In this educational video, Dr. Diane Mueller explains that the classic bullseye (target) rash of Lyme disease—a red center, a pale ring, and an outer red ring—appears in only about 30% of cases and can be missed, especially when located on the scalp. She emphasizes that many patients experience early Lyme symptoms such as flu‑like illness or joint pain without ever seeing the rash, and that the infection can enter a dormant or persister state, later reactivating with diverse manifestations that may mimic autoimmune or neurological disorders. Dr. Mueller discusses how first‑line antibiotics like doxycycline can clear circulating Borrelia but may also push the bacteria into a dormant persister form, leading to later relapse if treatment is limited to a single antibiotic course. She highlights the high false‑negative rate (57‑67%) of standard Lyme testing and recommends specialty laboratories (e.g., Vibrant Wellness, IGeneX, DNA Connection) that invest heavily in test development. The video also outlines the common co‑morbidities seen in chronic Lyme patients—mold illness, co‑infections, thyroid/adrenal/hormone imbalances, SIBO—and stresses that treating Lyme in isolation often hampers management of these other conditions. Dr. Mueller concludes by urging viewers to seek Lyme‑literate physicians (her practice is licensed in 11 states and offers an international group program), use her book “It’s Not in Your Mind” and provided interview questions to find the right doctor, and subscribe for more content.
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Welcome back to my channel. I'm Dr. Diane Mueller, your Lyme and mold literate doctor, and we're talking today about bullseye rashes and what you need to know. So one of the first things I want you to understand is what the bullseye rash actually looks like is a red dot in the center with white space typically around it and then rings of red around it, usually one, sometimes more. Now, while if you have a bullseye rash, it is a hallmark symptom of Lyme disease and you absolutely get it tested. Unfortunately, we are still in an age where too many people are using this as the main diagnosis for whether or not they should test or consider Lyme disease. It is also very, very common for many people to contract Lyme disease in the early stage and not only have an avoidance of the bullseye rash because it's only present in around 30% of people with Lyme. So it's very possible that you did not— that you, if you've had Lyme, that you did not have that rash. So that's point number 1. Point number 2 is that Lyme oftentimes in the beginning can look for some people just like a flu. Other people, they have joint pain, they feel really bad. And they have so many symptoms that are going to drive them to get tested right away. But for others, it could present simply more like a flu, and it goes into dormancy, and people may not know for many, many, many years that they have Lyme. Now, when Lyme gets reactivated— a lot of what we're dealing with with Lyme right now is a reactivation of Lyme. So that either means that you got sick and you have Never been better since for many years, or it could be that you got bitten, you got exposed to Lyme, and it presented in a way that your body cleared the blood level and put it more into that dormancy state. Now the dormancy state is just a different form of Lyme where it can reactivate at any time, and most commonly when Lyme reactivates, it is not going to look like how it did in the beginning. So usually, if you did not Lyme in the beginning of getting transmitted, if you didn't experience many symptoms, or if they were on the lighter side of things, then when it recurs later, it might recur occur and look like autoimmune disease. It might look like brain fog, cognitive decline. Might be all sorts of strange, weird neurological symptoms. So many more things. So we really do want to consider that when we're talking about chronic Lyme. may have never had that bullseye rash, and symptoms can be a lot more widespread than the beginning. Now, we also see studies that have shown that some of our classic antibiotics like doxycycline, which are still the first-line standard of care, oftentimes put dox or put the Lyme bacteria into that more dormant form. That these first-line antibiotics do a great job of clearing the blood level of Lyme, but they can make the Lyme morph into this dormant persister form. And so for some people, they might feel a little bit better and sometimes a lot better on these antibiotics. But if they're done in isolation, a lot of docs are still prescribing just a single line of antibiotic therapy. And if that antibiotic therapy is just one single one done in isolation, the problem is that that can usually make the Lyme go into this dormant form like I'm talking about, and then Lyme can reactivate later back into that active form. Form. And oftentimes when it does, like I'm saying, people are not thinking about Lyme because they think they already had it and they treated it. And so it doesn't even come up oftentimes on the radar to tell their doctor. Other times you might not even think to talk to your doctor. Your doctor might not, you know, test you because they might ask if you've ever had a rash and you might say no. We also see that bullseye rashes can be in hairlines, right? A lot of people get bit on their scalp. So it's possible that the number of people that have the rash is actually even higher than research looks like it is, but that they're in hidden places, right? So if a bug, the insect bites your scalp and you get— you do get Lyme, but let's say you get a rash. Well, the rash, if it's on your scalp under your hair, you're good chance you're not even going to notice that there's a rash there at all. So for lots of reasons, the rash can be missed. So yes, if you do see that classic target lesion, you definitely want to get tested for Lyme. Now, it is important to understand that the first line of testing has a very, very high rate of false negative, 57 to 67% chance of false negative depending upon the study you look at. So that being said, I would strongly recommend if you are testing for Lyme to use a really good company such as Vibrant Wellness, such as IGeneX, DNA Connection. There are several others I didn't even mention. And the point of using one of these types of companies is that they put all of their R&D dollars into this particular— the test they use. And because they put all their R&D dollars into it, what that means is they then have the capacity to, to spend more money developing their tests. Their test output is better, so it's more accurate. So in conclusion, Think about Lyme if you have— for sure if you have gotten bit by a tick, for sure if you have that target lesion, but if you're having widespread symptoms, right? So let's say you developed COVID or some other infection, you were never the same after that. Well, we know that viruses can reactivate diseases. So like long-haul COVID, I've seen in many people to actually be in part a reactivation of Lyme. Or mold illness. And so oftentimes, if things are lasting for a long time, it's a sign that only one disease process has gotten found. So another thing that happens that I see a lot in practice is even if people do get that Lyme label, which is helpful to have because then we know how to treat it, but oftentimes what will happen is when you have that label, then doctors stop looking for other causes. And I tell you guys, after about 17 years of doing this, of being a Lyme literate and mold literate doc, I still have not seen one case of Lyme only. It's always Lyme and, and, and, and, and. So maybe somebody out here is going to be a Lyme only case and they'll make it to my practice. That's entirely possible. But the point being, there is a high chance that if you do have something like Lyme, you also have mold illness, you also have co-infections, you also have adrenal issues, you also have sex hormone imbalances and thyroid imbalances and maybe SIBO. And so when we're thinking about healing from Lyme, we're also thinking about all of these other things. But if you do have Lyme and you have some of these other conditions I'm talking about, having Lyme is going to make treatments for those other conditions not work very well. So if you have Lyme and you do something like you have low thyroid and you give some thyroid medication, right, you give something like levothyroxine, for example, you might find that you don't really feel that more that much more energized with that thyroid. Maybe a little bit, or maybe it works for a few weeks and then all of a sudden it's like, gosh, it's not working, and your labs look better. All of those can be a sign of underlying hidden reasons like Lyme disease that's preventing your treatment from working. So in conclusion, I think I said that once already, and second conclusion, make sure you are working with a Lyme literate doctor. We are now licensed in 11 states, so you can always look at, um, look under the episode links for my website to learn where we can help you in. We also have a group program that we can work with you internationally in. So consider that as well as we could help, you know, if we can help you. But in the end, I would really encourage you, no matter where you are around the world, look up a Lyme literate doc near you. If you get my book, It's Not in Your Mind, found on any channel, on any online platform, I have a series of lists of questions in there of how to interview doctors to make sure you're finding yourself the best fit possible. So I'll put all that in the show notes for you as well. Thank you for tuning in. Please do subscribe. I will see you again real soon.
