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Tick talk
4 Plays10 months ago
In honor of Lyme Disease Awareness Month, this episode of On Call takes a turn to the personal as Alicia shares a recent family journey - her son's unexpected Lyme disease diagnosis. From early symptoms to the challenges of pinning down a correct diagnosis, she and April discuss this illness's science, risks, and reality. Tune in for a candid conversation that sheds light on this often-forgotten disease.
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Transcript
Humor and Introduction to 'On Call'
00:00:00
Speaker
It's so funny.
00:00:00
Speaker
First of all, it's funny to hear you say April because it sounds like you're a narcissist talking about yourself.
00:00:06
Speaker
You brought showers.
00:00:07
Speaker
I mean, it is my month, right?
00:00:09
Speaker
You're the one that flowered spring.
00:00:11
Speaker
Well, we both have birthdays in April, okay?
00:00:13
Speaker
But we didn't both get named after our birthday month.
00:00:16
Speaker
This is On Call.
00:00:17
Speaker
This would be really cool to just wear scrubs all the time and you don't have to think about what you're going to wear to work.
00:00:22
Speaker
That is awesome.
00:00:23
Speaker
We're here to answer your questions.
00:00:25
Speaker
We can sit down and discuss all the time.
00:00:27
Speaker
Wait, I gotta go.
00:00:28
Speaker
I'm on call.
00:00:29
Speaker
Wait, you're on call?
00:00:30
Speaker
I thought I was on call.
00:00:34
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of On Call with April and Alicia.
00:00:38
Speaker
I'm April.
00:00:39
Speaker
I'm Alicia.
00:00:40
Speaker
And it is May again.
00:00:45
Speaker
It is still May.
00:00:46
Speaker
It's still May.
00:00:47
Speaker
It's got to be May.
00:00:49
Speaker
That's true.
00:00:50
Speaker
But you know what?
00:00:51
Speaker
Our May has been, you know, you used to always hear that phrase, April showers brings May flowers.
00:00:59
Speaker
And I don't think that's necessarily true anymore.
Weather Patterns and Jokes about May
00:01:02
Speaker
Really?
00:01:02
Speaker
Is it still raining?
00:01:04
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:05
Speaker
Our May has been so much more rainy than our April.
00:01:07
Speaker
Like we had just rain and rain for days, it feels like.
00:01:11
Speaker
April, it's so funny.
00:01:12
Speaker
First of all, it's funny to hear you say April because it sounds like you're a narcissist talking about yourself.
00:01:18
Speaker
You brought showers.
00:01:19
Speaker
I mean, it is my month, right?
00:01:21
Speaker
You're the one that flowered spring.
00:01:22
Speaker
Well, we both have birthdays in April, okay?
00:01:25
Speaker
But we didn't both get named after our birthday month.
00:01:28
Speaker
That's true.
00:01:29
Speaker
But yeah, it's funny that you say that phrase in particular because it made me think about when I was in school, we had this book of, it was like riddles.
00:01:42
Speaker
And I'm going to give you the riddle that has been in my brain since April.
00:01:46
Speaker
Ready?
00:01:47
Speaker
If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?
00:01:50
Speaker
Hmm.
00:01:54
Speaker
What's the answer to the riddle?
00:01:55
Speaker
I guess whatever you want.
00:01:56
Speaker
Pilgrims.
00:01:57
Speaker
Oh, pilgrims.
00:02:00
Speaker
In the middle of the night, I will say that to myself.
00:02:02
Speaker
If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?
00:02:06
Speaker
So this is something that's like instilled in you from like childhood that you just constantly think about?
00:02:11
Speaker
Yes, it's like randomly speaking French to my children.
00:02:14
Speaker
It's like it's buried so deep that it just comes out.
00:02:20
Speaker
So anytime anyone says anything about April, what'd she say?
00:02:24
Speaker
I said, it's funny that we're both thinking about this statement.
00:02:26
Speaker
Like I was just thinking like yesterday, I think they're going to have to change it to May showers bring June flowers because this isn't true anymore.
00:02:35
Speaker
It is really funny that we're both thinking of it.
00:02:37
Speaker
It's funny that you brought it up and you were really breaking it down.
00:02:40
Speaker
Like that's not true.
00:02:42
Speaker
Whoever wrote that is a liar.
00:02:44
Speaker
And I was breaking it down.
00:02:45
Speaker
Like, do you remember that funny riddle?
00:02:48
Speaker
No, but I feel like my kids told that around, you know,
00:02:51
Speaker
Thanksgiving time when they were kids, probably.
00:02:54
Speaker
Like when they were younger.
00:02:55
Speaker
What do Mayflowers bring?
00:02:57
Speaker
I'm like, June drought?
00:02:58
Speaker
I don't know.
