This is actually very funny. If the Target Social Media Intern doesn't capitalise on this opportunity, I'll be disappointed (so yes, I'll be disappointed)
Yeah in med school I was taught that in endemic regions this alone is all you need to see to give the patient doxycycline. No additional tests are necessary.
I got bit last year and took the tick into the pharmacy to send it away for testing and to get a pill. The pharmacist said that they dont send them away anymore and just assume they carry lyme and gave the pill no questions asked.
My buddy died from complications from lymes. When he was alive it WRECKED him, so don't mess around with them. I hate ticks.
Babesiosis nearly killed me as a healthy 22 year old. That shit is no joke. Didn’t help that I went misdiagnosed for weeks until my blood was more parasite than blood. Another case of a physician refusing to test for anything. He kept telling me it was a virus.
Unrelated to ticks but I also went undiagnosed for weeks while I was 15 years old I knew something was wrong my head was swollen they called it a migraine. One week later I come out of brain surgery and half of my skull missing to try and kill the infection that had eaten 15 square inches of my skull had to get it rebuilt 2 months later. Well fuck Vanderbilt!
They never got to figure it out they waited to long and it couldn’t be matched with anything I still have a photo of my scar wraps to the front of my head.
Yes. This is what they basically call pathognomonic. A symptom of a disease that is so unique and characteristic you don't even need to confirm it through testing.
Like OP said, he basically walked into the clinic and was immediately told, you have lymes disease. Here is doxy
Edit: also, realize the concept of pathognomonic symptoms originate from medicine centuries ago. Prior to sophisticated testing, anyone with this was clearly treated and presumed to have disease. Then testing developed, but was likely still expensive, so the benefit/risk ratio of just giving an antibiotic still outweighed the social cost of undergoing testing - plus the risk of false positive with poor tests. At some point (likely modern time), it gets more complicated as testing is quicker, cheaper, and accurate. Live in a tick infested area and you say you hike a lot? May not need to test. As always, medicine is constantly changing and every situation is unique
Is it really like that? I got bit by a tick several years ago, had the same mark as OP but never got diagnosed with anything, and don't have any symptom.
We have a family friend who developed Lyme's decades after he got a bullseye bite. The guy is absolutely wrecked now. Sleeps 12+ hours a day and one outing wipes him out for the next few days. Sucks to see
I suffered from long term Lyme for many years. I would relapse every year with horrible symptoms (migraines, cold sweats so bad I soaked my bed, arthritic symptoms, brain fog, joint pain so bad I could hardly walk. I was on doxycycline for close to 10 years and it slowly stopped working. I ended up seeing a specialist in Walker, MN. With his tinctures, I slowly beat it. I continue to take the tinctures daily, but I have no symptoms and haven’t relapsed for 5 years. I would recommend this doctor to anyone suffering from long term Lyme. He gave me my life back.
You may want to go in for another testing. My aunt had a situation like that. No symptoms for years, then one day she started getting heart palpatations and head aches. Within a few months, she passed. Its rare, but it does happen and is serious. It's not a good way to go
You need to see a doctor about that yesterday. If you were bit by a tick and developed a bullseye mark, you have Lyme disease. It can lay dormant for years. Once it starts fucking with your body it can cause permanent damage. You don't want the lifelong chronic illness.
Eta: unless maybe you were given doxycycline at some point after that for something unrelated and it resolved? I'm not completely familiar with how it all works. As far as I know, the dormant cases are rare or uncommon.
I live in an endemic region. Called my doctor's office and told them that I found (and removed) a deer tick that was probably attached for 2 days, since I had been hiking 3 days earlier. They told me I didn't even need to come in to the office, they would send the doxycycline order right to the pharmacy.
I took doxy on an empty stomach and started feeling nauseous so slammed down a slice of pizza trying to fix it. Ended up barfing in my water cup and it was the most painful barf i ever did barf. The crust was still crusty coming back up.
I was gonna make a “got any grapes” joke and it reminded me of another unpleasant scenario where i found a really large grape in the bag and wanted to savor its mass so i swirled it around in my mouth for awhile until it made its way past the point of no return and the massive grape started sliding down my throat. Thought i was gonna die actually, luckily i was near the sink. Unluckily in my panic i grabbed a cup that was filled with dishwater and chugged it to wash the grape down.
You guys might be onto something, i should probably focus on chewing a little better
At least it wasn't salt and vinegar chips that you barely chewed, and at least you didn't throw up out of your nose too. Because /that/ would suck. And hurt really, really fucking bad.
Food voms are the worst. Once you think you may throw up food, start slamming water. It’s not gonna stop you from throwing up but having a lot of extra water in there helps everything come out smoother.
