Is this Lyme, co-infections or something else?

Hi,
First post here. I have few questions about a possible chronic infection I'm experiencing.

Some background:
All of this started 2 years back in August when I was in army.
I don't remember a tick bite, or lyme rash, but stupidly we did sunbath in questionable areas without a shirt, which I now deeply regret.

Anyways, one August day in army I got a flu. Quite annoying one as well, took few days to get better.
Right after it started to subside, I developed this widespread maculopapular rash on my upper body. I dismissed it just as prickly heat due to sweating in fever.

Weeks went by and the rash didn't leave. I went to a doctor who prescribed a steroid cream, which only made things worse. about a month into the rash, I started getting lots of plehgm buildup and weird pins and needles all over body, especially when going from cold to a hot environment.

Just after these, came the worst of the worst: sudden hearing loss. Thankfully, this did fully heal, but few weeks after I had same incident in my other ear! I still experience these few times a year, they always get better but scare the crap out of me. I've developed tinnitus as well. I have also noticed an increase of floaters, visual snow and flashes in my vision.

On top of these, I've recently had lots of muscle spasms, and weird floating dizziness as well.
All of these symptoms, INCLUDING the widespread rash exist to this day.

I now decided to get a lab test for tick borne diseases from ArminLabs. Tests are as follows:

Borrelia Tickplex: all Ig/G and Ig/M negative

Bartonella Elispot: 3 SI
(Negative: 0-1, Mild positive 2-3, Positive >3)

Rickettsia Elispot: 2 SI
(Negative: 0-1, Mild positive 2-3, Positive >3)

Ehrilichia Elispot: 1 SI
(Negative: 0-1, Mild positive 2-3, Positive >3)

Sorry for the very long post but I think context matters here. What do you guys think?
Thanks so much in advance!!

dcd2103 said...
I was going to say, this sounds like bartonella which can cause a rash like that and the neurological effects, and there it is on the elispot. Can you upload a pic of the rash?

Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I've been thinking about that as well. Googled Bartonella rash and mine isn't really similar. (Though if i scratch my skin it leaves red marks for 5-10mins).

https://imgur.com/a/inc34vz

Here it is in a normal state and aggravated state (for example after sunbathing or bad sweating)

Thanks again!

Hey! Welcome to the forum. When I was reading your story before I got to the test results, I was thinking bartonella and maybe other tick diseases. I see you had the highest score for bartonella and rickettsia.

I looked at the picture but couldn’t tell much. It wasn’t really sharp and was kind of dark. Does the rash look like spots? Is so, that’s probably the rickettsia, which can cause a spotted rash. You need to find a good LLMD.