What are the chances...

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What are the chances that someone can have a tick for months or even over a year and not know it? If someone had one for say over a year and recently had bloodwork done and everything was fine, does that mean that the tick was not infected? I'm wondering if the Dr. misdiagnosed a spot and it was actually a tick.
 
Did the Doctor see the spot? Your body won't just let that tick chill out in there without a fight. There would have to be some redness, swelling, pain, itching, something. I haven't heard of someone go longer than month without realizing they have a tick on them, just because the inflammation and redness keeps expanding. You would also be experiencing symptoms of whatever pathogen the tick was carrying, and in the US the diseases, which are only a few, have some pretty characteristic signs.
 
Most ticks bite, fill up on blood, then drop off - since you wouldn't be carrying anything for one tick to mate with, that would also be why it wouldn't stick around. They lay their eggs on the ground, those hatch and go through larvae and nymph stages. It's usually the deer tick nymphs that spread Lyme disease as well.

Some people get the red bull eye rash and some don't.

I suggest you go to the Lyme Disease section as it will have more information on exact tests - which one is more affective, false negatives, etc.

As for how common - it varies by area. I also suggest you go to the CDC's homepage and look at their Lyme information as buried somewhere in there are statistics of Lyme Disease reported by state - and by year, month, sex, and age.
 
Connecticut and New York have the highest figures. It's relatively common in the north east, but people definitely catch it elsewhere on the east coast. Last year a little over 25,000 people caught it. Surprisingly Wisconsin also has a high incidence.
 
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