00:02:59
Speaker
Death of flowers?
00:03:01
Speaker
Because it gets too hot?
00:03:02
Speaker
Nope, pilgrims.
Gardening and Yard Work Adventures
00:03:04
Speaker
Oh, speaking of flowers, speaking of flowers, you would be proud.
00:03:09
Speaker
First of all, what did you think of my flower setup that you tried to make fun of me?
00:03:13
Speaker
Well, okay, so one thing I'll say is that the picture wasn't as bad as I anticipated, but I also almost sent you a video...
00:03:22
Speaker
that came up on my Facebook the other day because it was this person who had the exact same setup as you, like on their boards, they had these two pots and instead of, um, putting dirt in them, they took a pool noodle and like curled it up and put it in the bottom of the pot.
00:03:42
Speaker
And then they put the plant that was still potted in the
00:03:45
Speaker
the whatever they bought it in and just stuck it on top.
00:03:48
Speaker
And I was like, Oh, maybe that would look better for Alicia versus her Amazon boxes in the bottom of the pot.
00:03:54
Speaker
You can't see that boxes.
00:03:54
Speaker
Cause I at least pour dirt on them.
00:03:57
Speaker
So it looks like it's full of dirt, but you'd be even more proud of me because not only do I, I only have, I don't just have one.
00:04:07
Speaker
concrete something flower, huge flower pot on my porch.
00:04:10
Speaker
I have two additional and I put one out in the yard, actually filled it with real dirt so that it doesn't get blown away by a storm.
00:04:20
Speaker
But I've got flowers around my house.
00:04:24
Speaker
Not that I did it before.
00:04:25
Speaker
I just didn't have a lot.
00:04:27
Speaker
I mean, I pretty much, it looked pretty sterile.
00:04:31
Speaker
My mom came over the other day and she, her comment to me was,
00:04:35
Speaker
Oh my gosh, your house finally looks like a home.
00:04:42
Speaker
I was like, do you mean like the inside?
00:04:47
Speaker
At all.
00:04:49
Speaker
At all.
00:04:50
Speaker
It's pretty sad.
00:04:51
Speaker
So, yeah, I did.
00:04:54
Speaker
We get lots of compliments on the front of our house.
00:04:56
Speaker
Because we, I mean, the year that we moved in, we just planted, oh man.
00:05:02
Speaker
I always mess up annuals versus perennials.
00:05:04
Speaker
I guess it's annuals.
00:05:05
Speaker
Annuals don't come back.
00:05:07
Speaker
Okay, so we planted perennials.
00:05:10
Speaker
And so they come back every year and they come back bigger every year.
00:05:12
Speaker
So we don't have to do anything.
00:05:14
Speaker
They just come.
00:05:16
Speaker
They just grow.
00:05:16
Speaker
And everybody's always like, oh my god, your house looks so great.
00:05:19
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, we didn't really do anything to it.
00:05:21
Speaker
But you still have to cut them back and that kind of thing.
00:05:24
Speaker
Well, we cut them back every end of the fall for the winter and then they grow back.
00:05:29
Speaker
I mean, we have to weed a little bit, but not really a lot.
00:05:32
Speaker
You know what bothers me about yard work?
00:05:34
Speaker
All of it.
00:05:35
Speaker
But the most naughty about yard work is, I don't know if you've ever experienced moles.
00:05:42
Speaker
This is a welcome to the April and Alicia Garden Show.
00:05:46
Speaker
Have you ever experienced moles in your yard?
00:05:48
Speaker
No.
00:05:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:49
Speaker
Well, me neither.
00:05:50
Speaker
Till last year, I had no idea what was happening.
00:05:55
Speaker
and I would walk out, the kids would go out to play ball and go do something in the backyard or the front yard and they would just be, I'd be like, where all this dirt's turned up.
00:06:03
Speaker
You like walk on, you could see these tracks.
00:06:07
Speaker
Now I know exactly what they are, but at first I was like,
00:06:11
Speaker
So somebody said in my brain, mole, I'm sure that we've had mole before.
00:06:16
Speaker
Our dogs used to like dig these huge, we had the Great Danes, but they would dig these huge holes into the ground and pull moles out.
00:06:22
Speaker
But the yard was so squishy, you really couldn't even play ball because you break an ankle.
00:06:28
Speaker
It was the weirdest thing.
00:06:30
Speaker
And I was like, well, how do you get rid of them?
00:06:32
Speaker
And somebody said, well, you have to trap them.
00:06:33
Speaker
And I was like, how do you really get rid of them?
00:06:37
Speaker
Because I'm not trapping them.
00:06:39
Speaker
Well, even if you trapped it, then what do you do?
00:06:41
Speaker
Kill it?
00:06:42
Speaker
Well, that was my point.
