I began physical therapy to strengthen my hip, and I did notice a difference.  But as my hips improved, I began to get swelling in both knees and the inside of my right foot continued to hurt.  When I gave the physical therapist my history, she was genuinely concerned when I mentioned the possibility of Lyme’s disease.  I told her that the orthopedist said it wasn’t an infection, but she encouraged me to get tested, anyway.  She said she had been bitten by a tick, had no symptoms, got herself immediately tested and was positive.  She took antibiotics and was completely cured.

So, I called my primary care physician and requested to be tested for Lyme’s.  The nurse wanted a detailed history to justify the test.  Once they were satisified, they sent me a lab script in the mail, and I had my blood drawn.

In the hospital laboratory where I work, I am allowed access to my own test results.  Two days later, I saw that my  preliminary test for Lyme’s was positive.  I called the doctor and asked for antibiotics.  They told me that the results hadn’t even been uploaded, yet, so they had nothing official to go on.  I waited another five days for the Western Blot confirmatory test results.  My testing revealed that I had been infected with Lyme’s some time in the past.  It wasn’t a recent infection.  Crap!

Finally, I was placed on doxycycline antibiotics for three weeks.  I was surprised that the doctor didn’t ask to evaluate me, so I made an appointment to talk to her, anyway.  I had a lot of questions, including whether or not I should get an infectious disease doctor to take over my case.  There are a lot of horror stories about chronic Lyme’s out there, so I want to make sure that I get the best treatment.

I am pretty certain that I got the tick from one of the furry critters in our house. I don’t think it happened while hiking.  We have three cats and two dogs and love them to death.  Even though we spend a fortune on anti-tick and anti-flea medicine, I believe that the medication causes the ticks float to the top of their fur and infect us humans, instead. Well, I’m not giving up my pets nor hiking, but I will have to be more diligent about looking for ticks and promptly getting treated.  I’ll let you know how the antibiotics work. To be continued…