how exactly do you interpret your pin prick rash?

I increased my A-BART yesterday and today I have a patch of pin-prick rash (like red freckles) on my abdomen.

It seems very cause & affect to me... that almost always these pin-pricks correlate to my having just increased dosages... And they usually correlate to feeling absolutely terrible within the next 48 hours as well. It's almost like, when I see these pin pricks, I know a seizure and confusion episode will happen in the next 48 hours. They are very ominous!!

I asked my doctor and he encouraged me to not think so formulaically about the pin prick rashes. Like.. they mean I have bartonella/babesia/lyme, but don't necessarily indicate what's going on with those infections.

But of course I want to know what they mean!!

Do you interpret yours as meaning you have successfully killed some infection?

Or just "infection activity".. as in, there is a fight, but you didn't necessarily kill anything?

Or?..

I think that the key is to not stress about it. Stress will only make it worse. I agree that we want to know what is going on and why things are happening.

Yesterday, I broke out in a pin prink (petechiae) rash. Last night, it kind of looked a lot more like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. And I thought, oh great, do I have another co-infection I don't know about or is this just Bart/Babs acting up. However, I told myself to not freak out-it will get treated and taken care of.

I was not going to go into panic mode. Today, it has calmed down and looks a bit more like a Babesia rash rather than RMSF. I happened to stop Bactrim DS (for Bart and Babs) recently. It might be due to that.

On the other hand, I can equally see getting a rash due to a herx reaction or just because it has flared up. It is hard to know why. We can speculate. I think it is more important to avoid stressing. It will get treated and taken care of. I'm going to stay calm and start a new med for Bart/Babs tomorrow.

I think that is what your doctor might have meant. The stress will do more harm than good. I think it is only natural to wonder if our treatment regimen plans are working and we are making progress though. I can't blame you for that. Marigold, I agree with Girlie that your situation sounds like a herx.

Lyme Girl, thanks for the nice note. Don't worry, I'm not stressed :) I'm just trying to understand as much as possible what things mean, so that I can make good decisions. I think that I'm partly so entranced by these rashes because they are my only symptom that isn't subjective. The fatigue, the nausea, the body pain.. I can sort of explain it all away and convince myself I'm making too big a deal out of things and I'm not that sick. These rashes, I can SEE them, and that actually helps me stay focused on needing to treat my Lyme Disease.

Girlie... Sometimes the pinpricks are tiny.. like literally you've been pricked by a needle, probably fifty or so little pin pricks on a few-inch patch of skin. Other times they are a little bigger, more like red freckles. They show up randomly on different parts of my body. I've noticed the more extensive the area they take up, the more sick I end up getting. That's why I truly do feel there's a correlation between these rashes and die-off. My doctor says they indicate babesia or bartonella vs. immune system or antimicrobials ACTIVITY... Not necessarily who is winning!! But I think the subsequent misery indicates that toxicity has entered my blood stream, so some infection died.

Your rash sounds a little different, mainly because yours is itchy.. It sounds a little more like an allergic reaction, kind of like hives. Maybe I'm wrong, but I tend to think of itchy and/or raised rashes as allergic in nature..

I'm not taking pharmaceutical antibiotics... Just the Byron White herbal anti-biotics... Certainly plenty in them to potentially be allergic to... But this is the same rash I get in patches almost anywhere on my body, and it looks just like the babesia rash pictures.