About two weeks ago I went camping at Little Bennett Regional Park, mostly to see if motorcycle camping was something for me or not. The camping and motorcycling were great, and I went for a long hike around the park while I was there. If you don’t like crowds and don’t want to drive far from DC, it seemed like a great place to go camping and hiking. There were a few biting flies around, but not enough that I regretted not having bug repellent. My 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Washington DC guide book made the horses-allowed parts of the trails sound rough, but it didn’t seem like there were a lot of horse-riders around either.
I hiked in shorts, a t-shirt, and running shoes – appropriate for the 85-ish temperature I thought. Afterwards I changed into my usual motorcycle gear, including extra socks and tall boots, and rode back. When I got back I presume I took off the socks at some point. I found some bug bites on my shin but didn’t notice anything else that day. The next night, at least 24 hours after I’d been walking in the woods, I noticed something on my leg, near my ankle. Assuming it was either dirt or an ingrown hair, I scraped it with a fingernail and pulled it off. Fortunately, I looked at it before flicking it into the trash – and saw it was a tick. It wasn’t black like the ones I’ve seen before, but had some light-colored parts and maybe some brown parts. It wasn’t full of blood and it looked pretty dead. So, I’d had it on me for a very long time, and I’d removed it pretty roughly.
I’d heard of Lyme Disease but I didn’t know what I should be looking for (or how worried to be), so got on the computer and browsed Google’s results for something that sounded trustworthy, like the CDC. The message seemed to be to watch for a circular rash for about 30 days after suspected exposure. Well, Monday when a rash appeared on my leg it took me about 6 hours to remember the tick – guess I should have tattooed a circle around it or something. Here’s what it looked like when I went to my doctor yesterday:
I felt a little like The Elephant Man as she invited an intern, another doctor, and I think a physician’s assistant in to take a look. I was a little unnerved that she based her diagnosis on a single photo in a book of some sort, which showed what the rash might look like maybe a week after it first appears – a circle with healing in the middle. Shouldn’t it show three or four photos of how the rash changes over the course of a week or two? On the other hand, that site the CDC links to appears to only show rashes at about my stage, not the later bullseye thing. Anyway, I’ve got some antibiotics and based on what she said and what I’ve read, I shouldn’t have any long-term problems.
From now on I’ll probably wear pants and a long-sleeved shirt while hiking. Maybe I’ll tuck the pants into my socks. Bug repellent might help, but I hate using it. I’ll certainly check myself a little more closely once I get back from a hike. Given how easily I could have missed seeing the tick at all, I guess I’ll also just watch for the rash after going hiking from now on.
Update… The rash is mostly gone now, but here’s a shot of it a few days ago, when it looked more like a bullseye:
