Have you suffered from the symptoms of Lyme disease? Were you diagnosed with the disease? How long did it take before you were tested by a doctor? Or do your symptoms remain undiagnosed and untreated? Share your experiences here.

Before I answer that, keep in mind that ticks do not fly.  They do not bite and disappear.  You have to brush up against something (like a fern) that has a tick on it and it has to be transferred to you.  Then, it crawls around for about 3 days before chomping down.  So, if you are vigilent about checking in the shower for ticks, chances are very, very, very good that you'll SEE and REMOVE the tick BEFORE it bites.  And, even if you don't, it stays attached and gets fatter and fatter over the next three days.  It itches a little and looks like a big skin tag.  If you miss it then, you just aren't paying ANY attention.  And, if you catch it then and go to the doctor to have it removed, you get one doxycilan (sp?) antibiotic PER DAY it was attached (guessed by when you were in the woods/outside and probably acquired it).  No big deal, you don't get Lyme.  It gets a lot of coverage because "if it bleeds it leads," but the fact is, it's pretty hard to get bitten by a tick (and if you do to not notice before it falls off) IF you are looking for them.

That being said, yes, I got bitten such that the tick was not readily visible in the mirror, and I was ignorant of all I wrote about above.  My first sign of Lyme was the traditional bulls eye rash (only appears in about 60% of cases so do not ignore all the above information and count on that to "save" you), and it was taken care of by one whole 2 week round of antiobiotics.  That was that.  Now, I know what to look for and the feeding habits of ticks so I have no fear of it happening, again.  I did get bitten, again, on my back, but I noticed it before it fell off, had a doc remove it, and took 2 pills.  Nothing happened.

That Kargiver is so right on nothing else needs to be said.

I discovered an egorged tick on my chest in June of 2003.  I thought it was a wood tick and pulled it off.  Several weeks later I started feeling fatigued and the soles of my feet were sore.  I thought the fatigue might have been sleep apnea so I got treated for that, but the fatigue continued.  In the spring of 2004 I got a strong fever, followed by muscle burning and achy joints.  I then enbarked on a 16 month nightmare of increasing symptoms and seeing doctor after doctor until I was finally diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease in June of 2005.  Over the next 3 years I had two 5-6 month treatments of IV antibiotics and a 5 month course of weekly intermuscular antibiotic injections.  I've improved a great deal, but I still have headaches, achy joints, short term memory loss, lack of stamina, shooting pains, numbness and tingling, muscle twitching, and hot flashes.  The symptoms are randomly intermittent and not as severe as they were before the antibiotic treatments, but I doubt I will ever be pain free.  

We need to find better screening tests and we need more research on potential treatments or a possible cure.  The antibiotic treatments are extremely expensive and the insurance companies don't want to pay for treatment.  I'm afraid we won't see any progress on fighting Lyme disease until we have a national healthcare system that's focused soley on caring for people and not profits.

In the spring of 2012, after the mildest winter since '89, armies of deer ticks emerged from the woods. I take my kids hiking to allow my wife to regain her sanity and this is how we were at risk. We soon began inspecting each other for ticks and discovered some we carefully removed. However, I did find one pretty full with my blood and ripped it off. In July my joints starting aching and my back gave out. I was walking with a cane, sleeping on the floor and wearing a weight-lifting belt. I starting seeing a chiropractor and feared my life was in for big changes. I never got a bull's eye rash or any other indicator. Then my wife starting having neck spasms and I never believe in coincidence. So we were all tested and I was the only one found positive. I completed a regime of antibiotics and felt better soon. The conclusion of the medicine was marked by a bout of diarrhea like none other. I have had multiple blood tests since and my doctor says that I have no traces left in my blood, but sometimes I feel a clank in my knee.

This disease can become serious, most cases are undiscovered and remains mostly a mystery.

I wish much luck to those stricken and hope that we keep sharing this vital information.

Ripping off a tick is HOW you get Lyme.  You must remove the bacteria laden head which is very difficult to remove in its entirety because it is buried in your skin while it feeds.  DO NOT RIP THEM OFF, GO TO THE DOCTOR and have it removed - you have to go anyway to get the 1 - 3 antibiotic pills for the days it was attached, anyway.

ETA:  Thanks, bamboobob. :)

How to Remove a Tick on a Human   By Alicia Bodine, eHow Contributor

Ticks can attach themselves to animals or humans. Once they do, they begin drawing blood. When a tick is found, it should be removed immediately. The longer it is allowed to stay and draw blood, the higher the person's chances are of contracting a tick-borne illness. It is important to remove the tick correctly so that it doesn't have a chance to regurgitate its saliva.

 1 Hold a piece of paper next to the tick if it has not attached itself yet. Guide the tick onto the piece of paper and use it to transport the tick to an ashtray. Slide the tick off into the ashtray and use a match to burn the tick. 

2 Purchase a Sawyer tick plier. These pliers will do a better job of removing the tick's head than a set of tweezers. If you don't have a set of pliers, you can use the tweezers. 

