Propagandist Shybkovskaya Recounts Her Ordeal — How a 'Mosquito Bite' Turned Out to Be Lyme Disease
Diana Shybkovskaya, a propagandist for "Minskaya Prauda", recounted a story that began as a minor issue but ended as a complex medical quest involving incorrect diagnoses and prolonged treatment. What the woman initially dismissed as a midge bite—a common itch on her leg after a nature retreat—turned out to be a spot that grew daily, shifting in color from pink to purple.
It all began on a summer weekend. Shybkovskaya with her boyfriend, was relaxing near a body of water. Later, at her dacha, she decided to do some gardening.
And suddenly, she felt a slight itch on her leg—as if a midge had bitten her. She didn't see the midge itself; a small spot simply appeared, similar to a mosquito bite.
The next day, the bite grew larger. But even this didn't alarm the woman; she was confident that everything would pass in a day or two.
But after the weekend, the bite swelled up. She went to the medical center.
The nurse treated the bite with an antibiotic ointment, applied a bandage, and told her to come back the next day if it got worse.
The next day, the spot grew even larger—the pink formation not only expanded but also changed color. The woman wrote to an acquaintance, a dermatologist.
By the time she saw the dermatologist, the spot already looked terrible. It grew larger every day. The center began to darken, turning from pink to purple.
The doctor carefully examined her leg and unexpectedly asked:
— Does hogweed grow there? Maybe you didn't notice and stepped on it?
He explained that a drop of hogweed sap in the sun could cause a severe burn with blisters. Hogweed did grow in the area, so the theory sounded logical. Shybkovskaya was prescribed panthenol and strictly instructed to keep her leg out of the sun.
She did just that. She walked around the hot summer city with a bandage on her leg. But it didn't get better. By evening, an itch appeared, and the spot continued to grow.
After a week, it became clear: the treatment wasn't helping. And that dermatologist acquaintance frankly admitted that he didn't know what it was. It would be better to see another specialist.
Then she went to a private medical center. A young female doctor carefully examined her leg and listened to her story.
— New types of midges are appearing now; the climate is changing, — she said. — Perhaps this is an allergic reaction to a bite.
The diagnosis was vasculitis. The doctor prescribed prednisolone injections and an ointment typically used for psoriasis. The injections needed to be given urgently. But the medical center wasn't giving them that day. So the doctor told her to go to any nearby hospital—they were obliged to give an injection without hospitalization.
In the hospital emergency room, upon seeing her leg, they indeed gave her the first injection and discharged her.
Literally the next day, the spot began to fade. The itching disappeared. Her leg looked better and better. It seemed the story was over. But it was only just beginning.
A month later, everything had completely healed. It was time to use the second cream, which was supposed to continue the treatment—it's usually used for increased skin pigmentation. But the woman decided it was unnecessary—the spot had disappeared.
But after a couple of days, the itch reappeared in the same spot. And then—the familiar red spot, and another one beside it.
She applied the cream again, and it disappeared. She stopped applying it—it reappeared. In a panic, she made another appointment with the doctor. The doctor was no less surprised.
And suddenly asked a question that had only been mentioned in passing before:
— Are you sure it wasn't a tick?
The doctor explained: an infected ixodid tick could have bitten and fallen off on its own. She sent her for a blood test to rule out Lyme disease (tick-borne borreliosis).
According to the dermatologist, there was no point in doing the test earlier than a month, because during that period it would have shown a false-negative result.
Suspicion of Lyme disease was confirmed. If the test had been negative, the next step would have been treatment for vasculitis with a rheumatologist.
At the appointment, Shybkovskaya says, the photos taken before and after were very useful, as the spot on her leg was barely noticeable at that moment.
It turned out that she had a very atypical symptom picture, so the dermatologist and infectious disease specialist asked to photograph her leg and send them a few more photos for their personal archive.
The thing is, usually, a spot after a tick bite is round, with a clearly defined contour and light inside. But hers was dark, and even had small blisters, like hives. This is rarely encountered in practice.
There was another complication: since the woman had been bitten by ticks about 10 years ago (but without such a strong reaction from the body), she was sent for an extended analysis to determine if it could be a residual phenomenon. What if she had been ill for a long time, but the chronic illness had been asymptomatic up to a certain point? The treatment protocol and the duration of antibiotic therapy depended on this.
The study confirmed that the acute phase of the disease. The woman then took imported antibiotics for almost a month.
"The taste of the medicine was so disgusting that I almost spit out the first tablet right there in the clinic. It turned out it needed to be dissolved in water, but I had already swallowed it, I was so eager to start treatment. Disgust for the pills and nausea—all of this accompanied my path to recovery. But I had to endure it: Lyme disease cannot be neglected. Gradually, it all ended," the woman recounts.
Shybkovskaya asserts that this story taught her "the main thing: sometimes the most harmless bite can turn out to be completely different from what it seems."
Therefore, she advises, if you suddenly notice a strange spot on your skin in the summer—do not postpone a visit to the doctor. Ticks are now found even where they were almost non-existent before.
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