My antidepressant makes me violently vomit if I don’t eat first. I was breaking capillaries in and around my eyes almost daily before I connected the dots. Felt like my eyes would pop out of my head every time
I unfortunately did not watch my sun exposure and my entire body turned red. I actually thought at one point I was just a goner between the Lyme and the sunburn I was in hell. Watching sun exposure is the best tip to give anyone and don't let them forget haha.
I had Lyme as a kid and the only thing I remember is that the medication tasted bad, so my parents (who were not big on having any kind of sugary drinks bar juice in the house) bought me a whole crate of lemon iced tea for myself to wash it down with. So that was nice!
We were supposed to take Doxy for a full year while deployed to Iraq and we all quit after a few weeks. Constant brutal sun exposure and although you drank a ton of water you were never quite hydrated. I feel like I got most of the not life threatening side effects. Night terrors were the worst.
Same! I live in a heavy tick area and am an outdoorsy person so I’m very diligent about tick repellent. I still get a couple a year and cross my fingers that it doesn’t carry any illness since I can’t have doxy.
Not necessarily. I had a bullseye rash from a tick bite and did not have Lyme Disease. I had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. RMSF did not cause the rash though. The doctor said I got a co-infection of STARI, Southern Tick Associated Rash Illness, which is harmless and only causes the bullseye rash.
Wife had a classic bullseye 🎯 mark from a tick bite. Went to emergency and the nurse said it wasn’t. Based solely on her visual assessment. We insisted on a course of antibiotics. She thought it was overkill.
I had a tick that was stuck on me a couple years ago. We have a lab in town that can test for Lyme, so I knew within a day or two that it was positive for Lyme. The urgent care doctor still wouldn't give me antibiotics because it wasn't attached for 36 hours or whatever their minimum is, as though I could accurately know how long it had been on me. Luckily I was able to get my PCP to prescribe it
My son had this bullseye. The doctor said it wasn’t t Lyme. We waited a few days and it just got worse. We went back and the same doctor said she guaranteed it wasn’t Lyme.
We asked if she would just do a blood test to be sure.
I just read something yesterday about a woman with lyme who let herself get attacked by killer bees to cure her lyme disease.
She was on her last leg had read about a 70’s study in Australia where they cured lyme with africanized bee venom but couldn’t continue because it was morally wrong to test on human subjects.
And you're just ending the story there? Boo! We need to know if it worked. Or, ya know, if the mortician ruled it was the bees or the tick that killed her.
It did work. Her lyme disease is gone. From what I read the lady worked to be attacked by the bees. It wasn’t an accident.
Here’s a snippet:
The connection between Africanized honey bees and Lyme disease centers on bee venom therapy, an unproven and controversial alternative treatment. The primary anecdotal evidence comes from Ellie Lobel, a woman with a Ph.D. in nuclear physics who was in palliative care for late-stage Lyme disease in California. After being attacked by a swarm of Africanized bees (often called "killer bees"), Lobel reported a dramatic recovery, attributing it to the venom's main component, melittin, which has shown antibacterial properties against Borrelia burgdorferi (the bacteria causing Lyme) in laboratory studies.
I am loudly advocating all over the internet for ER doctors and nurses to be held accountable for sending people
home while still ill/hurt because they can’t be bothered to do their damn jobs. You should join in. It’s fun.
Edit to add: yeah, I am aware that “beds are for emergencies”, but you guys thinking doctors sending patients that are presenting to them scared and wanting treatment away is okay. They can get referrals also, and do not need beds?
Cute you think doctors are infallible creatures that can do no wrong, because they REGULARLY SEND REAL EMERGENT ISSUES HOME. I was sent home with a spinal cord injury because nobody could be bothered to even give me a CT.
I can see I hit a massive nerve here. Hold your colleagues accountable.
I got sent home once while I was actively coughing up blood! She was very rude to me when I walked in, took blood work, came back 25 minutes later, told me I was fine, and to go home. I was flabbergasted. I went to a different hospital ring and they actually took care of me, identified the problem, and it never happened again!
I had gotten into a car accident 5 days before. I went to the hospital that day and they thought I had bronchitis with Hemoptosis (spelling) and gave me meds to take and told me to come back in when the meds were done if I wasn’t better…. So I did and this was her reaction. The next hospital ring found out that apparently my face must have hit the steering wheel, which I don’t remember, and I had busted blood vessels in the back of my nose and that was the constant stream of blood. They scheduled surgery, I got it fixed, and have had no issues since!
You can be tested immediately, but it might not show up for up to four weeks. That’s what happened to me. I had the bull’s-eye got the test came back negative still went through treatment ended up testing positive six weeks later.
