In 2021, I had the honor of getting a glimpse into the effects of Lyme disease.
Here is a comprehensive review on how I got it, how I noticed it, treatment and also how it compares to other illnesses I had luck to catch so far.
But firstly: What is Lyme disease?
Answer: It is an illness caused by a bacteria with the nice name of Borrelia burgdorferi, which is mostly contracted viá Ticks.
The kind of little spiders that usually annoy our furry friends and many wild animals all over the planet.
I probably got it from a tick bite during my work, when I had to access some infrastructure, that had not seen a lawn mower for quite some time.
To my surprise, only recently it was discovered, that this disease exists. It was within the 70's and 80's it was found, when the people of a place called Lyme all showed the same symptoms.
Speaking of symptoms, they can diverge a bit and as the disease also has different stages, the symptoms vary accordingly.
Sometimes the tick bite shows some nice red skin patterns such as this:
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| If you see something like this after a tick bite you should see a doctor! |
In my case this did not happen, it is optional but can help identifying the illness.
So how did I find out?
Well, I got a short lasting fever of one to two days, which was strange, since I had not had any other symptoms at that point. But I also did not wonder to much about it after it was gone.
During the next weeks I felt some random occurring pain in my joints. Especially the neck, knees, upper back and elbows. I also got ever more tired with each week and could hardly concentrate on my daily tasks.
I was sleeping more and more and when I had to drive longer distances, I was forced to take breaks after 3 to 4 hours of driving and sleep for an hour, otherwise I would not have been able to focus on the traffic anymore.
The joint pain kept increasing and they started making funny noises, such as unhealthy crackling. At one point I was even asking a receptionist at a hotel for painkillers -I have not used painkillers for many years at this point, so it was definitely no fun.
After that I decided to see my doctor and told him: It is either Arthritis or Lyme-disease. He was a bit surprised, I came to such a conclusion and asked me why I think this to be the case. Which I explained by telling him, there are cases of Arthritis in my family and that I recently had a tick bite. He agreed to test me for antibodies in my blood and he was quite surprised when the results confirmed Lyme disease.
For the next 20 days, I had to take antibiotics which made me very tired for the first two weeks of the treatment.
However after my treatment was over, I still have not got rid of my occasional joint pains on random body parts, without any clear reason behind it.
To this day, I still suffer from joint pain and increased overall tiredness.
Apparently this happens to quite some people and if you are unlucky you might find yourself in a later stage of this illness and then there is not much you can do, but live with it.
Overall the illness has potential for misdiagnosis or at least not finding out about the illness until you end up in a later stage of the illness, which makes it quite annoying and in that case much harder to treat.
Climate change will probably lead to more ticks surviving the winter and then becoming even more numerous, fun times await us.
I have to cut Lyme disease some points for being more annoying than dangerous and also treatment being mostly successful for the majority.
However it makes some ground, for follow up symptoms such as Fibromyalgia and other potential fun things.
Overall it is not as much of an experience as for example salmonella infections which can dehydrate you at break neck speeds with a lot of good times on the toilet. Also it lacks any truly horrific visible symptoms such as chickenpox for example.
Furthermore it is rarely a life threatening illness in contrast to things like Ebola (which I had not have yet).
As with many things, prevention is the best therapy. So when going out into the wild, you might consider insect spray as there are quite some good on the market.
If possible try to avoid deep grass and wear clothing that covers the legs.
Also check your body for ticks after visiting mother nature. Apparently they like your legs and your crotch, no matter if male or female as they are not sexist from what it seems.
But most importantly, speak with your doctor about symptoms and mention, if you have had any ticks. When blood tests are conducted, it does not hurt to check for Lyme disease markers. Do not wait until symptoms become unbearable, the sooner you treat the illness, the better!
So I give it a solid 5/10.