00:06:43
Speaker
I was like, trap it, and then what?
00:06:44
Speaker
They're like, you just put a trap at the top of the mound that it comes out on, and then you trap it.
00:06:48
Speaker
But these little things, they're the grossest.
00:06:51
Speaker
I'm sorry, pet lover.
00:06:53
Speaker
I don't really know what to tell you about this one.
00:06:55
Speaker
They don't have eyes.
00:06:57
Speaker
They look like a frog had a baby with a rat.
00:07:02
Speaker
And...
00:07:03
Speaker
maybe some kind of a vole, right?
00:07:06
Speaker
And they use their, their hands are like webbed.
00:07:09
Speaker
So they use it to base, they basically swim in the dirt.
00:07:13
Speaker
That's why you get that track and they look for grub.
00:07:17
Speaker
So what happened, what I learned this year was I didn't treat the lawn for grub, grub and insects.
00:07:23
Speaker
So everybody around my neighborhood did, except for me, I'm guessing.
00:07:28
Speaker
So all of the bull just came to my yard.
00:07:32
Speaker
Um, and it has been quite, I have had all different ways of how I've had to learn to treat them.
00:07:40
Speaker
Um, but the, the most helpful thing, Alicia's gardening corner of the day is, um, just to treat your lawn for insects and they will eventually go away, but it tore my yard up.
00:07:51
Speaker
When I didn't mean tore it up, I had to like reseed.
00:07:54
Speaker
It was pretty bad.
00:07:55
Speaker
Those things are gross.
Nature Talk and Lyme Disease Awareness
00:07:56
Speaker
They're the grossest thing I've ever seen in my life.
00:07:57
Speaker
April, I'd rather see Punxsutawney Phil, the little iron.
00:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, no, we treat our yard.
00:08:02
Speaker
The only thing that digs in my yard is Baxter.
00:08:04
Speaker
He goes into my flower bed around my shutout back and just digs.
00:08:08
Speaker
So I have to catch, I have to watch him.
00:08:10
Speaker
So I catch him.
00:08:12
Speaker
There's like two spots that he digs and I'm like, stop doing that.
00:08:15
Speaker
He's probably, he probably senses that mole.
00:08:19
Speaker
Probably hanging out under there.
00:08:21
Speaker
Gross.
00:08:21
Speaker
Just get rid of all the bugs.
00:08:23
Speaker
There's rabbits.
00:08:23
Speaker
We have rabbits in our backyard.
00:08:25
Speaker
I have a ton of rabbit in my backyard now, but I don't know if that's
00:08:29
Speaker
I don't know why, but spring maybe.
00:08:31
Speaker
And one of them was so big, I really thought it was a groundhog.
00:08:35
Speaker
I was like, that is huge.
00:08:36
Speaker
I was like, that is a rabbit.
00:08:38
Speaker
That rabbit is eaten very well.
00:08:40
Speaker
I'm sure.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:41
Speaker
I think we're turning into the nature channel.
00:08:44
Speaker
Last episode, we were talking about bear.
00:08:47
Speaker
I know.
00:08:48
Speaker
We are.
00:08:49
Speaker
We're talking about bugs.
00:08:50
Speaker
We can talk about bugs.
00:08:51
Speaker
All right.
00:08:53
Speaker
Well, we can actually talk about bugs today because, um,
00:08:57
Speaker
May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month.
00:09:00
Speaker
So I thought this... And we also talked on our spring episode about how...
00:09:06
Speaker
I had always kind of thought that the peak season for ticks is in the fall, but it's actually now.
00:09:10
Speaker
Like, it actually starts in the spring and goes through the fall.
00:09:13
Speaker
So, and you've had a recent experience with your family.
00:09:18
Speaker
So, I thought this would be a good topic for us to start with today.
00:09:23
Speaker
How does that sound?
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:25
Speaker
Look at you.
00:09:26
Speaker
I know.
00:09:27
Speaker
You're taking the wheel now?
00:09:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:29
Speaker
Captain April?
00:09:30
Speaker
That sounds great.
00:09:31
Speaker
Let's do it, as April would say.
00:09:33
Speaker
That's right.
00:09:34
Speaker
You got to say, let's do it.
Maddox's Health Journey with Lyme Disease
00:09:35
Speaker
All right.
00:09:35
Speaker
Well, let's do it.
00:09:36
Speaker
Well, I'll start with your story.
00:09:38
Speaker
I was going to say, if I just tell you guys, tell you guys about Maddox first, it's taken me a long time.
00:09:44
Speaker
I think to get to, I mean, you walked through this with me.
00:09:47
Speaker
It was a long journey, you know, updates here and there.
00:09:50
Speaker
And yeah, it's still, it's so funny when we were,
00:09:54
Speaker
thinking about talking about this episode that just remembering all of them.
