**I’m not giving medical advice nor telling anyone to take legal drugs or medicines labeled for non human use. This is merely my account of how I found a solution to chronic, debilitating pain caused by a tick bite and after previously seeking help from three different doctors. **
In 2019, while laying under a vehicle changing the oil, a black deer tick had crawled onto me without my knowledge. There was no overgrown vegetation along the gravel driveway and I had put down a large piece of cardboard on which to lay down on underneath the vehicle. Thought I was being careful by spraying down my clothes, skin, and boots with insect repellents. That was early afternoon when I was changing the oil. That night I found a black deer tick buried into the back of my neck right at the hairline. The area was inflamed and stayed very sore well after removing the tick with rubbing alcohol. I scrubbed the area well with hot, soapy water. Even after a week the bite mark or marks remained sore. You’d have thought something was still biting my neck over and over again. It wasn’t long until symptoms began to show up. Headaches became a common, daily occurrence and my neck became noticeably stiff when backing up trailers. I couldn’t tell if it was just the neck muscles or also the spinal cord.
It didn’t matter what my boss had to say and I dang sure wasn’t asking his permission. Nobody was going to have a say over when or if I could seek medical help. I was going to see a doctor no matter what. So the doctor checked me out and could see the red bite marks. She prescribed the standard antibiotics for three weeks and I took them as directed. You’re not supposed to eat or drink any dairy products before or after within a certain amount of time. I thought that was the end of the story and that whatever the tick infected me with was taken care of. The headaches were gone and so was the neck stiffness. Problem was I was used to ignoring pain and being so consumed with work pushing to get things done that I ignored new symptoms. It wasn’t until taking time one evening after work to sight in a rifle that constant shoulder pain could no longer be ignored. I knew right then and there that something was very wrong. But I didn’t have health insurance and my employer sure didn’t care about her employees. So I just tried to cope and carry on.
Months went by and the chronic pain got worse. Chronic pain DOES and WILL cause your blood pressure to rise. During the blur of day after day of heavy work loads, there came a thought that maybe the answer was to self medicate with a legal drug labeled for animals. A lot of people do when they get sick. I had never done so and was so exhausted from everything that I didn’t pursue that line of thought any further. The end of 2019 rolled around and I became very sick. The chronic pain in my arms and shoulders got to the point that it felt like my biceps might detach. This is no exaggeration. And the work load was so heavy and expectations from management that there was no time to go see a doctor. BUT, there comes a time when you must realize that YOU must take care of YOU regardless of what an employer says or does. A nurse later on at a laboratory realized the entirety of what I faced and others face that she put into words the importance of listening to your body and taking care of YOU no matter what an employer says.
I went to a doctor and told them what all I was exposed to and they asked what the pain level was. Being used to pain, my answer was a seven or an 8. Truthfully, that number was low. They prescribed antibiotics, pain killer and gave me an injection. Some of the symptoms went away but the chronic pain soon returned. It was so bad in my arms, shoulders, knees, hips and back that all I could do was lay down on the floor and stretch out. My little dog would also get down in the floor trying to comfort me. That kind of pain affects a person mentally. There’s no escape from the constant agony. Somehow I went back to work and toughed it out. If you’ve never experienced such agony over an extended time then you may not fully understand what is being described.
Fast forward to 2020. I ended up experiencing extreme fatigue far worse than before so I went to a different doctor. Went through the long talk about the tick bite and the chronic pain. What I wanted was a Lymes test and blood panel for everything else known to be caused by ticks. None of the local hospitals or clinics said they had such tests. So I asked a doctor if he could please order blood tests elsewhere. No doctors or nurses had ever suggested I get tested but I knew it was a must to try and get answers. It took some pushing by me to get tests ordered and performed at a lab in Dallas. But I got it done. The Lymes came back negative but my blood count was off. That right there made me worry it might be cancer. Thankfully it wasn’t cancer. Here’s where I still was quite worried. An acquaintance lost a son to Lymes. The son had suffered a long time and repeatedly tested negative for Lymes. Knowing this I didn’t know what else to do.
Again I had to go back to the same doctor to discuss the test results. The chronic pain still remained. She put me on blood pressure meds despite knowing I was in pain and suffering. Listening to her ended up being a mistake and wasted money. The blood pressure meds made me feel even worse. There’s no way I could live feeling like a zombie every hour of every day. I threw it all in the trash. I prayed to God all the time. Of course that was nothing new. Always been a praying man. One day I got to looking at a bottle of Ivermectin. Research had come out how it had benefits far beyond treating parasites in animals. At first I only used a small amount well below what’s recommended for horses and cattle. Waited a week and then took some more. This is the liquid injectable form in a 1% solution.
For over a year and a half I had become so used to the chronic pain that it took several days to realize that the pain was now completely gone. It’s as if my brain had to be reprogrammed to function without terrible pain existing. The standard prescribed antibiotic, doxycycline, hadn’t stopped or cured what that tick infected me with. Doxycycline was prescribed twice by two different doctors. A cheap bottle of Ivermectin stopped all the suffering in a short amount of time. I didn’t inject it but instead placed the product under my tongue and held it there several minutes. Nobody had suggested Ivermectin might help me. I was so tired of hurting and couldn’t afford to waste anymore money on a doctor. It’s so wonderful to no longer hurt or feel constant fatigue.
