I was reading this article of a woman in Michigan who said "I didn't think it'd make me this sick, it wasn't going to be me, I’m healthy and I’m active." I thought to my self wow, so many people uneducated about ticks and Lyme, it's insane. Insane that there's people out there that think a tick filled with multiple tick pathogens isn't going to make them sick. But really, I'm not at all that surprised. People have this misconception when they're healthy, they're indestructible, it's not going to happen to me.
I have a friend who've I've been warning for years, warning him constantly, every time he goes out in the woods. Spray permethrin on your clothes, constantly do tick checks, did he listen? Nope, he got bit this past week. Also have a friend of a friend who just got bit on a vacation up north in Michigan, is currently in the hospital, has a fever above 100 degrees and is currently receiving IV antibiotics. He probably thinks he'll be going back to work soon, I highly doubt that, considering he has a fever and tested positive for Lyme. Without a doubt he contracted multiple tick pathogens, he might have a parasite like Babesiosis or a virus like Bourbon, good thing though, he got sick quick and caught it in time. However, some of those coinfections can keep you sick if they are left untreated, plenty of people that receive IV or oral antibiotics for a 2-3 weeks, Doctor cuts you off because of the CDC guidelines and they relapse a week later, month later, months later, or even a year later. Once you have a borrelia spirochete in you, you have it for life. You can get bit in the summer, be fine for 6 months, then winter swings around and you get a common cold which lowers your immune system, then the spirochetes proliferate.
Lyme Disease has gone in full overdrive and what's sad is, no one is taking precautions, even though some of their friends have it. There's an entire breakdown of communication on this disease, mainly because, I think people see others who have Lyme and think it must not be that bad, lol. It's getting pretty scary over here in Michigan, I can't imagine what's going on in some of the endemic states.
We'll have a country filled with zombie Lyme patients walking around if we're not careful! This disease keeps getting worse, yet not much has been done other than the breakthroughs with Dr. Horowitz's team.