Two to three years ago I was diagnosed with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. When my blood test results came back my titer was 670, I had first started feeling bad around the end of September. Being the rocket scientist that I am, I didn’t go to the doctor until June. By then, one minute I was afraid I was going to die, the next I was afraid I wasn’t.

After being diagnosed, I went 30 days of doxycycline then 14 days more because I had the disease for so long and my titer was so high. Since then I have been on doses for two weeks twice for reactions to tick bites.

Couple weeks ago I was at my new doctor for a follow up physical and she drew blood to check all the usual things, A1c, cholesterol,, etc. Since I had RMSF in the past she wanted to check my titer to see what it was just for giggles.

My titer came back at 256; the titer level of more than 64 is suggestive for past or possible current infection.
Even though the CDC says you only get RMSF once as opposed to Lyme’s Disease which you can get multiple times, she started me on a two week round of doxycycline just in case. She drew more blood samples to start the elimination process to see if I have any other tick related nasties.

Any of you that have ever has RMSF before, have you ever had your titer checked to see what the level was after treatment?

I can not find anything in my research to see if this is within normal limits, or am I an overachiever?

What i could find stated that anything over 166 was considered positive. Hope this helps.

I had it in 1985, never knew what my level was, only know I lost four days of my life in the hospital
Can’t remember a thing about it, took me two years to get back to normal, never have had a titer
Check since then either, they put me on tetracycline at that time, boy I was sick, wife thought I
Wasn’t going to make, since that time I’m a bug freak !!

I will try to make you feel better. Although you have an elevated titer I personally don't think I would be all that concerned if you are not symptomatic. A study done of right around 2000 children in areas known for RSMF who had their blood drawn at the doctor, hospital, or emergency room for any reason in a certain time frame showed 300 of them tested positive with titers over the CDC's cutoff of 64. It was a totally random sample of left over blood from their visits. They could have had their blood drawn for basic lab work. Of the 300 that beat the cutoff 239 of the children's levels were above 64, 146 were over 128, and 85 were over 256. The jist of the research is that although the titer can be used as diagnostic for an infection at some point RMSF is greatly under-diagnosed. None of the children in the study were being seen for RSMF.

The CDC also cites the fact that up to 10% of people in areas with RSMF might have elevated serum titers due to past exposures without symptoms. This is pretty close to the study I cited above that showed 15% elevated titers in children with no known past infection. The CDC also states that there's documentation of people that have been previously infected with RSMF that have had elevated titers up to four years following their diagnosis.

WadeRyan
Thank you! I just found that material this evening from the CDC that elevated titers are not uncommon up to 4 years after exposure. Part of it might be my titer was so high when I finally was diagnosed too.
I have planned to call my doc in the morning and get the heck off this antibiotic since I dont need it.

Once you are off the antibiotic, you should take probiotics to help heal your gut. My mom has had RMSF.

Once you get it, I have it, it really never goes away. I got right after turkey season was over several years ago, diagnosed real quick and started on the meds. If you worry much or your system gets weak it will show
up again. Since my initial bout with it about 20 years ago I have had it two more times and have to go through the medicine again...d2