No...not again!

Just pulled a nymph tick off my 11 yr old who is already infected with borrellia, bartonella and babesia. He is being treated with houttunnya, enula and samento. We live in Massachusetts- lyme ground zero. Waiting for call from llmd about whether to do anything but wondering what others have or would do in this situation?

Thanks

Personally, I would send the tick off to be tested and probably start on doxy or azith in addition to herbs - just in case. But then, he's already infected so I'm not sure if it matters. How far into treatment?

Also, in regards to sending the tick off - I had sent one to bay area lyme for free testing and never heard back from them. I would recommend just paying the $60ish dollars and send it to IGeneX. Don't think you want to mess with that.

PeteZa, that is a great idea. I think I will print that out just to have on hand!

Smcalumni, I would do all of these things that have been suggested. It is hard to keep kids from playing, but even if you could you still cannot control these things so keeping them protected and knowing what to do if and when a tick attaches is important.

I would send the tick in too just to be sure. And I would use Igenix as well. I have heard of difficulties with the Bay area lyme testing too. Igenix will definitely respond and I think that they probably have better testing techniques because they are so focused on Lyme. If the tick wasn't infected it would relieve your mind, anyway. That alone is well worth the $60!

smcalum - this is what S.Buhner says on his website about Astragalus:

"If you are not currently sick, you can certainly take astragalus. The reason for not recommending it is that astragalus raises the parts of the immune system that are overactivated in chronic lyme. Those parts of the immune system are highly effective against lyme early on and help prevent or reduce the disease but if they are low to begin with and you are infected the infection can spread more easily. After awhile the immune system does ratchet up those parts to attack the lyme bacteria but by then the spirochete has altered itself and is no longer very affected by them, those parts of the immune system then begin to cause some of the lyme symptoms people have making the disease a kind of autoimmune problem. My book Healing Lyme goes into this in a great amount of detail."

But, we do have forum members who do take astragalus and have chronic lyme and haven't had any problems - but I wanted to post what Buhner wrote.