CLOSED: a bite on my head

i know this is a long shot but maybe someone out there has had this experience. about 3 weeks ago i started having shooting pain in my right jaw. a day later the pain moved up to around my ear, not in my ear. another day later and the pain was radiating like a cattle prod from the side of my head. when i felt there, i found a pretty good sized lump. my dp looked and saw a tiny red mark, one, not two. i started having a terrible sore throat and the shock waves were coming every few minutes. i saw the doctor the following monday and she gave me antibiotics and sent me home. two days later i awoke with all the above symptoms plus hugely swollen lymph nodes all on the right side. i went in that day and saw another doctor and he said i had cat scratch fever although he didn't do a blood test to verify it. he put me on two rounds of z-packs and finally yesterday the bump has gone down and the pains have lessened.

i have not been bitten or scratched by a cat although i played with a teenage cat a couple of weeks ago. after googling csf, i found that even saliva can infect a person but it's hard for me to believe i haven't had this sometime before in my life. most cases are just slight and more flu-like and i've been around hundreds of cats all my life and you can only contract it once if i understand correctly.

in googling i also found that there is evidence that ticks can carry this same bacteria although the doctor didn't mention ticks. he seemed unconcerned with the bump on my head, almost as though it had nothing to do with my illness.

my question is this: couldn't this be from a tick or a spider or some other bug that maybe someone knows of here in florida? i'm leaning towards tick or spider. if anyone has had similar experiences, i'd sure appreciate some input. i may never know what caused this but it has been pretty scarey these past couple of weeks. i've been bitten before by a black widow and i know it's not that, but that's about all i can rule out at this point.

thanks to any who can shed some light on this mystery. debi

I don't know anything ,but that must have been scary. It seems weird that the doc wouldn't check out the bump, and could diagnose csf so easily, but they have their logic/ ways of doing things/whatever. It sure sounds like it could have been a tick or spider. Most docs probably have so little or no experience w tick or spider bites. I had a tick bite once that started to swell, so I went to a doc and got a Z pack also.

did you have pain with your tick bite?

i started putting an antibiotic/cortizone ointment on the bump because the z-packs didn't seem to be addressing the lump or the intense pain. the bump started going down right away, tg. when i go back for a follow-up next week, i will discuss it more with the doc. i am finally starting to feel better, though still have some lingering pain. thankfully, it isn't coming in shockwaves anymore.

the funny thing is that i always wear a ballcap outside but we had some overcast days a few weeks ago and i was working in the garden without the cap-never again! i know a cap won't deter a tick; they'll just crawl in wherever they want, but still, since i don't know who the culprit was for sure, i won't take chances.

sorry to say but I didn't have any pain from the tick bite, other than that my bite was behind my knee- I noticed it when bending my knee, since it was a swollen little bump. Thats the only time I've ever gone to a Dr for a tick. He said he'd give the Z pack because even tho it didn't look like Lyme, there were otherr bacteria ticks could carry. I found a lone star tick here this year and the vet said they have been found around here lately, a new thing.

ick! ticks are just so darn nasty, aren't they? well, i'm GLAD you had no pain with yours. lol yes, after googling, i've found that ticks carry way more bacteria than i'd ever thought possible. i hope that my doctor is more receptive to discussing this on wednesday. in his defense, i barged in the second time sans appointment, crying and begging to be seen by any doctor available. i know they hate when that happens.

Sorry- I maybe shouldn't have posted that horrific picture.
I read part of a book my brother sent me, The Way Doctors Think. I think is the title. Anyhoo, the point is that sometimes the Dr you're seeing isn't quite prepared for your particular situation (.but will at least take his/her best guess at helping!) Not trying to criticize doctors. I hope your Dr will be receptive if you take in some info from a reputable source like a University Medical place, (U Maryland is good here)
Now ,you probably should not rule out spider bite, either. I think a spider would be a toxin, and its possible the toxin was wearing off at the same time you were putting the cortisone on. Then again, my SIL's mother just had to do major anitbiotics for a bee sting?!? unheard of to me.