To all who have wished me a speedy recovery: Thank You! I am feeling steadily better (1 month out), and expect to be back to full strength shortly. @Alisande, If you think you may have babeseosis at the moment, then insist on being tested. Same with anaplasmosis, both are less-difficult than Lyme to diagnose from blood smears, I believe. (The issue with the blood supply, aside from the traditional head-in-the-sand attitude of the blood industry, and of course the cost, is that there is no rapid-enough test for babeseosis -or possibly the other tick-borne diseases -to work with the need for fresh blood.) But as I mentioned, anaplasmosis has distinct, characteristic, changes in routine blood work that are almost diagnostic. I can check next time I am in the medical library if there are specific changes in the case of babeseosis. I may have that info for erlichiosis, if you'd like to know it. Anaplasmosis has distinctive mullberry shaped artifacts (morullae) in the disease-specific blood smears (as does erlichiosis, I believe). Babeseosis is different but unless you, like I, have had malaria it's pretty distinctive in the blood test for it. The tests aren't inexpensive (the unadjusted street price for them is $500-$1,000 -each- but my insurance company whacked both of them down considerably. Since you're on Medicare, you'd only pay a percentage of the CMS-negotiated cost which is likely to be as aggressively moderated as that of my own insurance company's contractual rate. Since all three are bacterial, not spirochete, -caused it doesn't require the complex analysis of PCR bands that Lyme does. But frankly if I was on my second continuous month of Lyme I would have pretty awful constitutional symptoms from that lengthy treatment alone. I can barely make it out the 30 days of a single course before I have disturbed sleep, night sweats, muscle aches and pains, etc. Part of my fierceness about discovering ticks early is to avoid the need for the lengthy course of anti-Lyme doxy. Since doxy won't really do anything for babeseosis - and other drugs will - why keep taking what may be the wrong cure? I don't think you would experience symptoms from babeseosis or anaplasmosis (or even Lyme) infection before locating the tick. The incubation time needed to get sick from a still-attached tick would have resulted in a deer tick as big as a green pea, a nasty pearly-grey tight blob. It's hard to imagine you wouldn't have noticed it well before getting sick if it was still attached. Don't you itch like mad when you have a tick attached for more than a few hours, not to mention days? I'd be wild! BTW, the tick-hours-of-bite measurement has a built in problem: the aging relies on analysis of stomach digestive contents. But that assumes, and it is not always true, that the bite the tick was discovered making is the only bite, not a second one. Also you mentioned you squashed the critter in removing it. You might want to consider beginning more intensive searches for ticks on your body twice a day in order to not miss one. I have hair so long I can sit on it so I do realize it can be hard to check your scalp and hair. I have also found attached ticks under my breasts, in my belly button, on various unmentionable parts of my bottom, and even larval ones between my toes and fingers. I usually keep my long hair tied up in pigtail outdoors. I tuck the pigtail down the back of my shirt to minimize the likelihood of ticks getting caught in my hair. Of course I always have a hat on outside for sun protection, so my head and scalp are less-common tick areas. I do tick-checks at least twice every day of the year, unless I am away from home overnight in the city. It's just like brushing your teeth. I'm not convinced that Lyme "lurks in your body" but given that it is caused by spirochete I suppose it's possible. (Another spirochete-caused illness, syphillis, has a proven habit of lingering on and re-occurring, often despite treatment.) I know, for certain, that I have had Lyme (from clearly positive blood tests), been treated successfuly and subsequently had lengthy periods of profound physiological, and mental stress, without Lyme popping back up and adding to the problems. And I still have one band for Lyme on the latest PCR, which indicates an old, resolved infection, so there's no question it's still visible in my blood, but not thankfully making a pest of itself. I also still have serological evidence of malaria in my blood and I haven't had any illness from it in more than fifty years! But the bacterial diseases (anaplasmosis, babeseosis and erlichiosis) seem extremely unlikely lurkers and later-pouncers, especially if treated. What I definitely think they can do, however, is damage other organs and systems resulting in consequential, long-term problems (like the poor fellow described above who lost his spleen as a result of a babeseosis infection.) Your description of high fevers, muscle aches and pains, etc., sound much more like anaplasmosis than Lyme. Did you have any "regular" blood tests done at the time? The average time from bite to onset of symptoms with anaplasmosis is 8 days. I could look that time up for erlichiosis and babseosis, if needed. I don't know enough about Fibro, but aren't night sweats and aches and pains part of that, too? You may not need to go to any doctor more specialized than your primary care doc to check for the bacterial tick-borne illnesses. And then you'll be able to know, and treat, any that are there. I didn't get any hint that the tests for them lead to confusing, or contradictory results, as I know the Lyme test can, because it is a different, and more complicated test.. If you test negative for them, including having normal routine blood results, you can cross them off your list of worries and look elsewhere. (And get off the wretched doxy!) HTH, L.

I have a fibroid that has enlarged somewhat(now 3cm) over the last few months. My dr has recommended a subtotal hysterectomy, where only my uterus will be removed. Only the cervix,and ovaries remain. Does that mean the fallopian tubes will be removed also? I am having difficulty emotionally, and am contemplating not having the surgery done because of all the information that is out there. I am 43, and have had infertility issues in the past. I have mild endometriosis on the outside of my uterus which never prevented my last two pregnancies, which I took fertility drugs for. I had one other pregnancy previous, no fertility problems ever, at the time was 19. Somewhere in my twenties I developed infertility problems. I am so emotional as to having this surgery done because of all the side effects. I am going for a second opinion before consulting with my dr again. Has anyone had a myomectomy done prior to having a subtotal/partial hysterectomy done? What about ablation? This has always been a an emotional journey for my husband and myself. We have gone thru a total of five pregnancies, and two of them were miscarriages. The last miscarriage almost killed me, and I hemorrhaged pretty bad. My dr says it was due to the enlarging fibroid. I know with my age it is getting harder and harder to conceive, but having a hysterectomy will definitely change everything. We are not sure about conceiving again, because of the most recent miscarriage, but we always wonder what if they (drs.) were wrong?? My dr seems to be pushing for a the subtotal hysterectomy instead of myomectomy. I am having second thoughts... very difficult choice to make.

I just had the hysteroscopy and D & C, like I posted on your last post about this. Piece of cake. I didn't get put under though, I had a spinal block because my fear of being put under was much worse than my fear of the surgery. My doc also mentioned the Mirena IUD. It delivers the progesterone right into your uterus so it works well for hormonal imbalances. I personally don't want it because alot of people I know who have gotten it have had alot of bleeding with IUDs and my periods are bad enough as is. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do yet, but my appt with her to figure it out is on Christmas Eve. I'm hoping if progesterone is necessary, that I can just take that alone, or get a cream or something for it.

As others are saying, asters yellow is normally diagnosable on the basis of SEVERAL different, but maybe interacting, symptoms throughout a plant. With respect to "witches' broom", which SOME sources use to describe an apparently rather specific abnormality in flower growth in phytoplamsma infected Echinacea plants (viz with asters yellow), I'd say it's quite distinctively different from the flower-limited damage caused in coneflower rosette mite infestation. In the case of asters yellow, that type of deformation seems organized and associated with a clear loss of apical growth.