, when the tick bite was well off my radar. She had behavioral issues with cycling sinus infections since 18mths of age that disappeared while on abx, but all **** broke loose 9 months after the tick bite. She went into remission with abx (for the most part) after 3 relapses, until 2009 when things became chronic. We started lyme treatment in Sept 2010. Stopped abx last September, but she tanked physically. Not sure if it was from the lyme or other reasons. She cultured positive for borrelia with Advanced Labs in December. She's been Igenex positive for most of the journey. Doing much better now that she has resumed abx.

Agree- doctors need to better listen to their patients!

Edited by philamom
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Hi,

Thank you to all of you who have responded. Sorry I did not see the posts till today as I was so busy these 2 weeks. Only today I am sitting in front of the computer. This was a difficult 2 weeks for me ....my son was bitten both by bed bugs and Ticks in one day that we were in DC. The welts he got from the bed bugs have started to go away. The bite marks from the 2 ticks are looking like 2 red dots but not expanding. I am watching them. My son is on Doxycycline 100 mg 2x day and I'll be starting flagyl tomorrow. My DAN doctor didnot know about tindamax, so he ordered flagyl. I've sent the ticks to 2 labs ... advanced laboratories and MDL (Suggested by Dr Jones office.). I'll have to wait for 2 more weeks to get the results. I'll post when I get them.

Unfortunately I did not have a magnifying glass and I sent them immediately.

Also I had an appointmet with my LLMD who said that we'll be treating for LYme anyways. I liked my LLMD ..he is in Vermont..we had our first appointment in June. If anyone is looking for a LLMD in that area, pm me. thanks to all of those who helped me in finding my doctor. The reason we went to the East coast is to see all the doctors there and find one that suits us. The irony is my son got tick bites there when we went for treatment.

 

Also I had to deal with "If we brought bed bugs with our luggage"

I opened the baggage and put things through out the house by the time I came to know that my son was bitten by bed bugs. I cleaned my whole house house.....I mean the whole house...washed all the clothes in hot water that itself took a whole week. Ordered matress covers and called the pest management companies....All of them were quoting anywhewre from $1500 to $3000. ....I researched a lot on bed bugs and their different treatments. Finally I settled with one company who came yesterday to treat my house with chemicals( I have been so careful not to use any chemicals in my house or yard for the last 12 years) I took everything out of the house...I mean everything. Now I have wait 2 more weeks to redo the whole process again. All this when I dont even know if we brought them with us. I am so tired. But I pray that this issue is over. I didnot dream that one small bug can cause so much trouble. as if we did not have enough on our plate.

 

Thank you all once again and I'll post once I receive the results.

Madhu.

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I'm not sure what the right answer is but when my daughter was bitten, our doctor put her on a dose of minocycline and azithromycin immediately[/size][/size][/size][/size] (3 days per week) plus flagyl on the weekend for about 8 weeks.. Daughter did have a circular bruise greater than 5cm around a red bite mark. Her tests later came back CDC positive.

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Bill, I also had a "bruise" around my bite. Definitely NOT a bullseye. It was only about 5 cm diameter in a perfect circle and it was a strange deep reddish colour. I am also CDC positive, but it wasn't until 5 months after the bite that I learned about lyme and realized that was probably "it", and requested my Western Blot test. My 3 boys are all positive and we don't remember any of them having a tick or bullseye, but a bruise on a little boy who spends his days on a farm - I would have hardly noticed and certainly not paid any mind.

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At the risk of stirring things up again :blink: , just wanted to say that I live on a farm. I have to SPECIAL ORDER feed for my chickens that does not contain antibiotics right in the feed. Standard chick starter comes with antibiotics in it. That's what farmers are feeding the chicken you buy at your grocery store! When one of my sheep got sick I walked into the farm supply store and purchased a huge bottle of penicillin for a few dollars. All I needed was 1 dose, but it only comes in huge containers. I didn't have a prescription, never saw a vet, and don't even have a legal farm number because my hobby farm is too small to qualify as a working farm. So anyone can walk in there and purchase antibiotics. Yes, there is a problem. I don't know what the solution is, because in commercial barns the animals are so crowded together and never see the light of day. They would probably all die or pass on diseases to humans if they didn't use antibiotics. The whole system is bad, IMO.

 

If it was my kid, I would still do the 30 days of abx, even though I know there is a bigger problem going on in the world. I would not take the risk of sacrificing my child's health for the greater good. I guess I'm just selfish. That said, I do believe you have a valid point Red, I just know I couldn't take that chance with my own child. If you had asked me prior to dealing with chronic lyme, I would have told you a whole different story. I refused antibiotics, even when the docs thought they were necessary. Let the immune system do it's job, etc. Oh, how I wish I still lived in that world. :(

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  • 2 weeks later...

Madhu, So glad to hear you are getting the treatment you need and that you've found a good LLMD.

 

On the topic of abx overuse, here's an interesting article: http://www.onearth.org/article/you-want-superbugs-with-that

 

Personally, I don't feel its my job to worry about the overuse of antibiotics. My job is to get my son well. I don't financially support the farms that use antibiotics in their feed, and we don't use antibiotics to treat viral infections. But when it comes to my family's health, its not even a question whether to treat a tick bite with antibiotics. This disease is just too devastating to take any risks.

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