Bit twice but quickly removed

Hi, I was recently bit by two seperate deer ticks after a hike in the San Jose CA area. They were quickly removed after the bites and I actually kept one of the ticks just in case. The bites were definitely painful and swelling and even slight bruising occurred. Went to the ER as a precaution and they just sent me home with some hydrocortisone cream and told to monitor for expanding swelling, bullseyes. The incidence of Lyme in this area is extremely low (2-4%) per some of the literature on line I was able to find but I'm still a bit worried. Woke up this morning and the rounded swelling area around the bites are noticeably reduced with some slight bruising pain left. Is there much validity to the length of time needed for the tick to be in you as far as infection goes? I read literature that stated a 24-36 hour period of infestation is required for potential infection but I can't see how that would apply. Any info or comments to my scenario would be appreciated.

Yeah. If you catch it right away, the treatment recomended by the IDSA (4-6 weeks) can work. So I would do that- just tell them you want to do it preventatively. If they actually saw the ticks they should be willing

Lyme disease, if left undiagnosed and untreated, can become very serious and very chronic. I would definitely ask your doctor for antibiotics as a precaution - way better safe than sorry! The bull's eye rash only shows up in a small percentage of people infected with Lyme disease - so keep that in mind. Definitely keep an eye on any symptoms you might experience, even if they seem irrelevant. It might be useful to get tested, although testing is very unreliable and a negative test wouldn't necessarily mean you don't have Lyme, though a positive test can be useful if it you are infected.

I don't mean to scare you - so long as it's dealt with early - if you are infected, there's no reason to suspect it won't be easily cured, but I think most of us here would agree it's nothing to be taken lightly!

Hi Sinthetic,
Welcome to our forum! I am so sorry that you even have a need to be here, but I'm sure glad you found us! We are here to help others understand the info out there about tick-borne infections, and give support and offer suggestions and our own stories to help others.

If you haven't already, it would be beneficial for you to start with reading through the thread at the top of the forum titled,"New to Lyme?...Start here!!", as it is packed full of relevant information, symptom lists and informative links that have been put together by our members here! Most of those who have read through it have said that it was very helpful!!

We also have a pretty good search function on this forum to help you narrow down your search for information from past posts. We must be our own health advocates now and the best thing to arm yourself with is knowledge about our infections and the different ways to treat them!

Rarely do primary care physicians know anything about the seriousness of this set of infections, nor do Infectious Disease docs - if they did this forum wouldn't be so busy! Most of us here started out asking our pcp's and being told not to worry, and some asked more questions and were sent to an Infectious Disease doc or sought out one on our own and got the brush off as well. Now here we are, the sickest we have ever been.

Please don't put that much trust in those who don't know. Check out ILADS (International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society's) site:
www.ilads.org/lyme_disease/lyme_tips.html

and Canada's Lyme Disease site - Canlyme
www.canlyme.com/ Please click on "diagnosis" on the left side of the page.

and California's Lyme Disease Assoc. site:
www.lymedisease.org/home.html - they have a ton of good info.

and New York City's Lyme Disease support group - www.nyclymesupport.org/
to see what others 'in the know' are saying as well

It doesn't take 24 hours for bacteria to pass from the tick to the person or animal. All that has to happen is for the tick to get it's stomach contents to your skin. This could have easily happened when you pulled them off of you, or by brushing up against something.

You also happen to be in an area where these types of infections are very prevalent! You can see by the map in this link that New York has the highest incidence. You will need to copy and paste this link into your browser:
http://module.lymediseaseassociation.net/Maps/

.....continued in next post.

Thanks for this info! Greatly appreciated. Was bitten in San Jose, Ca however but I'm still moving forward with an LLMD.

Update: saw a naturopath LLMD during my stay out west and she started me on a 4 week course of doxy as one of the bites 'looked suspicious'. It was very bruised and felt like I got hit with a baseball oddly. I did save the tick from that bite and it was sent in for testing x 3 (Lyme and coinfection). Also had blood drawn for a basic Lyme test. It will be very interesting to see my own results as the tick was literally on me for a few seconds before I got him off. Any case, thank you to all for your suggestions to see a specialist. I'll report the outcomes when I get the follow up reports. sadly doxy does not cover the coinfection potential. :(

And please do let us know how things go!!