Happy Rare Disease Awareness Day
Today I’d like to share with everyone my rare diseases, I have lymes disease, babesia, rocky mountain spotted fever, and bartonella all of which are tick borne illness. Lymes, bartonella, and babesia are all transmitted by deer ticks and rocky mountain stopped fever is transmitted by dog ticks. All of these diseases effect my immune system, increase my chance of heart problems, and causes fibromyalgia type pain, also lymes can really mess with your mental health. Also gluten and sugar can cause flare up since the lymes feeds off of it.
Testing for these diseases isn’t really refined and finding treatment can be difficult, since most doctors aren’t covered by insurance. Most of the blood test that are used for testing for these diseases can only identify a few of the many kinds of each disease and also my not work if time has past since you’ve been bitten. Most people are diagnosed by the scars caused by bartonella, they look like large stretch marks on the sides, or by how high their white blood cell count is, along with the physical symptoms.
Where I live ticks and tick bites are common and there are warning signs on every trail. Remember to wear socks and close toe shoes whenever you go walking in the woods and check yourself for ticks afterwords, my friend uses a lint roller on her cloths to grab any since they blend in so well. Also if you see a red ‘bulls eye’ mark around your tick bite go see your doctor and get a blood test done.