Good news for Christmas

[PyreneesPlot]

Thanks so much for all your kind words.
Treatment is yet to start as I have my bag full of drugs but no nurse available to administer them!
I can vouch for codeine and Champagne
Lyme disease is common here and I was well aware of it, despite removing ticks from the cats most days in the spring and summer I was not aware of being bitten and had no rash or flu/fever. The worry is any permanent damage done by the arthritis and I don't start taking the drugs to counter that until the antibiotic course is done.
I can't say loudly enough, get yourself tested if you are in a high risk area and get bitten or your joints start to hurt and swell.

[Glutton4...]

((((HUGS)))) Matey - hope it's not too uncomfortable, and that the treatment works. We're a good hour south of a well-known high risk area, but I still had to remove one from our cat a few years ago, so I know they're about.

[Nicos]

Thanks for the warning PP.
We have deer and ticks here.
I've already had a bite 'bulls eye' - as has my son....both were treated with antibiotics straight away.
Always need to keep en garde though eh??

[lettucegrow!]

Goodness, you poor thing. Glad you've a diagnosis and know what u r facing. Sounds hard work but I'm sure you will get there. Wishing u a happy , Healthy new year. X

[Jardiniere]

My sister had Lyme's and she lives in Somerset.She was totally mis diagnosed and didnt get treatment for months by which time damage had been done to her nervous system. She had to take early retirement but is now more or less back to normal altho she gets colds easily and has less energy than she used to.
Our cat (in France) gets ticks on her all the time....we watch out like eagles for any bites and any possible side effects.....
best of luck for the treatment PP

[datz]

Hope all goes well and the treatment does the job. They are horrible things.
It was a terrible year for ticks in the Auvergne also. Both my wife and I found tics on us a few times, and removed loads from the cats (same sort of countryside to yours, forest and lots of deer). This was even though we did the whole socks over trousers thing whenever we were in the garden. My wife did have one bite react but was immediately put on very strong antibiotics by the doctor for a fortnight, which seems to have done the job.
Again, all the best and hope you get well soon.

[PyreneesPlot]

Thought I'd send you all off to sleep with the tedium of a quick update, although sadly/fortunately I don't have the gruesome pictures like Darcy

Two weeks of antibiotics left me still swollen but feeling better and by the end of two weeks of steroides I was running up steps like a gazelle. Yes really!

24 hours after completing the steroides my joints began to swell the pain returned and here we go again, pretty much to square one.

Different blood tests, loads of x-rays and a trip to a rheumatologist yesterday followed. She was puzzled, to say the least. So she ordered yet more blood tests and even more x-rays. She wants to look at the bits that haven't swollen which I think will leave my head as the only none x-rayed bit (nothing in there worth looking at)!! She thinks I have some odd arthritic condition (tested negatif for rheumatoid A) which has been triggered or exacerbated by the Lyme.

Meanwhile I'm to have another course of antibiotics (hopefully tablets this time) to knock any residual Lyme bacteria on the head and I go back to see her again next week.

So in general I feel better and am a bit more mobile in a hobbling around kind of way, but have more pain. Weird.

Mr PP is going to discover how to garden very, very soon ...

[Nicos]

Oh gosh PP...it really is up and down for you at the moment.
The one good thing is that the Drs here will spare no expense at sorting you out eh?

I've been following your blog to see how you've been getting on...having had one reactive bite, I too am a tad paranoid about the nasty little blighters.
One bite in nearly 6years of gardening and sunbathing isn't much, but it's made me very alert!

Having said all that, It was wonderful to watch the two young deer wandering across the back field at dawn yesterday...they are the ones the huntsmen actively ignored - which must be a rare event in itself!!!

Of the 3 cats we've had here the first two were from the UK and used to get ticks regularly- but the present native French cat...and our neighbours 3 native cats ( all of which are mega-hunters)never get them. I wonder if they have some natural resistance???

[Jardiniere]

good luck with whatever they do/decide....i have found the french health service excellent if expensive (we dont have a mutual).

[PyreneesPlot]

And so the thot plickens...

Three trips to the rheumatologist now and no real improvement. She, in consultation with colleagues in Toulouse think the Lyme infecton is too old to have caused the arthritis. Although it might have done. So we are now looking for a viral infection. Yup, more blood test, more x-rays, more steroids and more opium as my liver has started to protest at all the paracetamol.

I have to agree, Jardiniere, the system here is excellent. Having not heard anything for a week we rang the consultant's secretary to be told the consultant was on holiday all week. An hour later the consultant herself rang and I went in to see her at 10am the next day, and was there for over an hour.

I do have a mutuel, but didn't until my first visit to the GP who, after the initial exam suggested that we might want to consider it. It has more than paid for itself in the last three months. And they don't ask any questions or seem to have any exclusions (we are on the lowest tier).

The downside is I'm not allowed to do anything physical because of the risk of damage to the joints. Consequently this is the first season for twenty years that I've not been skiing. And Mr PP has a lot to learn about gardening.