my rash was about the size of a 50 cent piece and exactly like a bullseye. the top was greasy and itchy, oiley looking. lasted about two weeks.
it never did expand. i've read several sites that says it must be an expanding circle.
does it have to expand?? cause mine never did
Posted by 'Kete-tracker (Member # 17189) on :
LYME rashes are known to expand because the little critters like to move (they have tails!)... and like all "random field patterns" of moving things, the area they take up expands.
It's *believed* the "ring" is the body's immune reaction to the "front-line" of the borrelia, though it's actual shape might not be circular.
If your half-dollar "rash" never expanded, it was almost certainly something Else besides B.B. There's lots of pathogens out there!
Posted by hammond (Member # 32303) on :
O.K. I think that Kete-tracker is correct as far as the migration of the rash. There is lots of literature about the migration of the rash and the Bb buggers literally corkscrew through our tissues.
But..... there are many, many studies that irrefutably show that patients can contract a Bb infection without a rash. I myself was CDC positive from the get go, no problem what so ever with lighting up the bands. And I never had a rash.
Sooooo........ the rash is one of many symptoms that are used to clinically diagnose Lyme. Yes other pathogens can cause a rash. But to rule out Lyme because the rash did not migrate is like ruling out a leaky boat hull by inspecting the last leak you had. If the bilge is full of water, you have a leaky boat.
Posted by 'Kete-tracker (Member # 17189) on :
Oh absolutely, hammond. She & I were never discussing rash vs. no rash, if Lyme's present, or not.
*I* had no rash after my tick bites & I was looking. But I came down w/ full blown late-stage Lyme disease five months later. And I tested CDC+ (via Quest) BEFORE I even started on abx.
I was just saying the rash she described was not a Lyme rash (i.e: erythema migrans), not that there couldn't be any Lyme present.
Sometimes a rash isn't even indicative of a pathogen... just the body's response to the tick's saliva components.
Hope this clears it up some. Sorry if I implied otherwise.
Posted by lightfoot (Member # 2536) on :
A bull eye rash can appear after a tick bite, at any time before treatment or anytime during treatment. It is NOT necessary for it to 'expand'.
They can appear at any time. I had one during aggressive ABX treatment. I had one before treatment without a bite at the site. That bulls eye was how I learned I'd had Lyme since a teen.
My advice is: If you have one at any time, photograph it AND have a medical professional place a signature and date on it as a witness.
My photos (without documentation by a witness) were not accepted as proof of anything by a leading LLMD.....his comment, "I didn't witness it.". I came up with a positive PCR so that clinched it anyway.
Posted by randibear (Member # 11290) on :
i took pictures but i was too close and they came out really blurry. you couldn't make out anything.
strange thing is that when the doc gave me tetracycline i broke out in huge red and purple blotches all over. don't know if it was lyme or not.
and then i had morphine one time and broke out in red circles all over.
go figure....
Posted by 'Kete-tracker (Member # 17189) on :
1 final word on this- ALL I was trying to say was: IF THE RASH IS ONE THE BODY HAS GENERATED IN RESPONSE TO PRESENCE OF BORRELIA BURDORFERI (in the epidermal layers), it WILL EXPAND. Period.
Never meant expansion was part of the way to "identitify" it strictly as a Lyme EM.
S.T.A.R.I. will do the same thing. It's common in the South. (Ya know... the "rash" that ' w ' , our ex-President supposedly had?) It's also believed to be a spirochetal infection.
Posted by randibear (Member # 11290) on :
can spider bites or anything else cause a bulls eye type reaction?
Also my igenex was one star for 39 and 41. Everything else was negative including igg and igm