3 Grab the tick as close to your skin as you can with the pliers or tweezers. 

4 Pull the pliers or tweezers straight up and be careful that you don't turn them in any other direction. 

5 Examine the skin to make sure all of the tick came out. If the head is still in the skin, you will need to use the pliers or tweezers again to get it out. 

 6 Rub an antiseptic over the area where the tick had attached itself. You can purchase an antiseptic at your local pharmacy.  

PS:  Call your dr regarding the need for prophylactic antibiotics,  if you can, save the tick and ask to have it tested. It may be benign, not all are carriers. 

 Avatar from "The Artwork of Catherine Darling Hostetter" 

A lot of the symptoms of tick borne illnesses mimic what people consider aging ie.  Achiness, cognitive problems, no energy, anxiety, depression. People don't demand help for something that they think must be an unavoidable. My mom was lucky enough to get strep throat and the antibiotics miraculously cured her "arthritis" her doctor had ignored a tick bite that had had no bullseye rash.  Luckily strep is recognized as a real illnes by the medical community so she got cared for.  The only solution is a war on ticks as they carry so many diseases. There is no way to be safe from them if you enjoy the outdoors or associate with other people and dogs who do. We will have victims for decades to come if we do not address this public health threat with the seriousness it deserves.  

I once caught Lyme disease after jogging in a wooded area south of Boston. I was lucky enough to have the classic "bullseye" rash located on my leg, but many people can get bit on less revealing places.

Lyme disease was something that beforehand I thought as having the flu or similar illness; however, the sweating, nausea, and headache were worse than any common cold or flu that I had ever had.

The diagnosis was made by my family physician, but upon my visit another physician within the medical group  who sometimes examined me believed I had contracted an inner skin (dermis) infection called Cellulitis. Luckily, both ailments are treated with the same antibiotics (Doxycycline). The diagnosis of Lyme disease is apparently sometimes obscure.

If you suspect that you or a love one has Lyme disease please seek treatment as the antibiotics are very effective in this case, and permanent damage can be caused by long-term harboring of the bacteria (Borreila Burgdorferi) that may enter the Central Nervous System. Trust Me!!

My husband was gravely ill for 18 months before he was finally diagnosed with Lyme.  He had gone to 10+ internists and specialists, including specialists at Mass. General without anyone accurately diagnosing him.  There was far less known about Lyme disease then, but he was lucky to finally find a doctor who recognized his myriad symptoms and connected the dots.  A blood test confirmed Lyme, as well as co-infections which often come with Lyme exposure (babesiosis and mycoplasma, in his case).

It took a couple of years of treatment for my husband to show improvement.  He did conventional antibiotics initially, including IV Rocephin.  But certain symptoms lingered and had to be tackled one at a time, including nerve damage in his hands, migraine headaches, migrating pains and fatigue.

For anyone who has been diagnosed with Lyme, but is having trouble recovering, the turnaround for my husband was following the herbal protocol from the book, "Healing Lyme", by Stephen Harrod Buhner.  It took a few years, but my husband has regained his good health as a result of this protocol, as well as dietary and liifestyle changes.  

Best wishes to anyone who is living with Lyme.  There are still so many myths and misconceptions (including many of the comments on this article).  There is a strong online community of Lyme sufferers.  Don't rely only on conventional medical advice---although it has its place, it is still lacking when it comes to treating Lyme.

Lifeisamystery

I can see you know more about Lyme than many of the so called "experts", including those at MGH.

Congrats to you and your husband for your perseverance.

Best

In response to lifeisamystery's comment:

Bitten on a camping trip.  No bullseye rash.  Just a small red mark.  Did not see the tick, so didn't realize what had happened. Swollen knee a month later, and rare burning sensations in one place on skin.  Nothing else for a long time.  Finally, moving arthritis, headaches, heart arrhythmia, stabbing sensations, eye problems, numbness, hot and cold skin sensations, brain not working right, seizures, tinnitus, etc, etc.

I did not get any treatment for almost three years after the bite.  By then it is entrenched.  Although I checked with several doctors at the early stage, they came up with nothing.  One suggested a diuretic for the knee swelling.  After that I gave up on doctors.  It was not until the roof fell on me much later, that I realized it was all connected.  Maybe if I had persisted with seeing doctors early.....? But probably what would have happened is that I would have followed in the footsteps of so many other lyme patients who consulted dozens of doctors and still not been correctly diagnosed and treated.

Turned out the tick also gave me babesiosis.

Terrible years have followed, with problems finding doctors, staying ahead of the symptoms, insurance issues.  It is the late stage untreated people who have bad outcomes mostly and some can never stop treatment or the symptoms become worse.  Wilth treatment you can function and be independent, possibly even work.  Without treatment, your life is not worth living.

I am so disheartened and stunned that in an age when organs can be transplanted and other miracles, an infectious disease is being so willfully mishandled by the medical establishment.  There needs to be some housecleaning at the NIH and CDC, which has enforced this travesty.  It is not so much that some incompetent people find jobs there, it is the management that permits this to continue and to hurt so many.  This is a public health disaster.