These days I hike a lot, I've had bullseye rashes before and the treatment is so much less worrisome than the rare possibility of developing lyme.
Last time I was in for getting hundreds of tick bites in one hike (that was fun), I was also told to avoid eating red meat until labs came back. That Alpha-gal is getting more common in my area, and the first immune response is anaphylactic in 40% of the cases, best not to risk it.
>These days I hike a lot, I've had bullseye rashes before and the treatment is so much less worrisome than the rare possibility of developing lyme.
Yeah, if you develop a rash from a tick bite that even remotely looks like it could be lyme, just go to a pet store to buy amoxicillin (you can get exactly the same stuff they give to humans) if you can't quickly find a doctor who'll take it seriously enough to immediately write you a prescription (unless, of course, they have a very well reasoned explanation for not doing so).
The potential consequences of not getting fast treatment are indeed so so much worse than the practically non-existent consequences of taking amoxicillin when you don't need it, unless you're a crazy hypochondriac who constantly thinks they might have lyme.
But hey, also don't blindly trust medical advice from HN commenters telling you to go buy pet store antibiotics :)
Amoxicillin isn't the best for Lyme. It does work but it takes more and longer for it to work than doxycycline. And what you're going to pay at the pet store is going to be way more than urgent care and a human script.
Last time I was in for getting hundreds of tick bites in one hike (that was fun), I was also told to avoid eating red meat until labs came back. That Alpha-gal is getting more common in my area, and the first immune response is anaphylactic in 40% of the cases, best not to risk it.
If you wonder what one side of one leg looked like during the "hundreds of tick bites on a single hike" take a gander: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jekrgxa9fv14j28qga7xc/2025-08...
That was on both legs, both sides all the way up to my knees