I got bit in high school. I didn’t know what it was and only saw it nearly a full day later.
I showed my mum and we just thought it was a weird mole with dark black hairs sticking out the sides, and would book an appointment with the doctor to get it looked at. I then did the natural thing of starting to play with it. Then the weird “hairs” started moving. I went back and told her “mum… it moves.” Then she rang my stepdad and told him who was with his parents and they said it was just a tick their dogs get them all the time so they got it out for me. Was only small but I still have a slight scar where it was but never had any other issues thankfully.
Also worth nothing the test for Lyme has a 50% false negative rate which isn’t great.
I went in for a test feeling terrible and was given antibiotics preventively. After a couple of days I was feeling great but got a call from a nurse saying I was negative and to stop taking my meds. No way even if not Lyme they were working.
I went back in a month later and was retested. Came back positive
I had a rash like this and the doctor immediately put me on doxycycline. Later tests showed it wasn’t Lyme, but untreated Lyme is so fucking bad that they’d rather give you antibiotics just in case. You should go to the doctor.
Nice to see things have changed. When I got it ten years ago (with the telltale bullseye, the tick bite itself still visible, high fever/flu symptoms, and bizarre “brain zap”- like intense migraines with dizziness), the first doctor I saw gave me two weeks of doxy.
Of course it didn’t go away in two weeks, but when I came back I was told there was “no late-stage Lyme disease.” Back then, there was some kind of war brewing between doctors who recognized the condition could last and manifest for a long time, and doctors who did not.
I ended up at the hospital where I tested positive, and was prescribed doxy for almost a YEAR. Thankfully kicked its ass, never to return.
Yeah, I've noticed with the discovery of alpha-gal, powassan virus, and some of the other nasties, people (including doctors) have been taking tick bites more seriously.
I got a wasp sting that looked like this after about half an hour. Two hours later the swelling and redness had wrapped around my leg. Went to the doc and he said if I'd not come in it would have turned septic and obviously very dangerous. Was given a strong antibiotic. Went down 24 hrs later. Strongly suggest seeing a doc immediately.
It takes weeks to test positive. If you are bitten by a a tick that carries Lyme and you suspect that it was attached for more than a couple of hours you should go to a doctor and they will likely give you Doxycycline even before any tests. If you have a bullseye rash, you should definitely get treated. Lyme is one of those things where the testing is not that reliable.
Meanwhile I walked in yesterday to my urgent care and the NP tried to dissuade me from it. I'd been treating it like a mosquito/bug-infected bite for cellulitis with an antiseptic wash (I'm prone to cellulitis) for just over a week, then BOOM, bullseye rash suddenly appeared. I BRUH'd all the way home with my Lyme blood lab order. Like, no, I really don't potentially need this on top of my autoimmune and fatigue issues as it stands.
The first nurse/doctor I saw to show my original bite did the same thing. My bite was originally looking way different, it was puffy and inflamed and much smaller.
Then a week later it suddenly flattened, began spreading rapidly, and morphed into the bullseye. Also had tender areas running down from the bite site that felt like invisible bruises. Oh, and my lymph nodes were super inflamed on that side. That's when I went back to the doctor and they were like "uhh yeah antibiotics right now"
Same thing happened to me back in 2010. Got the rash, probably from a golfing trip. Went to my doctor, they said "its just hives" and sent me home with steroid cream. Days go by, I start to get rashes all over my body, different locations. Went back to doctor, they dismissed me again, but said "I guess if you really want, we can send you to a dermatologist, but they'll say the same thing." By this point, Im having jaw pain and trouble chewing, also knee pain. Go to dermatologist. He walks in, takes one look at the largest rash and immediately says "that's Lyme."
My bullseye was near my gooch, so I didn’t notice it until I was symptomatic for over a week. I thought I had mono, but tested negative. Definitely the sickest I’ve ever been. Antibiotics still cleared it up in like 2 days though.
He was selling hot chili smuggled into an ice rink at a hockey game for $3 a bowl so he needed to make sure his underwear could stand up to the immense heat of chili he had around his crotch before he pumped it out via a tubing system for distribution.
Yeah they love eating ass. I had a true moment of terror after hiking and getting ready to shower when I brushed my hand against my nether regions and felt that bump.
Dude I somehow caught a hitchhiker (tick) on my fucking labia while visiting family in Tennessee last year 😭 I didn’t find it until I flew back home and held a mirror up to my undercarriage to see why tf I was itching so bad. It* was fat as hell and I was SO mad. I set it on fire with a grill lighter after I plucked it out
Unfortunately I had no way to know for sure 100%, but this was about 4 years ago and my doctor never put me on antibiotics 😅 hopefully I don’t have anything to worry about lol
You probably have dormant Lyme bacteria in you as a bullseye rash is confirmation the bacteria was passed over from the tick (or at least that's what some Lyme doctors believe).
