Lyme disease - Rash enough for treatment?

[universe]

Basically, I got a tick bite on my leg a month ago and developed a rash that could be a bull's-eye rash.

It's not typical as it has no bull's eye but it started a week after the bite and has been growing quite big. It seems to fade a bit now.

2-3 Weeks after the bite I got my blood tested for antibodies for borreliosis. They came back negative. However, antibodies seem to form only from week 3 and after.

The whole Lyme disease seems to me rather hard to grasp - with symptoms that include almost anything.

As of now I'm feeling fine.

 

It seems quite normal to get Lyme disease without the rash but can you have the rash without Lyme disease?

Also if I'm going to take doxycycline I will try to reduce the side effects with probiotics. Maybe someone here has experience with this and can tell me what to look out for.

Thanks

[mandyjw]

Was it a deer tick? 

[universe]

29 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

Was it a deer tick? 

Unlikely, but I'm not sure which type of tick exactly. I took a picture but the tick is too tiny to see anything.

@nuwu Thanks, so far it's not chronic and I'm relatively young. I might add some of these essential oils.

[Ananta]

@universe

https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/signs_symptoms/index.html

Here is info from the CDC regarding Lyme's Disease.

[Michael569]

On 15/07/2021 at 7:59 PM, universe said:

2-3 Weeks after the bite I got my blood tested for antibodies for borreliosis. They came back negative. However, antibodies seem to form only from week 3 and after.

@universe consider getting retested at least one more time, possibly at a different clinic. And then maybe one more time. Antibody tests rarely have 100% specificity or reliability. If you can get 2 or 3 negative tests you are probably good. 

This is from National Institute of Health 

Likewise, diagnostic tests that are based on the identification of antigens of B. burgdorferi, including the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), have not been shown to be sufficiently accurate to be clinically useful under non-experimental conditions.

It is well documented that the sensitivity and specificity of antibody tests for Lyme disease vary substantially [48]. The accuracy and reproducibility of pre-packaged commercial kits is much poorer than that of tests performed by “reference” laboratories that maintain tight quality control and regularly prepare the materials that are used in the test. Official recommendations from the Second National Conference on Serologic Diagnosis of Lyme Disease and from the CDC are that clinicians use a two-step procedure when ordering antibody tests for Lyme disease-first, a sensitive screening test, such as an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and, if that result is positive or equivocal, a Western immunoblot (a more specific test than the ELISA) to confirm the result. 

If the ELISA result is negative, an immunoblot is not indicated. Immunoblots should not be ordered without a simultaneously ordered ELISA. The ELISA provides a quantitative estimate of the concentration of antibodies against B. burgdorferi. The immunoblot provides information about the specificity of the antibodies; positive “bands” mean that antibodies against specific protein antigens of B. burgdorferi are present. Most authorities require the presence of antibodies against at least either 2 (for IgM) or 5 (for IgG) specific proteins of B. burgdorferi for the immunoblot to be considered positive

So in a summary the most accurate way is to get PCR followed by ELISA & Westernblot together (the two need to be ordered together). If all show positive, then you are positive with nearly 100% accuracy. 

Maybe print this of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3652387/ (or at least the Diagnosis section) and bring it to your doctor for some evidence on proper testing. This is from NIH, the library of medical evidence so no doctor in the world can ignore this 

Ofcourse keep observing for symptoms of the bullseye rash, headaches, joint pains and severe fatigue as well as fever 

[universe]

Thank you!

Yes the testing is hard. I may get the Westernblot and ELISA done but seems like I have to drive to the lab because the blood needs to be "fresh".

As an update, I've now developed the regular bull's eye pattern but thankfully none of the other later symptoms. I decided to just bite the bullet and take the doxycycline for at least 14 days.

The bacteria seems to be very hard to kill for our immune system as it can just mask & go "inactive" mode to wait for better circumstances (over years).

So even with the antibiotics I'm still not sure if it will be gone forever.

 

Taking the time to adjust and get my diet clean.

For now I decided to stay off probiotics (the pills) and instead eat prebiotic food.

Which I do anyways but just added some, like garlic and onions.

 

So for now observing the possible health benefits from the doxy and trying to keep my stomach as healthy as possible.

[Michael569]

55 minutes ago, universe said:

ut seems like I have to drive to the lab because the blood needs to be "fresh".

Yes this is very important and I would encourage you to make the effort and get the testing done in the lab or making sure (within the scope of possibility) it is sent to lab quickly, maybe pay a premium service or send the sample yourself. In medicine the distance between the medical practitioner or phlebotomist taking the sample to the evaluating lab is directly proportional the risk of mistake, loss, contamination and need to test again. 

Antibody test samples can easily get contaminated during transport and in fact, transport and mishandling are one of the most common causes of false negatives/false positives on serum testing. So if you can driving there and getting the sampling done on the same day would be ideal. 

57 minutes ago, universe said:

and take the doxycycline for at least 14 days.

Might be enough to kill it, might not. See what happens after 14 days then act accordingly. Maybe after that would be good time to get the double test of ELISA & Westernblot. 

59 minutes ago, universe said:

Taking the time to adjust and get my diet clean.

For now I decided to stay off probiotics (the pills) and instead eat prebiotic food.

Which I do anyways but just added some, like garlic and onions.

Good stuff. Some of the other dietary tips would be to maybe have a measure of your vitamin D and get it up if needed and some Zinc citrate supplementation for general immune support. Good luck!