00:09:59
Speaker
Gosh, all of the pieces, um, which, well, anyway, yeah.
00:10:03
Speaker
So we talk about ticks.
00:10:05
Speaker
Um, I'll say that I want to say about April of last year, um, April into that May Maddox got really sick, but he had COVID.
00:10:15
Speaker
So his COVID test was positive and, um, he's always just been a healthy kid.
00:10:24
Speaker
If he gets sick, he bounces back fairly quickly, but when he gets sick, he gets sick.
00:10:30
Speaker
He had COVID.
00:10:32
Speaker
He had these like prolonged symptoms, you know, like what we expected with COVID anyway, sleeping.
00:10:38
Speaker
He had a ton of abdominal pain.
00:10:40
Speaker
Abdominal pain seemed to be his biggest thing.
00:10:42
Speaker
He was starting to lose weight.
00:10:44
Speaker
But his COVID didn't affect him in a GI way, meaning he didn't have like diarrhea or vomiting.
00:10:51
Speaker
He was COVID positive, runny nose, cough, that kind of thing, fever.
00:10:56
Speaker
But these symptoms lingered and it got a little bit better, but he was always tired, just wanted to sleep all the time.
00:11:05
Speaker
This is a kid who played every sport, plays every sport five, six days a week, has practice and or a game.
00:11:13
Speaker
And he just was spending a lot of time sleeping.
00:11:16
Speaker
And he
00:11:17
Speaker
He would come home from school, sleep.
00:11:18
Speaker
And he, I mean, he would come home April, I think I'd tell you times, it'd be like 4.30.
00:11:22
Speaker
He would go to bed.
00:11:24
Speaker
He wouldn't wake up till the next day.
00:11:26
Speaker
He didn't want to start, not wanting to go to practices.
00:11:30
Speaker
And then I took him into the doctor because I was like, something is going on.
00:11:34
Speaker
And, you know, we were looking at all these different things.
00:11:37
Speaker
And it was just very benign.
00:11:38
Speaker
They thought it was like a post-COVID syndrome.
00:11:41
Speaker
And...
00:11:42
Speaker
Then he went to a lacrosse game and they had to pull him off the field because he was having chest pain.
00:11:47
Speaker
So we took him to Children's, which we've been blessed to have Cincinnati Children's here.
00:11:53
Speaker
He was, EKG was normal.
00:11:55
Speaker
I think his, like I said, rate was up a little bit.
00:11:59
Speaker
And he, everything was fine, but they thought, suspected that he had myocarditis, which was bizarre.
00:12:08
Speaker
But then we thought that was post-viral, you know, like a COVID post-
00:12:12
Speaker
viral issue and that had been seen, I think with other variants, I'm not sure what the current variant is, but he had the post-viral myocarditis.
00:12:22
Speaker
We went and saw cardiology and then we got some blood work and his white count was really low.
00:12:28
Speaker
His monocytes were really high.
00:12:31
Speaker
His lymphocytes were really low.
00:12:33
Speaker
He had had a acute drop in his H and H. When we were like, what is going on?
00:12:39
Speaker
We go see the heart doctor.
00:12:40
Speaker
They're like, yeah, just myocarditis is probably from COVID.
00:12:43
Speaker
And then now we're going to see a hematologist and we pivot into this.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:50
Speaker
I was like, now they think he's got like some, at first, I think we were thinking the worst, like it was lymphoma.
00:12:56
Speaker
It was, you know.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:58
Speaker
I remember when you had said that.
00:13:00
Speaker
That was horrible.
00:13:01
Speaker
And this is spanning for context.
00:13:04
Speaker
This is May, June, July that all this is going on.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, we can't figure it out.
00:13:10
Speaker
You get a little better and then something else.
00:13:12
Speaker
And the hematologist said, hey, we'll keep an eye on his blood work.
00:13:16
Speaker
They did do a repeat.
00:13:18
Speaker
His count, his white had dropped a little bit more.
00:13:20
Speaker
He was just almost like borderline neutropenic at that point.
00:13:25
Speaker
But they really kept saying to us, it's post-viral, post-viral.
00:13:28
Speaker
We see this with infections.
00:13:29
Speaker
And I'm like, man, COVID, it was so long ago, though.
00:13:32
Speaker
Are we seeing this with it?
00:13:34
Speaker
So his doctor said, oh, it's like maybe he needs to go to this COVID clinic.
00:13:37
Speaker
Because we do have that, like a post the COVID syndrome clinic now at Children's.
00:13:42
Speaker
And we were planning on that.
00:13:43
Speaker
But the belly pain was persisting.
00:13:45
Speaker
He was still losing weight.
