There seems to be a lot of information filtering in regarding lyme with
little mention of Rocky Mountiain Spotted Tick Fever.  RMSTF has been
around a long time, in fact, there was a vaccine up unitl 1983.  Apparently
there was not enough interest in testing it to get it approved.
                        My point is that the symptoms for Lyme and RMSTF are basically the same
except for the "bull-ring " rash.  From my recent experience with a
tick-borne disease my symptoms ran the gambit of several different types of
the diseases.  From what I am reading on this newsgroup there seems to be a
lot of overlap betwen the two tick-borne diseases ( and probably among the
other ones including ehrlichiosis).  I am getting more confused by the
massive amount of contradicting information already on the lyme newsgroup.