Not sure if this is lyme

[lilcee]

I'm not sure if this is what is wrong with me. I was diagnosed with Fibro a couple of years ago. But I keep getting hives and itchy skin. The tops of my feet are the worst. It comes and goes. I also have achy, painful muscles and joints, back problems, neck pain - on and on and on.
What I was wondering is, does it take years for lyme to show up? The reason I ask is that I used to live in West VA about 30 yrs ago, and when I lived there I got a tick on my head. I never thought much about it. I had it removed and then forgot about it. Since then, I've had dogs that I removed several ticks off of, I was careful not to squish them but can you get lyme from contact of a tick without it actually biting you?

Sorry for all the questions, I've been reading a lot about lyme lately and with all the pain I've been having and the rash I get, I wonder about it.

Does it take awhile for it to appear? What tests do they do to find it?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Celia

(The rash I get on my feet look like big blotches. It comes and goes - and I get what looks like hives on other places - that are warm like upper legs and waste)

[blamom]

Sounds like Lyme and Bartonella

[JackieCalifornia]

Welcome to MedHelp Lyme --

Sorry to hear what you've been going through.  No one here is medically trained, but we're happy to share what we've learned on our own medical travels ....

Fibromyalgia is, from what I read, not a disease but a syndrome, meaning a collection of symptoms that the docs have no idea what causes it or often what to do about it.  (fibro = muscle fiber; myalgia = pain.  "Muscle pain."  Right.)  But that's where the understanding seems to stop.  

Lyme is carried by ticks, as you know, and the woods of W Va are, like much of the US, prime tick territory, so that's good data to have.  Thirty years ago, Lyme wasn't a recognized ailment, so who knows if it was widespread but not acknowledged, or if it has recently spread.  I'm thinking it has spread like crazy in the last 20-30 years into lots of areas that still think they don't have Lyme, according to the 'official' opinions.  Part of the reason is that docs are not trained to recognize it, and the tests they rely on are VERY unreliable, esp after you've been infected for a long time.

Re-infection (through getting another bite) happens -- why would it not?  The ticks bite whatever is in front of them, not based on whether that person or dog or whatever has Lyme.  From what I read, the immune system can often keep Lyme in check for a long time in someone who has a strong immune system, but if another unrelated illness comes along that taxes the immune system, or if you get another bite from a bug that carries Lyme, then the immune system just can't handle it anymore, and the symptoms erupt noticeably.  

Whether you can get infected by touching ticks you took off your dog, even if you were careful not to squish them, I don't know ... but the Lyme ticks are so tiny, like a poppy seed, that you can easily have them on you and not know it.  The medical profession's official position is that you have to have seen a tick, it has to have been 'attached' for a certain period of time, and you have to have had a spreading circular red 'target' rash to be diagnosed with Lyme ... but those requirements were set up to collect data for medical research and to be sure that they were dealing only with those who had absolutely a case of Lyme ... but Lyme doesn't play that way in the real world.  I had a huge case of Lyme, but never saw a tick, never had a rash.  My test results were positive, but often they are not, because the tests aren't very reliable.

The thing about not being able to get Lyme unless you squish the tick in your fingers ... I don't know how they would test that theory, so I don't waste a lot of time worrying about it.  What matters if that you have been in tick country, and you are having symptoms that could perhaps be Lyme.  The rashes you report may or may not be Lyme-related, or could be from other infection(s) the Lyme ticks carry about half the time.

It's a very complex diagnostic picture, and regular docs often are not disposed to understand what Lyme specialists have figured out.  In your situation, I would find a Lyme specialist for a work up.

If you search:

florida LLMD

you will find lots of leads.  You can narrow it down by Miami or whatever area you can get to.  Others here may have some suggestion for referral sources.

Also search:

lyme disease association doctor referrals

and you'll see a whole batch of websites to check.  Lyme is cutting edge medicine, so if somebody or some website seems a little wacky, just go to another one.  It's the Wild West out there since Lyme is considered a fringe disease by mainstream medicine.

(We don't post the names of LLMDs here in public because in many states, they can lose their medical licenses for treating Lyme aggressively.)

And by the way, LLMD is not an official title; it's just what we Lyme patients call a doc who 'gets' the concept of Lyme as a serious and complicated ailment.  It's short for Lyme Literate MD.

Hope this helps; I encourage you to find a Lyme specialist for a work up.  Even if you don't have Lyme, the doc may be able to figure out what's ailing you.  Hope you feel better soon -- take care, let us know how you do, okay?