Understanding Lyme Disease Transmission and Symptoms
00:13:48
Speaker
We got to see a GI doctor.
00:13:50
Speaker
That was, we finally got in.
00:13:52
Speaker
Now the spans, the end of his
00:13:54
Speaker
school year, and then the beginning.
00:13:56
Speaker
So now we're into the September and we go CGI and they're like, they think he's got irritable bowel and his pediatrician, God love her.
00:14:07
Speaker
She's always just been that person who goes something just doesn't feel right.
00:14:11
Speaker
And I love her because she's great at talking to the parent as a patient as well.
00:14:18
Speaker
I don't know if I'd be that good all the time, but parents have to be the patients.
00:14:23
Speaker
You know, we can,
00:14:24
Speaker
only, sometimes we're the only historians for our children.
00:14:28
Speaker
But he was able to share, and she's just like, it's really bothering me.
00:14:32
Speaker
She's like, I really want to do an Eliza test.
00:14:35
Speaker
Matt expends a ton of time outside.
00:14:38
Speaker
And he does.
00:14:39
Speaker
He fishes, he hunts, he's always in the woods, he's always in everything.
00:14:43
Speaker
And sure, as poop, this kid's Eliza comes back positive, and he is confirmed with Lyme.
00:14:51
Speaker
And his, we believed,
00:14:53
Speaker
going back to that April, May, that was his initial presentation in which weird is, you know, when we'll get into this was we talk about this a little bit more, but the rash, I, I like in hindsight, he had a rash, but I like, I kept associating, associating everything with COVID cause he had a positive COVID test, you know?
00:15:15
Speaker
Right.
00:15:16
Speaker
So that was like, that's the, that's the long, short version of
00:15:22
Speaker
of what we went through with him.
00:15:23
Speaker
But it was one of those things that in practice, we always heard about Lyme.
00:15:27
Speaker
You know, I started hearing about Lyme a little bit more with when I got
00:15:32
Speaker
into practice, but like with patients who had exposure young and there's just so much confused.
00:15:37
Speaker
It's still confusing to me.
00:15:39
Speaker
Um, does it go dormant?
00:15:40
Speaker
Does it not go dormant?
00:15:41
Speaker
You know, like, does it reactivate?
00:15:43
Speaker
Do you, can it be cured?
00:15:44
Speaker
Does it, is it really cure?
00:15:45
Speaker
You know, all of these questions, but I never saw it.
00:15:48
Speaker
It was almost just like the, uh, um, like Sasquatch, you know, like it's something that everybody talks about.
00:15:55
Speaker
Nobody's seen.
00:15:56
Speaker
and that's how I felt.
00:15:58
Speaker
And when he was positive, I was like, Oh my God, it's real.
00:16:00
Speaker
Like that was my first thought.
00:16:03
Speaker
And I hate to say it that way, but it was, I was like, that's a real thing.
00:16:07
Speaker
I just thought it was getting to be, you know, some of these things that we can hear about that you're like questionable diagnosis and in the non like traditional medical spaces, but yeah, I, it's real.
00:16:21
Speaker
And, um,
00:16:22
Speaker
It's been a lot for us to digest.
00:16:24
Speaker
And I still, even while I'm talking to you right now, I don't even know if I fully understand it.
00:16:29
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:16:30
Speaker
Well, I think there's also just so much like, I mean, controversy is not really the correct word, but like there's just a lot of debate around it.
00:16:37
Speaker
Like whether there's really chronic Lyme versus there's not, you know, there's.
00:16:41
Speaker
Right.
00:16:44
Speaker
So I think that's part of it is that there's just still a lot that's unknown.
00:16:48
Speaker
Honestly, I think about it.
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, if we talk about how we get it, how do we get it?
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, so we get it from tick bites.
00:16:59
Speaker
So Lyme is caused by bacteria.
00:17:03
Speaker
Borrelia burgdorferi.
00:17:06
Speaker
I can never say that.
00:17:07
Speaker
I was wondering if you were going to be able to say that.
00:17:12
Speaker
So that bacteria infects us, but we get infected from ticks that are infected.
00:17:16
Speaker
So the black legged ticks, or they're also known as deer ticks.
00:17:20
Speaker
So there's the Aeaxides scapularis.
00:17:25
Speaker
And then the Western side of the world or the country is the Aeaxides pacificus.
00:17:30
Speaker
But they, so they transmit the infection.
00:17:33
Speaker
These ticks, so they bite you and they actually have to be on you for more than 24 hours to infect you.
00:17:41
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:17:41
Speaker
That's something I didn't know.
00:17:43
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:44
Speaker
So, I mean, Lyme disease is actually preventable by just one, you know, like, and we'll talk about this later on, but, you know, by watching out for ticks and if you see them getting them off quickly, because they do have to be on you for about 24 hours in order to infect you.
