Where were you infected?

Where do you believe you were infected? And how... (ie. tick, spider, bodily fluids, etc.)?

Roxie, I saw you mention you are curious about this on another post... I am too!

I believe I was infected in Brookfield, WI by either a nymph tick, mosquito, spider or flea (could be any of those insects...) - never saw a tick. But had tons of mosquito bites, found fleas in my bed once (gross, I know. My dog.) And, well, we had a lot of spiders around the house too... No way to know for sure. Pretty certain about the location though.

I was infected in Lake Mary, FL while working as a dog groomer, helping my boss bathe a dog that came in infested with ticks. I reported that to her the next day, but she was like " there is no lyme in Florida, yeah right!!!, now i am fighting this disease.

I had many ticks crawling on me and two attached when I started working in a hotbed of a town in northern Massachusetts. This all started in 2001. That's when I started to spiral down as well.

Like many I never saw a tick on me. I assume I was bitten at my job. I work at a university that's located in a wooded area and right up against a park. Its common for deer, foxes and hawks to be on campus. Saw a brown eagle not to long ago, that was cool. I've been bitten by mosquitoes and what I think was spiders a couple of times. So logically, it makes sense I got it there.

However, I have a few cats, one of which a flea bag for the longest time. Two were strays at one point, but we had them checked at the vet when we brought them in. I don't know if they checked specifically for Lyme though. I was wondering if it was possible I got it from one of them. But then I would think the rest of my family would also be suffering symptoms. But they aren't, so I think it was work.

Not 100% positive, but I believe on a fieldtrip to a park in college for an ecology class...wish they had told us we would be walking through grassy unmowed fields....:/ Salisbury, MD

I THINK I was infected 15 yrs ago in Salem, MA. I was there on business, had arrived on a Sunday and went walking around to see all the historic sites in town and that night—and for the entire week I was there I had bad stomach flu. I never got/get the flu and I had it for 5 days… hmmm…… I don't remember a bite but I don't remember anything from that week, either.

Soon after that my thyroid started malfunctioning, I started gaining weight, hair loss, feet and legs started hurting, diagnosed with fibromyalgia, fibrocystic breasts (had a benign biopsy), CFS, I forget the rest…

-p

Chesapeake Bay area; my mother and I stepped into a tick nest, We had ticks crawling all over us. I don't know if either of us got infected or had a rash.

At a Greensboro rest stop dog-walking area off of I-40--the same (just me), and I got a spotted rash. This time I went to a dermatologist, bc I was worried about Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and he said that I had stepped into a nest of "nymphs," or baby ticks, and that the type of rash I had was completely normal.

In Chatham County, NC, I got a small, but noticeable rash around a tick bite. I thought about going to the doctor, but blew it off.

It was in Chatham County that I was dxed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which then seemed to go into remission.

Somewhere in Kansas, also at a rest stop, a number of mosquitoes bit me all around the ankles, and I had another bad spotted rash. I still don't know what that was. I remember at the time thinking it was very strange, and that I must be having some type of allergic reaction (?)

Years later, I was trying and trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and got in touch with the organization Tic-NC. Then I found out coincidentally (through the organization) that my next-door neighbor from Chatham County had gotten Lyme Disease in the same neighborhood, even though by that time, we were living three hours apart, and had not seen each other for years.

Here, in the Appalachians of NC, I received a bull's-eye rash that took over a third of my back (but THIS time, I took pics, so my doctors would believe me--and my face is in the pics)!

I have a history of a lot of tick bites. I wonder why some people get bitten, and others don't, and why some people keep getting infected, while others don't. I've never figured that out.

I'm not sure about the mosquitoes. I think I'm too scared to believe that they carry anything other than, umm, West Nile Virus.

I now take pictures of all the rashes my dogs and I get from insect bites.

Margaret

I believe I was infected in Belgium, if it was that time when I had a bull's eye rash when I was 11-12yo.
We had a few sheep (they were very close to me). In spring, before they got their annual treatment against ticks, together with the shaving, they had lots of ticks on them.

I'm also a real mosquito/flea and other vermin magnet... 30 mosquito bites at once was no exception. Who knows when I got it.

I was infected in Brunswick Hills, Ohio.

In Morgantown, WV, remember removing ticks off my horse one summer/fall, then I got a flu that fall and never have felt right after but never remember a bulls eye or a tick on me.

Also was showing bulls eyes to my husband and he said he had a rash one summer that was on his groin and both legs, he thought it was a heat rash but he has pulled many of ticks off himself.

We both have Lyme now so who gave it to who?

Delmar,

I posted a website, what is lgme, if you scroll down you will eventually see a map where people with lyme can place a pin with where and when infected.

I think it was late December 2013 around Hagerstown, MD, state or national park around Anteitam Battlefield. Unusually warm weather, walking around in the woods with just a sweater on. It's possible it happened sometime before. I lived on a mountain in the woods in northwestern NJ for a couple of years not long before that, and I know there were infected ticks in the area.