In 2019, while laying under a vehicle changing the oil, a black deer tick had crawled onto me without my knowledge. There was no overgrown vegetation along the gravel driveway and I had put down a large piece of cardboard on which to lay down on underneath the vehicle. Thought I was being careful by spraying down my clothes, skin, and boots with insect repellents. That was early afternoon when I was changing the oil. That night I found a black deer tick buried into the back of my neck right at the hairline. The area was inflamed and stayed very sore well after removing the tick with rubbing alcohol. I scrubbed the area well with hot, soapy water. Even after a week the bite mark or marks remained sore. You’d have thought something was still biting my neck over and over again. It wasn’t long until symptoms began to show up. Headaches became a common, daily occurrence and my neck became noticeably stiff when backing up trailers. I couldn’t tell if it was just the neck muscles or also the spinal cord.
It didn’t matter what my boss had to say and I dang sure wasn’t asking his permission. Nobody was going to have a say over when or if I could seek medical help. I was going to see a doctor no matter what. So the doctor checked me out and could see the red bite marks. She prescribed the standard antibiotics for three weeks and I took them as directed. You’re not supposed to eat or drink any dairy products before or after within a certain amount of time. I thought that was the end of the story and that whatever the tick infected me with was taken care of. The headaches were gone and so was the neck stiffness. Problem was I was used to ignoring pain and being so consumed with work pushing to get things done that I ignored new symptoms. It wasn’t until taking time one evening after work to sight in a rifle that constant shoulder pain could no longer be ignored. I knew right then and there that something was very wrong. But I didn’t have health insurance and my employer sure didn’t care about her employees. So I just tried to cope and carry on.
Months went by and the chronic pain got worse. Chronic pain DOES and WILL cause your blood pressure to rise. During the blur of day after day of heavy work loads, there came a thought that maybe the answer was to self medicate with a legal drug labeled for animals. A lot of people do when they get sick. I had never done so and was so exhausted from everything that I didn’t pursue that line of thought any further. The end of 2019 rolled around and I became very sick. The chronic pain in my arms and shoulders got to the point that it felt like my biceps might detach. This is no exaggeration. And the work load was so heavy and expectations from management that there was no time to go see a doctor. BUT, there comes a time when you must realize that YOU must take care of YOU regardless of what an employer says or does. A nurse later on at a laboratory realized the entirety of what I faced and others face that she put into words the importance of listening to your body and taking care of YOU no matter what an employer says.
I went to a doctor and told them what all I was exposed to and they asked what the pain level was. Being used to pain, my answer was a seven or an 8. Truthfully, that number was low. They prescribed antibiotics, pain killer and gave me an injection. Some of the symptoms went away but the chronic pain soon returned. It was so bad in my arms, shoulders, knees, hips and back that all I could do was lay down on the floor and stretch out. My little dog would also get down in the floor trying to comfort me. That kind of pain affects a person mentally. There’s no escape from the constant agony. Somehow I went back to work and toughed it out. If you’ve never experienced such agony over an extended time then you may not fully understand what is being described.
Fast forward to 2020. I ended up experiencing extreme fatigue far worse than before so I went to a different doctor. Went through the long talk about the tick bite and the chronic pain. What I wanted was a Lymes test and blood panel for everything else known to be caused by ticks. None of the local hospitals or clinics said they had such tests. So I asked a doctor if he could please order blood tests elsewhere. No doctors or nurses had ever suggested I get tested but I knew it was a must to try and get answers. It took some pushing by me to get tests ordered and performed at a lab in Dallas. But I got it done. The Lymes came back negative but my blood count was off. That right there made me worry it might be cancer. Thankfully it wasn’t cancer. Here’s where I still was quite worried. An acquaintance lost a son to Lymes. The son had suffered a long time and repeatedly tested negative for Lymes. Knowing this I didn’t know what else to do.
Again I had to go back to the same doctor to discuss the test results. The chronic pain still remained. She put me on blood pressure meds despite knowing I was in pain and suffering. Listening to her ended up being a mistake and wasted money. The blood pressure meds made me feel even worse. There’s no way I could live feeling like a zombie every hour of every day. I threw it all in the trash. I prayed to God all the time. Of course that was nothing new. Always been a praying man. One day I got to looking at a bottle of Ivermectin. Research had come out how it had benefits far beyond treating parasites in animals. At first I only used a small amount well below what’s recommended for horses and cattle. Waited a week and then took some more. This is the liquid injectable form in a 1% solution.
For over a year and a half I had become so used to the chronic pain that it took several days to realize that the pain was now completely gone. It’s as if my brain had to be reprogrammed to function without terrible pain existing. The standard prescribed antibiotic, doxycycline, hadn’t stopped or cured what that tick infected me with. Doxycycline was prescribed twice by two different doctors. A cheap bottle of Ivermectin stopped all the suffering in a short amount of time. I didn’t inject it but instead placed the product under my tongue and held it there several minutes. Nobody had suggested Ivermectin might help me. I was so tired of hurting and couldn’t afford to waste anymore money on a doctor. It’s so wonderful to no longer hurt or feel constant fatigue.
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