00:18:02
Speaker
I did read some of their, like, there was some comments.
00:18:05
Speaker
Somebody said, like, ticks are efficient, but they're not fast, right?
00:18:08
Speaker
So that's probably what they were referring to there was that it takes some time for that.
00:18:14
Speaker
And then they released this spirochete, right?
00:18:16
Speaker
That spirochete comes out, burrows the tissue, and then you start having these systemic effects, which is, I mean, it blows my mind as we're going to talk through this.
00:18:28
Speaker
how much Maddox had every single one of these and no one and we live in the east on the east coast right like midwest but I mean we live where it's very prevalent.
00:18:38
Speaker
Northeast, midwest, pacific northwest like that's where they're commonly found it's weird right in that zone and amongst five acres of woods yep well and I mean the thing is you don't even have to be in the woods like we've had them from just going to somebody like a neighbor's house who has a few trees in the yard and sitting out back by the fire pit
00:18:58
Speaker
And then we'll find out.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:00
Speaker
Or like, you know, we go to like a cookout and the kids are out playing in the grass and, you know, in the yard and we've had them.
00:19:08
Speaker
So we've there's been several that we've pulled off of the kids.
00:19:12
Speaker
Over the years.
00:19:14
Speaker
I knock on wood.
00:19:17
Speaker
I don't think I've ever had a tick on me.
00:19:20
Speaker
I don't think I've personally had them, but the kids have.
00:19:23
Speaker
So I think there's probably because I have garlic in my blood.
00:19:27
Speaker
And garlic and vinegar, because I love vinegar so much.
00:19:31
Speaker
Maybe.
00:19:32
Speaker
Maybe that's the cure.
00:19:33
Speaker
Here we go.
00:19:34
Speaker
But so 470,000 people, I think they say, you know, a year are diagnosed.
00:19:39
Speaker
But can you imagine how many are either unreported, not diagnosed or misdiagnosed, right?
00:19:48
Speaker
I'm sure there's a bunch.
00:19:49
Speaker
Just with our experience.
00:19:50
Speaker
And I would never train my treatment team for the world.
00:19:53
Speaker
I think they're the most brilliant people that we ever met.
00:19:56
Speaker
worked with, it just, you know, given presentation and given the presence of another virus, I don't think there was a lot of reason for them to assume Lyme.
00:20:06
Speaker
It's very interesting.
00:20:07
Speaker
It is interesting.
00:20:09
Speaker
Well, so talking about symptoms, like usually the early signs and symptoms.
00:20:13
Speaker
So that's anywhere between like three to 30 days after the bite.
00:20:16
Speaker
It's very general symptoms, as you mentioned, like, you know, so you get the fever, the chills, headache, fatigue, muscle joint aches.
00:20:24
Speaker
You can have some swollen lymph nodes.
Diagnosis and Treatment of Lyme Disease
00:20:27
Speaker
And then the rash is, you know, the erythema migraine's rash, which is, you know, classically it's called like the bullseye rash, like, or a target, right?
00:20:35
Speaker
But it doesn't always appear like that.
00:20:38
Speaker
And it can actually appear anywhere on the body.
00:20:40
Speaker
So it's not actually necessarily where the tick was that the rash happens.
00:20:44
Speaker
Like you could get bit one place and the rash can be completely unbaked.
00:20:47
Speaker
Other place on the body, which I think also throws people off.
00:20:51
Speaker
But you can also not have the rash.
00:20:52
Speaker
Like you could, you know, some people have symptoms, but don't actually get the rash.
00:20:56
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:20:57
Speaker
We're speaking of rashes.
00:20:58
Speaker
I'm, I'm going to, I'm throwing you a curve ball.
00:21:01
Speaker
We're going to do the spot that rash.
00:21:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:04
Speaker
It's about that rash.
00:21:05
Speaker
Quick fire.
00:21:06
Speaker
I'm going to give you four, four scenarios.
00:21:07
Speaker
You tell me, is this lime ish, limey ish or not?
00:21:14
Speaker
Right.
00:21:14
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:21:16
Speaker
You have a red circle rash with central clearing after a camping trip.
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:23
Speaker
Would you, would, did you be concerned about that rash?
00:21:25
Speaker
Should you?
00:21:26
Speaker
I've given the history.
00:21:27
Speaker
I would be.
00:21:28
Speaker
All right.
00:21:30
Speaker
What if you get bright red itchy bumps all over your legs after playing in the grass?
00:21:35
Speaker
No.
00:21:36
Speaker
Right.
00:21:37
Speaker
That's probably what a contact.
00:21:39
Speaker
More of like an allergic reaction to something or.
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:42
Speaker
Right.
00:21:44
Speaker
I threw a funny one in here.
