I just remembered EM?

[gibsongal]

I was filling out the Burrascano check list and at the top it asks if you have had a spotted rash over large area..No.
Then it says, EM rash Discrete circle.. and bam! i remembered!

I had a bug bit last year, May or June?  that was a dot inside a thin circle. it never "grew" it was the size of a pea .It didn't hurt but a mild itch. i think it took about 5 -7 days to go away..

thought it was from horse fly or black fly as we live in the woods by a stream..
i watched it often, showed it to husband and kids. faded went away

Husband got tick bite mid June, removed, in 10 days he had a big rash on his thigh the size of your hand. very sick with flue symptoms Lyme test positive and Doxy for a month..

my pain in ankles started mid July, wrist mid august, by October full body pain and all the symptoms on the check list..Burrascano sp?

so then August ? 20 year old daughter got a tick bite on calf, removed, no rash at all. she is fine and happy in college and very smart.

so could this bug bite actually have been the "rash" but never got big and painfull like my husbands?

i am looking up what else could cause my symptoms, adrenal, endocrine system thyroid..IDK but i need some answers soon.

seeing my GYN Tomorrow  for my annual and will ask her if there are any tests she would order for my condition. i have known her for 22 years and trust her. I told her last year about the pain in legs and wrists..I will tell her how severe it got..

[Ricobord]

A pea sized red spot is most likely a reaction to a bug bite, tick or otherwise. By definition an EM has to be a certain size and it grows over days or weeks.

An ILADS doc did a study to count bulls eye rashes, and found that only about a quarter of patients had it. Another quarter had a different rash, and the other half remembered nothing. I even read about an early publication on Lyme before it was known to be Borreliosis and it mentioned that docs noticed quickly that about a quarter of patients remembered a bulls eye rash. Because it is unique to Lyme, it became a defining symptom in the absence of tests. Docs like definitive things, whether they be test results or symptoms.

And now, because it is usually required in order to report the case to the CDC, there is now a false belief that 80% of Lyme patients get the EM, which is assumed to have a bulls eye shape. For a long time, doctors have been taught not to give abx for a tick bite without the bulls eye rash.

I thought I had a flat red EM, but later I read a description that explained thatI had tick hypersensitivity, not technically an EM. So, even though I had a flat warm painless rash bigger than my hand, I still wouldn't have been diagnosed with Lyme if I had shown it to a doctor!

If you're looking for a reason to convince your ID doc you have Lyme, a pea sized rash won't do it. I truly hate to say this, but knowing what I know now, I would stretch the truth to a doc in order to get abx for a tick bite in the future. I have experienced Lyme and Bartonella and I don't ever want to get them again!

[mojogal]

I never had a rash either but am positive for lyme, Bart's and babs.

[JackieCalifornia]

Could be!  ... but don't get too hung up on the list of symptoms and exactly how round or big or red the rash was ... Lyme and its co-infections appear differently in everyone, and these lists are helpful but should not be taken as requirements.  NonLLMD docs make that mistake often, and in their view, if you don't have exactly x, y, and z, then you don't have Lyme, end of story.

I never saw a tick or a rash on myself, but I had a first class case of Lyme and babesia, and I know others who had the same experience I did.