Hi people, i'm in a bit of an odd situation. I live in a rural area and i spent a lot of time outside. I have been bitten by ticks a lot. In some hot summers the average was almost one per day.

Now the thing is.....i never got sick. No symptoms of lymes dissease ever.
Statistically though, it is nearly impossible that i have never been in contact with the borrelia bacteria, because i've literally been bitten hundreds of times.

So i'm in a situation of doubt. Should i just relax and assume that i've somehow got immune to the bacteria due to being exposed to it a lot of times? Or would that be foolish, and should i get some antibiotics while i'm still fine?

I wish I could find the article that enlightened me on this idea, but: It's 99% about the terrain (the body's immune system and other systems) and 1% about the bug/pathogen.

For example, the white-tailed deer carry the lyme bacteria and do not exhibit arthritis, brain fog, etc. And many of us carry various pathogenic bacteria and viruses and yet are asymptomatic.

That is to say, our bodies are keeping them in check. Your body is probably doing that, too.

Keep up the good work!!

Yes, some people carry the bacteria that causes Lyme disease and are fine.

The Lyme bacteria, like ticks, are extremely opportunistic. That means they'll hide undetected for a loooooooooong time until there's an opportunity--a weak spot or a lapse in (bodily) judgment, to getcha. So definitely do keep up the good work.

The symptoms of Lyme disease are as a result of your body's immune system attacking itself in a response to try to clear the bacterial infection. We don't know why some peoples immune systems turn on their bodies and others don't. It is probably a combination of genetics and environmental factors like a healthy lifestyle etc etc.

I can't really tell you what to do but if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't go rushing to get antibiotics. Your immune system is most likely handling the infections just fine. Antibiotics might cause more harm than good.

Basic precautions like using an insect repellent on skin and clothing might reduce the bacterial load you are exposed to and tilt the balance even more in your favour.

Actually a study on older people has shown, that basically almost everyone got these lyme bacteria in their system during their lifetime, as almost anyone older has made antibodies for it.



Nobody can tell for sure. The standard tests for it are very bad and only useful for almost freshly infected people. But there are tests like LTT, which basically show, if your body is still actively fighting them (although you may not be aware of it), or then PCR tests which specifically look for lyme DNA.

Lyme can be sneaky, and it seems it can often be, that you're infected and the bacteria lie dormant for years or decades or a lifetime, until they suddenly really start to get active. So it can even well be, they never go on attack during your whole lifetime, although you're infected.

So it's hard to tell, if you're infected, but they are dormant, or if you're not infected at all.

With lyme it's a bit difficult, as they have several clever methods of protection, which makes it hard to get rid of them, once they have really settled in your system.

They are like little cork screwers, and so can screw themselves through everything, and so get everywhere in your body, also to locations, where your immune system, or ABs have a hard time to get to. E.g they like oxygen starved conditions, so they automatically tend to get away from blood paths, where they would also be easily attackable by your IS and by ABs. They also like colder conditions, than you normal body temp, and so again automatically get away from good blood saturated zones, where they would be easily attackable.

They create biofilms (kinda like a medieval city...LOL), so that basically the bacteria on the outer layer (city wall) sacrifice themselves to protect the others in the middle. It has been shown, that with ABs it's basically impossible to kill them in biofilms, as up to 1000x AB concentrations were needed, to kill the biofilm, and no human would survive that. So you need additional stuff which specifically targets the biofilms.

They can transform themselves into a kind of stasis form, in which they are inactive, but also basically immune to almost any AB (ABs usually target the replication mechanism of bacteria), and they can stay in this form for a very very long time. So you need ABs which not work by targeting the replication mechanism, and also still do work on the whole body incl the central nervous system.

They can also camouflage themselves by using endogenous proteins, so that the immune system thinks it's from your body. There are btw quite some people who think that this mechanism might also be a trigger for inducing Multiple Sclerosis, for the immune system is in a strange position:
It sees the bacteria, but shelled in body own proteins. If it now triggers on any of these, you got yourself Multiple Sclerosis, as your immune system will now also attack all these in your body (your immune system has now declared war to a part of your body). And unfortunately there's no known mechanism to delete again any entry in your immune systems data base: Once declared an enemy, it's for a lifetime (too bad if part of yourself is on that list...).

Thanks for the advice people. I think i'm just gonna ask my doctor what he thinks too. But i guess i now have one good reason more to stay in good shape.

But be aware that unfortunately still most doctors don't have much (or even wrong) knowledge regarding lyme and its special properties (its discovery and especially thorough research about it are relatively new). Often they even do things, which are diametral against what one should do...(e.g. like giving you Doxycyclin)

If you don't show any symptoms, also probably no doctor would treat you anyways.