00:21:45
Speaker
You know,
00:21:46
Speaker
ketchup stain from a hot dog on your leg.
00:21:48
Speaker
That's not a rash.
00:21:48
Speaker
That was a joke.
00:21:49
Speaker
But multiple ring-shaped rashes appearing days apart.
00:21:55
Speaker
Like in the same area, you mean?
00:21:57
Speaker
Yep.
00:21:59
Speaker
Rings, but different.
00:22:00
Speaker
It could be the trunk, the back.
00:22:02
Speaker
Multiple ring-shaped rashes.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yes.
00:22:05
Speaker
That is the... You're right.
00:22:08
Speaker
What I learned was the bullseye.
00:22:11
Speaker
And Maddox didn't have a bullseye rash.
00:22:14
Speaker
The rash that I mentioned...
00:22:15
Speaker
earlier, he had these rings, but they, when I think ring, I'm thinking perfect circle, you know, or so, and it, what they were oddly shaped, but ring shaped on his trunk and on his back.
00:22:30
Speaker
And they came and they left.
00:22:32
Speaker
And we were told that is a sign of early disseminated Lyme.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yep.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yep.
00:22:38
Speaker
So yeah.
00:22:39
Speaker
Anyway, sorry, I wanted to do something funny with the rash.
00:22:42
Speaker
Cause I even,
00:22:44
Speaker
No, I think it's good.
00:22:45
Speaker
You know, like blue, right by me.
00:22:47
Speaker
I, yeah, I don't know.
00:22:49
Speaker
Like if it had been classic target rash, I'm may have thought about that.
00:22:56
Speaker
I still don't know if I would have, I don't know.
00:22:59
Speaker
And then as our kids get older, the other part is, or we, you know, they're more private.
00:23:03
Speaker
So there's crashes in places that we don't get to see.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yep.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:08
Speaker
All right.
00:23:09
Speaker
How do we diagnosis that boy?
00:23:11
Speaker
So then you diagnose it by, well, you know, signs and symptoms, obviously you look at, you got the rash, then, you know, that is kind of like a slam dunk in the beginning.
00:23:19
Speaker
Well, signs and symptoms are kind of funny because it's like,
00:23:23
Speaker
you know, you're exhausted and you're achy and you're annoyed, like they're irritable, you know, whatever.
00:23:27
Speaker
And I'm like, that is all the signs and symptoms of being a parent also.
00:23:32
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:23:34
Speaker
But I think as it, as it goes longer without being diagnosed, you'll have other symptoms like, you know, severe headaches, you can get some neck stiffness.
00:23:41
Speaker
You can get some facial palsy where you got some drooping on your face.
00:23:45
Speaker
You have more joint pains.
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:48
Speaker
heart symptoms, like you had mentioned, Maddox had chest pains, so kind of palpitations or irregular beats and dizziness.
00:23:54
Speaker
So I think is those, but again, those are still pretty generic stuff, but.
00:23:58
Speaker
And the belly stuff, you know, I found a study that's actually one of the first things I looked up when he was diagnosed, because I was like, it's manifestation.
00:24:06
Speaker
It was so like abdominal, so like
00:24:09
Speaker
abdominal focus he had other things but it was his weight loss and his abdominal pain and it was just crampy and it was like no change the bowel habit nothing like that but um there is it affects that mucosa um and it's it's actually there's a couple cases the ones that i found they were diagnosed because of abdominal pain they had either colonoscopy like upper or lower endo and um
00:24:34
Speaker
with sample and they were like, Oh yeah, it, it, it there, uh, maybe we'll share this in our, um, on our Instagram page next week, some of the photos, I think it'd actually be really interesting for people to see what that is like with the inside.
00:24:47
Speaker
It was like cobbled is what it looked like on the inside of the gut.
00:24:50
Speaker
So, um, yeah, yeah.
00:24:54
Speaker
It basically can cause anything.
00:24:56
Speaker
It's what I'm learning.
00:24:57
Speaker
Sounds like it.
00:24:58
Speaker
Um,
00:24:59
Speaker
But yeah, so in general, so you can make a clinical diagnosis, but then also there's the lab test, right?
00:25:04
Speaker
So you do the antibody test, which can actually be false negative in the beginning when you're first infected.
00:25:12
Speaker
And so you need to wait a certain period of time for it to be positive.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:16
Speaker
to see it, but, but that's kind of the definitive diagnosis.
00:25:20
Speaker
And then in terms of treatment, it's antibiotics, right?
00:25:24
Speaker
So in the course and how, you know, what you take in the course of it really varies based on, you know, if you have allergies, things like that.
00:25:31
Speaker
So those are determined by your provider when you see them, um, and they prescribe that treatment.
