Is There Really No Lyme Disease Here?
No. Dr. Sandal sees Lyme disease and other tick-borne illness regularly in his practice, and it is likely just as common in your area.
There's a lot of confusion — even among physicians — about whether a tick bite is something to actually worry about. One of the most common things I hear from patients in Kansas is some version of "there isn't any Lyme disease around here." That's simply not true. I see Lyme disease and other tick-borne illness regularly in my practice, and in all likelihood, it's just as common in your area. Ticks, and the pathogens they carry, spread much faster and much further than most people — including many physicians — assume.
What Does Lyme Disease Actually Feel Like?
Symptoms differ from patient to patient, and many people never notice the bite or develop the classic bullseye rash.
Symptoms look different from patient to patient, which is part of what makes Lyme so easy to miss. Many people never even notice the bite itself — nymphal ticks are roughly the size of a poppy seed. And while the classic "bullseye" rash gets most of the attention, plenty of the patients we see never develop one at all.
Symptoms We Watch For
If several of these sound familiar, it's worth scheduling an evaluation with a functional medicine provider who has real experience treating Lyme disease, and getting properly tested.
Symptoms don't always show up right away — we regularly see patients whose Lyme symptoms surface years after the original bite. Left untreated, Lyme disease can lead to serious, long-term health consequences, which is exactly why we treat any known tick exposure as something worth addressing early.
The longer an infection goes unaddressed, the more it tends to burden the body — and many patients notice their symptoms flare on a roughly monthly rhythm, which tracks with the bacteria's own life cycle.
Why Do Standard Tests Miss Lyme Disease?
Most testing for tick-borne illness is not sensitive enough, so a conventional tick panel or blood test can come back negative even when an active infection is present.
Part of why this controversy exists is that most testing for tick-borne illness isn't sensitive enough. It's easy for a conventional tick panel or standard blood test to come back negative even when an active infection is present. In my experience, a "clean" test doesn't rule out tick-borne illness — it just means the standard test didn't catch it.
What Warning Sign Should You Take Seriously After a Tick Bite?
Starting to feel unwell after a tick bite is a red flag worth taking seriously.
If you're bitten by a tick and start to feel unwell afterward, that's a red flag I take seriously. Ticks carry all sorts of parasites and pathogens, and once those enter your bloodstream, your immune system responds — which is what actually makes you feel sick in the first place.
Why Treat Tick Bites Aggressively?
Because these pathogens are remarkably good at evading the immune system.
I tend to take a minimalist approach to most things — but tick bites are the exception. These pathogens are remarkably good at evading the immune system. You might feel sick for a short time, then feel like things have gone quiet again — but that quiet period is often when an infection is settling in and becoming a chronic burden, rather than actually resolving.
That's why my approach is proactive rather than wait-and-see. If you find a tick on you, remove it as quickly as you can. If you feel ill in the days or weeks that follow, see a physician experienced in treating tick-borne illness. The goal is to catch and address it early, because chronic Lyme disease and other chronic tick-borne infections are genuinely difficult to live with — and many physicians simply aren't trained to treat them.
How Can Atma Clinic Help With Lyme Disease and Tick Bites?
Atma's doctors and nurse practitioners, certified in Advanced Functional and Integrative Medicine, work to find and treat the root cause of your tick-borne illness rather than only managing symptoms.
At Atma Clinic, we help patients with tick bites all the time — whether you were just bitten and want to be proactive, or you're dealing with a long-standing tick-borne illness that hasn't resolved. We offer consultations with our Functional Medicine MDs to get to the root of what's going on and build a plan from there.