[blam]

" the disease has 3 stages."

I worry that I have it. What are the three stages?

[spunkets]

You could probably google up a site that has pics of the initial bite infection. It's a large bulleye lession. Clearing in the center and red cellulitis in a ring around the bite. You get very sick and after about a week to 2 weeks get severe joint pain also. It's crippling. Penicillin kills it fast. If you go through the first stage w/o the pen to kill the bugs, the damage is long lasting-on the order of years.

There's a blood test for ~$75, that can pick up bug antibodies. Pen. can then be given to kill the bugs to prevent further injury. I never noted that AL was in the disease range though. It's up here, so I have a bunch of pill bottles on the shelf, each containing one deer tick in case I ever got the bullseye, or sick.

[spunkets]

2nd stage is a kind of remission. In the 3rd, the bugs do some quick and severe destruction. THe range maps showing disease occurence stats are common on the better google links. CDC, NIH ect...

[spunkets]

You may have already found it...CDC link