00:25:36
Speaker
Um, but like I said earlier, case I'll share, we did doxy.
00:25:40
Speaker
We did a full 21 days of doxy, but I really wonder at points like, um,
00:25:46
Speaker
especially when things become a little bit more systemic there, there are some, there's some data that says like having some IV therapy is beneficial early, but we did, we did all PO and like a lot of rest and hydration really.
00:26:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:05
Speaker
Well, and the other thing to point out too is that, you know, I think that people always ask, well, if I had a tick on me, do I need antibiotics?
00:26:10
Speaker
And
00:26:11
Speaker
you know, we don't usually like preventively put you on antibiotics just because you're in a tick bite.
00:26:16
Speaker
But certainly if you had the tick bite and then you have the symptoms, then, you know, you would do treatment at that point.
00:26:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:23
Speaker
And you know what?
00:26:24
Speaker
You can get Lyme again.
00:26:26
Speaker
Did you know that?
00:26:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:27
Speaker
So you, past infection doesn't give you a lifetime of immunity.
00:26:33
Speaker
You can repeatedly get it.
00:26:35
Speaker
And I understand that
00:26:37
Speaker
It's largely the adult female tick.
00:26:40
Speaker
So if anybody's out there good at identifying tick gender, stay away from the women, I guess.
00:26:48
Speaker
I don't know what to tell you.
00:26:51
Speaker
I don't know that anybody likes to get that close to ticks to figure that out.
00:26:54
Speaker
But funny that you say that because they have numbing agents in their saliva.
00:26:59
Speaker
So you don't feel them.
00:27:02
Speaker
That's why we don't know they're there.
00:27:04
Speaker
They're sneaky little guys and girls.
00:27:06
Speaker
Just like mosquitoes.
00:27:07
Speaker
But it is treatable, especially if it's caught early, right?
00:27:12
Speaker
When we talk to you that it's preventable, right?
00:27:14
Speaker
So when you're outside, you're going to be out hiking in the woods, things like that.
00:27:19
Speaker
You can wear clothing that covers you so that you don't get them.
00:27:23
Speaker
Make sure that you check for them when you come back in.
Chronic Lyme Debate and Conclusion
00:27:27
Speaker
You can also wear insect repellents that have DEET in them that will
00:27:34
Speaker
kind of keep them away from you, but really it's just being aware of it and watching out for it to prevent it.
00:27:39
Speaker
And, and before we close, I think this is the area that I still struggle a little bit with is really, you know, do we active infection, lingering symptoms?
00:27:51
Speaker
Does this thing go dormant?
00:27:53
Speaker
Does it come back out?
00:27:54
Speaker
Would you, would you, what did you learn in that part?
00:28:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think most of it is just still up for debate at this point.
00:28:04
Speaker
I think some people do really truly believe that there is a chronic Lyme disease and it can last a long time, but then there's others that don't.
00:28:11
Speaker
So I think time will tell.
00:28:14
Speaker
And I think what they're suggesting is it's a biofilm, you know, that you can have biofilm or like the bacteria can create a biofilm, which makes it hard for antibiotics to penetrate.
00:28:24
Speaker
What's interesting is his doctor actually gave us a
00:28:28
Speaker
It's called like a chronic illness form.
00:28:30
Speaker
It's basically an FMLA form for school because she says it can be reactivated by other viruses.
00:28:39
Speaker
And they can determine at some point if you need extension of antibiotic, but it can only be within a specific amount of time.
00:28:46
Speaker
But yeah, I had a hard time finding anybody to like really drop the hammer on, yes, this goes away 100% or nor this becomes like a chronic illness.
00:28:58
Speaker
lifetime infection yeah well that's that was a morbid way to end it huh yep so stay inside everybody that's our advice that's right stay inside and close up that's right well and i think there's a lot of information here i kind of think we could have talked a lot longer um there's a lot of information here i think some stuff we will put up on our post around the time this show launches um just
00:29:23
Speaker
some, um, like reference and some of the things that we talked about today.
00:29:28
Speaker
Um, but you can actually find us and follow us there, um, on call with April and Alicia Instagram.
00:29:33
Speaker
Um, you can also find us on LinkedIn.
00:29:35
Speaker
And if you are the emailing type and somebody better email us soon, or we're going to get rid of this email address, it's on call podcast at sound physicians.com.
00:29:43
Speaker
Please let us know, show, show ideas, feedback on shows.
00:29:46
Speaker
We'd love to hear from you guys.
00:29:48
Speaker
Yep.
00:29:48
Speaker
And until next time, you guys stay well and we'll stay on call.
00:29:52
Speaker
Bye, everyone.
00:29:52
Speaker
And you stay away from ticks.
00:29:53
Speaker
Bye, everyone.
00:29:54
Speaker
That's right.