Lyme Disease Leg Rash | Labor Day 2025 Symptom

Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, few good remedies, and hardly any specific cures.

Nicolas Chamfort

Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters; it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided.

Paracelsus

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.

Sir William Osler

My leg rash began -- or rather, I first noticed my leg rash -- when removing my shoes and socks after three hours of afternoon yard work that consisted of pruning, weeding, and lawn mowing on Labor Day 2025. I felt nothing prior. No bite. No sting. Nothing crawling on my leg. Even inspecting the rash, I felt nothing. No pain. No itching. Just a red circular-to-oval-shaped discoloration about 2 inches in diameter, centered where the top of my sock had rested around my right leg.

I cleaned my leg with soap and water and applied rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, and over-the-counter antibiotic ointment to the red rash area. Not until mid-week, persuaded by consistent advice from friends and relatives, did I seek medical attention. Typical stubbornness on my part.*

The images below record the rash's progression starting about 31 hours after discovery. Most likely diagnosis: Lyme disease. I am fortunate in that my only symptom has been the appearance of this rash. You can read about other signs and symptoms by following helpful links on this page.

*I would like to note a significant initial confusion on my part. For several days I assumed that the appearance of my leg rash had resulted from an unnoticed bite or sting during 3 hours of yard work on Labor Day. But now I think that if the Mayo Clinic's "3 to 30 days after a tick bite" timeframe holds for the appearance of first symptoms, then a black-legged tick infected with the Lyme disease bacterium probably bit me without my noticing on one of two days at the end of July when I spent hours wading through and pulling up a forest of chest-high weeds that I had ignored for several months. (Also notably on that second weeding day, I contracted a fairly severe case of poison ivy or poison oak, blistering up the length of my left inner forearm, from wrist to crook of the elbow.) An undetected tick bite on one of those two days would put the Labor Day appearance of my localized leg rash at about a 33-day timeframe -- more in line with the Mayo Clinic's notes on Lyme disease.

Image #1 | Tuesday night
31 hrs post-appearance
cleaned, antibiotic ointment applied