Here's some advice - look after yourself, eat and sleep well, keep your immune system in good shape and do not move into a moldy environment. Mold can mess with your immune system and it can unlock chronic Lyme disease. Once Lyme disease takes over, it's incredibly hard for it to put it back into the box again.
This happened 13 years ago, but I just remember extreme fatigue being the worst. But, I was diagnosed with Celiac disease 6 months later and I'm convinced the Lyme Disease activated it.
Lyme disease targets your immune system. Your white blood cells will attack it in droves, ignoring other things in your body that need their attention. I got lyme disease a few years ago, and a few months later I came down with severe bacterial pnumonia.
You're very likely right about that. Serious infections like that can trigger autoimmune conditions to start up. (EBV and chicken pox at 18 did it for me.)
It makes you feel so exhausted that you feel like you're going to die but it gets to a point where you don't care because then at least youd get some rest. And then for about 5-6 years you have to struggle through clinical depression. At least that's how my experience was with it.
Day 1-no rash, just itchy.
Day 2-raised bump, itchy.
Day 3-felt like shit, purple spot, itchy. Fever. Went to the hospital.
They thought it was a blood clot for two hours and then one doctor walked by and just said Lyme disease and that was that. Prescribed 10 days doxy but asked a friend to prescribe more just to ensure it was gone.
1 year later no negative lasting effects thankfully
I just got over both ehrlichiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever that put me in the hospital for 4 days from a bite where the tick didn’t even get a chance to latch on when I took the dog out in the backyard. Nasty fuckers those ticks are. Thank god for doxy.
If you are given Doxycycline for Lyme or another infection (I was on it just a few weeks ago for cellulitis):
Read the information that the pharmacy SHOULD give you with it carefully.
Eat and drink plenty of water, especially when you take the pills. Antibiotics also kill off the good bacteria in your digestive system, so take probiotics to avoid gastrointestinal side effects. Probiotics can also help prevent yeast infections if you're prone to getting those when taking antibiotics. If you are prone to yeast infections after taking antibiotics, you might also want to ask your doctor for a script for fluconazole (diflucan).
Do NOT ingest dairy and dairy products. That includes milk, cheese, butter, many butter substitutes (including Olivio, to my personal sorrow), ice cream, and some coffee creamers.
Is goat or sheep's milk okay? Honestly, I don't know. I wouldn't risk it.
Are oat milk, almond milk, and other non-dairy milk substitutes okay? They should be if they have no dairy in them - check the ingredients to be sure.
What will happen if I ingest dairy/dairy products while on doxycycline? Depends on the person. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and stomachache are all possible. I thought my coffee creamer was okay since it was just a teaspoonful. I spent the next two hours lying in bed with a very unpleasant stomachache.
How long after finishing taking doxycycline can I resume eating dairy? I gave it 24 hours just to be safe and had no problems, but y'know, different people work differently.
Doxycycline kills off all bacteria. Probiotics taken during it will simply be killed off and wasted. Take Probiotics after you stop taking it to replenish the good bacteria that was killed off. I've been told this by a handful of different doctors and surgeons.
🤯 I have never seen a photo look so exactly like a true bullseye before. That shit is crazy. I’m an RN and feel like so many health issues are never as clear cut as Lyme Disease. At least it can be easy to diagnose? Yikes. My friend has alpha gal rn and she only found out by ending up in the ER after eating a bite of steak. Double yikes. Ticks are evil.
Interesting to read about others who had a bullseye. I got one 5 Weeks ago but it was not so easy to recognize because it was in the back of my knee and weirdly shaped, but know when i see the other ones here it was not so damm different.
I had headache, fever, an nerve pain for 5 days and my doctor didn't believe it was lyme. Last Year i had about 5-7 ticks (i hike a lot) but i pull them quite quickly so no Problems until then.
But this time i didn't found the tick at the back of my knee only the bullseye. So first blood test was negative, after 4 Weeks second one was positive. Now I'm on doxy for 20 Days. I hate those MF's!
So it was caught early enough and treated with doxy that I don't have any Lyme symptoms now. As I mentioned in another comment however, I do believe this triggered my celiac disease which is something I have to live with.
Here’s my tick bite. Posting this to hopefully have people that are melanated have a visual of what the Lyme’s disease tick bite looks like on melanated people. I was diagnosed pretty much as soon as the nurse saw the mark. And the outer ring got much darker after the picture was taken btw.
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u/shaed9681 21h ago
Here’s mine from around ten years ago. It collapsed the vein so I still have a mark