I have had Lyme disease twice, once in 1990 and another time in 1998-both were separate infections and not part of a chronic resurgence.
Both times I did not have a bullseye rash. Both times I tested negative on the ELISA method;and positive with the Western Blot Method.
The first time I had Lyme I had chronic joint pain that was transient, a knee one day, a wrist the next..and so on. At that point in time, Lyme was still relatively a new thing in Westchester County NY where I lived, so it took a few doctors visits and about 6 months to diagnose.
The second time I had Lyme, I experienced a high fever and extreme exhaustion to the point of not being able to move my limbs or get up -- for those that know me, they will attest that it would take one hell of a punch to do that to me!! My doctor at the time believed that I had mounted an high immune response to the second infection, called a cytokine storm, where the body does all it can to kill the invader.
In both cases I took oral doxycycline for 1 month and as far as I know, I have suffered no long term effects. I have osteo arthritis in my shoulders and neck, plus a family history of Lupus Erythematosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis, so if I do suffer from a chronic Lyme condition, it will be very unlikely to be differentiated from my predisposition to joint deterioration, given my family history.
I did suffer from vertigo and an extremely stiff and painful neck during a bout with viral meningitis in 2000.
Now, my dog on the other hand, has had Lyme Disease twice and Anaplasmosis also twice -- both are tick borne diseases transmitted by the deer tick, and Anaplasmosis is known to cause neurological symptoms in humans and canines. My dog, in fact, experienced a continuous 24 hour long very serious seizure episode called Status Epilepticus and a 106 degree fever during a cytokine storm mounted against Analplasma. She was one of the first cases of Lyme/Anaplasma coinfection in a canine in NY and we are very fortunate to have her with us today -- as our veterinary team said many times, most people wouldn't go through the expense of treating this and due to that, many dogs are destroyed without a clear diagnosis, which in an indirect way deprives veterinarians from gaining the experience in treating these infections from onset to positive cleared outcome. In the two years following her infection, our vet saw many more cases, and had our case history experience to draw upon. As difficult as it was, it was a very informative process for everyone involved. And thankfully, after much rehab, Terra regained all of her muscle inervation and balance and is going strong...knock on wood!
Her subsequent infections have been treated as acute although she lacked symptoms, and were picked up on annual tick serology panels, which we now make a part of her annual health check.
I am a Medical Technologist and its my field and area of training to perform complex clinical laboratory analyses and present clinical interpretations based on laboratory investigation of the disease process. In my hospital, a teaching hospital in the Greater Boston Area, we have had several cases of Anaplasmosis in humans this year; a departure from the Babesiosis we saw last year. Both are very serious tick borne diseases in which the bacteria take up residence in blood cells (red or white, depending on the disease and species) and are most accurately and most quickly diagnosed upon microsopic examination of peripheral blood smears. Its one of the few times in the laboratory where the technologist is making the definative diagnosis, with the leukemias and multiple myeloma being the other stand out examples. So its an exciting and alarming time for us this season in the laboratory as we continue to see new cases in our area. These other tick borne diseases, in my opinion, are much more serious <than Lyme> because of the damage the body does to its own vascular system as it mounts an immune attack on the bacterial infection. So its my advice, to anyone who feels they may be suffering from a tick borne disease, to seek diagnostic evaluation of all tick borne diseases, not just Lyme...because the vectors of infection are the same tick. In cases of Babesiosis and Anaplasma, we have seen low platelets, anemia, elevated white count and intra erythrocytic inclusions -- we have seen this upon routine microscopic examination of a regular CBC and that's been enough for us to alert the physician and advise that a full parasitic smear be evaluated. We have been on target on several occasions -- score! Meaningful work...
In terms of the broadest method for diagnosis of tick borne diseases, for both dogs and humans, a Tick Borne Serology by Flouresent Indirect Antibody methods AKA Tick Panel by FIA; is the best diagnositic tool, as there are several tick born diseases prevalent now in the NE and co-infections with multiple bacterial infections exist. With canines, for acute infections the Snap 4DeX by Idexx is the standard method (in the vet's office), with the C6 antigen being useful in differentiating past exposure/infection from current acute infection (at the reference laboratory), PCR is also available for Anaplasma, but its not a very reliable source for determining clearance post treatment as the bacterial load must be quite high to recover genetic material from the sample. Tick borne serology by FIA is the best method for following the treatment of coinfections.
I hope this helps somewhat -- please feel free to shoot me a pm if you have any questions or just want to talk. Lyme diagnosis is frustrating -- not everyone seroconverts to a degree detectable by current methods which sometimes prolongs the diagnosis.
