African Tick Fever

One day, Sister Rands noticed that she had a spot of infection on the back of her arm about the size of a pea. She thought maybe she had an infected insect bite and took action to combat the infection. About the same time she developed a slight fever and chills but did not associate these with the infection. After about four days she did not seem to be making progress on the infection and felt a general malaise. She decided that she had better see a doctor.

The doctor asked about Sister Rands' symptoms and then looked at the site of the infection. As soon as she saw it she said it was a "classic tick bite" and that Sister Rands had African tick fever and would have to take doxycycline twice a day for ten days to prevent possible long-term problems similar to those of Lyme disease. She asked if we had a dog or had been hiking through the grass. We told her we had not, and she wondered where we had picked up the tick.

Sister Rands told her that she had tried doxycycline in the past and that it made her chest hurt badly enough that she felt like she was having a heart attack and caused diarrhea and asked if there was another antibiotic that she could use. The doctor told her there was no alternative to doxycyline. The church area doctor confirmed the requirement for doxycycline. Because of her previous difficulty with doxycyline the doctor prescribed two other medicines to try to help with the adverse side effects. She had tried similar medications for the same problems without success previously. We were VERY concerned and thought we were in for serious trouble.

We read about African tick fever on the Internet and learned that the fever appears five to seven days after the tick bite. We looked through our journals to see what we had done during that time and realized that we had tromped through the grass behind our back wall to give mangoes and candy to about twenty-five workers hacking the weeds. We realized that is most likely how she picked up the tick. The type of tick that causes African tick fever is very small and Sister Rands never realized she had been bitten.

Our families held a family fast for Sister Rands. She was VERY blessed! She tolerated the doxycyline without any significant problems thanks to the fast and additional medications and has fully recovered.