Is it likely/possible that erythema migrans rash could show up years after bite?

I have only recently tuned back in to an awareness of the fact that I have Lyme disease after ten years of being fed misinformation. I never 'forgot' that my underlying condition was Lyme, but since the day I showed anyone in the health care profession my erythema migrans rash, I was denied treatment and treated as if they just wanted me to go away altogether. It has been blindly ignored that I ever had erythema migrans.

As a result, I had no choice but to consistently ask to have various symptoms investigated, hoping that eventually someone would clue in and treat me for Lyme. It never happened, and as I can't work, private treatment isn't an option.

Lately I have entirely let go of all the falsities I have been fed till now (that I am a hypochondriac, an annoying nut, etc.), it's like a siren went off inside my head, it said 'NO MORE!' No more tolerance for blind callousness, ignorance, and disregard.

I led in with the above description as I want you to know why I am naive about some things, I have only just started to force my way to the core of this matter. It has only been in the last few days that it keeps occurring to me over an over, that when I was young, I was athletic, high energy and thin. I also remember that one day, I think I was about 18, I had broken out in a rash (not bulls-eye, more like a poison ivy sort of deal). I was tested for many things; I became very ill before visiting the doctor. I had a migraine, it felt like I was having a heart attack, I was vomiting and had diarrhea as well. No cause was determined.

After that time the weight started to creep on. My energy didn't start to die until I hit my thirties, then it went downhill big-time. In 2005 I was at work one day and was very ill, that's when I saw the (first ever) erythema migrans rash on me (I was in my forties then). After I saw that rash my overall health hit the skids; two years later I could no longer work.

All this makes me wonder, was the erythema rash a sign of further development of already existing Lyme, or was it a sign that I was bitten again (of course having been unaware that I was bitten when I was younger).

Sorry for writing a novel, but please offer your two cents on this. If I haven't been clear, let me know where I erred and I will straighten it out.

Thanks.

PS - I should add that at no time did I test positive for Lyme disease (but I was only tested once). The self-diagnosis is based upon a highly educated assumption due to the fact I had the erythema migrans rash in 2005.

I had never read that before, that a bulls eye rash can show up multiple times over the span of Lyme disease. That just convinces me more that I have had it since I was eighteen-ish. Thanks for filling me in on that fact, Traveler.

Thank you for the additional insight, SLML. Hmmm, there's so very much about Lyme and its co-infections that the general public doesn't get exposed to...

Any symptoms can return after a life stress - as can the infection. We have to do whatever we can to reduce and keep the stress in our lives down.