My Story

In the summer, my young son spends hours playing outdoors with his friends, so we make sure to do a full body inspection every night. He is what some call a tick magnet, and we pull at least 5 ticks out of him each summer, mainly small nymphs. I guess I spent so much time protecting him last summer that I forget to protect myself. I never felt the bite or found the tick, but I discovered a large target rash on the back of my thigh one morning.

I went to a local urgent care facility, where the doctor did not seem to think it was Lyme because it didn’t resemble a bulls-eye enough to him. I convinced him to send me to the lab for tests, but he would not prescribe me antibiotics. I sent a photo of the rash to a different provider, who prescribed me antibiotics by phone on the spot. Thankfully I started them that day, because my Lyme infection tests did come back positive, over a week after that visit.

Once I spoke with my doctor, they prescribed me another month of antibiotics, stating that I hadn’t originally been prescribed enough to knock out the infection. After that round of antibiotics, my tests still came back positive, so my doctor recommended a third round. I was showing no signs or symptoms of a current infection, so opted to see a specialist at that point to determine if I truly should be taking more drugs.

I now know that none of the providers I saw at that time handled this according to best practice, even though we live in an area where Lyme is prevalent. I sought out multiple opinions, all with varied answers, which led me to feel “lost” and unsure of what I truly needed. This experience showed me that there is a lack of education and awareness from our health care community. My hope is that we can not only work on prevention methods, but standards and collaboration on treatment/best practices.