I've been In remission from lyme disease for two years now. So for everyone out there that are suffering, Just know there actually IS a light at the end of th tunnel!!!
About the brusing... I had been itching my thigh for More then a week now. And now I have 3 bruises In a row that are itchy.
At first the bruises weren't there.. My thigh near my knee was itchy for some weird reason and now I have 3 bruses in that same spot.
Could these possibly be a couple of bulls eye rash???
I haven't hit my leg or anything.. I've also been having symptoms like, extreme fatigue, massive mood swings, dizziness, Cold Intolerance and Loss of apetite.
I just want some Input from you guys... You all give very good advice.
Thank you all! I'm just wondering if this has happened to anyone else.
Its not in the "form" of a bulls eye rash, but just round bruises... its very weird.
Koryn
Posted by cactus (Member # 7347) on :
Hi Koryn - thank you for the remission hope!
If they are bruises, not rashes, could you have babs? ...either a relapse or a re-infection?
Easy bruising has been one of my "babsy" symptoms - along with the other symptoms you mentioned. Mostly noticed them along my thighs, and would have called them itchy, too - much more so than painful.
Just a thought...
Sending lots of hope that this is a bump on the road, and not an exit back onto the Lyme and co-infection highway, Cactus
Posted by Koryn21 (Member # 13926) on :
Thanks for your advice.. I'm gonna have to go get tested again.
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
Hi Koryn!!!
I'm so sorry you've got problems again!! I was thinking babs too....the loss of appetite especially.
If you have olive skin or African American skin or just not anglo-pink-white skin bulls-eye rashes CAN look like bruises!! ******************************************** Skin Color Can Hide Lyme Disease
By Julia McNamee Neenan HealthScout Reporter WEDNESDAY, Oct. 18
Blacks are about half as likely as whites to be diagnosed with Lyme disease, perhaps because their darker skin masks the telltale rash that often signals the disease, contends a new study.
As a result, blacks who do have Lyme disease are more likely to suffer from arthritis and other serious manifestations that develop later, the researchers believe.
The same likely holds true for Hispanics and other darker-skinned people, experts speculate.
Carried by deer ticks, which infect people by biting them, Lyme disease generally causes a rash, joint swelling, facial paralysis or tremors, fever and fatigue early on. Longer term, it can lead to more serious heart, blood and neurological problems. Between 1993 and 1997, 12,500 cases of Lyme disease were diagnosed in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The bull's-eye rash that usually first identifies Lyme disease in someone "can be missed," says lead researcher Dr. Alan D. Fix, an assistant professor in the epidemiology and preventive medicine department at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "It can certainly be ignored. But some later manifestations cannot. If you have a big, swollen knee, you're going to seek help."
Whites long have shown higher rates of Lyme disease infection than blacks, Fix says, but researchers have explained the difference with demographics, believing that blacks were less likely to become infected because they generally live in areas where few deer ticks are found.
"It has been attributed to the area of residence," Fix says, paraphrasing the logic. "[People thought] this is a disease of the suburbs."
To test that theory, Fix chose to study a rural area in Maryland with a relatively high incidence of Lyme disease and a black population of about 13 percent -- the state's upper Eastern Shore. Logically, he says, you should not see much difference in the diagnosis of the disease bettween whites and blacks in this area because both groups would have roughly equal contact with infected ticks in daily activities near their homes.
Instead, he found that whites were 1.8 times as likely as blacks to be diagnosed with the disease -- 42 whites for every 100,000 people, compared with 23.4 blacks.
And of those eventually diagnosed with the disease, whites were 5.7 times as likely to have detected a bull's-eye rash, the study says.
When blacks who contracted the disease finally were diagnosed with it, it was at a later stage of the disease, after other symptoms appeared, Fix says. Blacks were 10 percent more likely to exhibit symptoms like neurological or heart problems and 30 percent more likely to suffer from arthritis, he says. Findings appear in the current issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
"The question is why," Fix says, adding that the only answers at this point are speculation. "Is it because individuals aren't recognizing it? Or that if they see it, they're not thinking much of it?"
Other possibilities, he says, may be that blacks simply do not have health-care coverage that would allow for earlier diagnosis or that health-care professionals may have interpreted previous statistics to mean that Lyme disease is not a cause for common concern with black patients.
David Weld, executive director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation, says the evidence suggests more education is needed. In the black population, he agrees, Lyme disease "is underdiagnosed and underreported."
But the same problem exists in the Hispanic population, Weld says, because many Hispanics also are darker-skinned, making it harder to spot the rash. That, in turn, is compounded in the migrant worker population, which may have even less access to medical care and also an aversion to government clinics, given that many of the workers are illegal immigrants, Weld says.
Both Fix and Weld say there's some evidence that delayed treatment of Lyme disease may lead to more problems in the long run. So, they say, failure to diagnose early could mean greater damage for blacks.
Because the disease-bearing ticks often are as small as poppy seeds, making them extremely difficult to detect, the rash is your best bet at a clear diagnosis, Weld says. He estimates that it appears in 80 percent to 90 percent of Lyme disease cases. --
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