Man's Ravaging Lyme Disease Eludes Doctors for a Year

.Man's Ravaging Lyme Disease Eludes Doctors for a Year

Allen Bargfrede said he was jumping into the shower when he spotted a tiny tick on his ankle that would change his life.

“I washed it off and didn’t think about it anymore,” said the 39-year-old associate professor of music business at Berklee College of Music in Boston, who was in Spain at the time for a conference. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I hope I don’t get sick from that.’”

Two days later, Bargfrede said he developed the classic bull’s eye rash of Lyme disease, a bacterial infection transmitted through tick bites. The rash eventually gave way to a fever, cough and “strange headaches,” he said.

“I had severe anxiety,” said Bargfrede, who was getting ready to head home to the U.S. when the symptoms began to worsen. “I was crazy scared to get on an airplane.”

Bargfrede said it took nearly a year to confirm that he had Lyme disease after a string of “negative” tests, dangerous treatments and disbelief from most of his American doctors.