The great taste of Lyme

[jere7my]

For the past couple of days, I've felt like I've been hit by a truck, like my limbs are weighted with sandbags. I have a sore throat, a mild cough, a 99° fever (my base is 97.6°), mildly achy joints, and a sore neck. Also, I just spent a week in the woods of New England.

On the one hand, all of these things can be explained by sleep deprivation and any of a number of mild bugs I might have picked up from Kendra's wee niece, or someone at Pinewoods. And I don't have any evidence of tick bites or bull's-eye rashes. On the other hand, all of these things are typical symptoms of Lyme disease.

Hurm. It may be wise to get screened. But I am without insurance.

Hurm.

Anyway, it's hard for me to find energy for much right now, beyond carefully sucking air into my lungs and blowing it back out, so if my Pinewoods reports lag a bit that's why. All else is fine.

Comments

[miraling.livejournal.com]

<concerned> Oooh... feel better! If it persists, maybe you should get screened...

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

Ouch...this is not good. Drink lots of tea, and make sure it's not Lyme.

Greg=concerned pre-EMT/microbiologist

[mumbly-joe.livejournal.com]

With that set of symptoms, yeah, it'd be a Very Good Idea to get checked ASAP (I just spent the past semester studying Lyme Disease for Micro). IIRC, only 30% of cases get the bull's-eye rash, so it's only a positive indicator, not a negative.

Plus, it's easily treated with antibiotics if caught early, rather than late- as a general rule, if it's not flu season and you're feeling fluish, you really should look into it. Esp. with the stiff neck.

But, by any means necessary, feel better!

[gannet.livejournal.com]

Yeah; my father's had Lyme disease a couple of times (he lived for three years in the vicinity of where they discovered it). I gather from what he's said that the more you put it off, the more difficult it is and the longer it takes to treat (and therefore the more expensive and unpleasant it gets).

This is one of those times when the cost-benefit analysis says you get tested now, insurance or no insurance.

Feel better, and I hope it's not Lyme!

or...

[eisenbud.livejournal.com]

When I thought I might have had Lyme disease, they basically said "the test sucks anyway, here, take these antibiotics". Which I'm generally against, but in this case I had been hiking in tick-infested places and had another 500+ miles I planned to hike, so I took them and was glad.

So the other route is to just convince them to give you antibiotics, which won't do you terribly much harm if you don't have it.