They both got it in the same week many years ago. That year was a particular epidemic. My brother still has occasional soreness issues, but he's learned how to cope. It rather sucks for him because he's very athletic... there's been a couple of instances over the years where he had to cancel out of one of his mountain climbing expeditions.
The dog got it bad. Right away there were very noticeable scary symptoms. I actually thought he'd had a stroke. He also got worse very quickly during the night while I waited for the vet appointment the next day, and he had such trouble walking I wasn't sure if I was going to have to get someone to help me carry him to the car, but he did make it on his own.
I'm guessing the number values represent how badly they're infected. I don't remember what his number value was, but he must have been very badly effected because the symptoms were so bad. He also had to do two rounds of the antibiotic to get rid of it since the first round wasn't enough, and he had to be switched to a stronger antibiotic than the first one that was prescribed.
Getting the lyme disease kept him stiff and a bit sore ever since. When he got older when normally arthritis would kick in anyway he was generally already dealing with arthritis-like symptoms, so when he did get arthritis when he got older it was a lot worse than it normally would have been and probably kicked in sooner than it normally would have. Walks became slow strolls though he wanted to go faster and farther... I had to slow him down a lot and make sure he didn't take us so far afield that I wasn't sure he could get back on his own steam. On grass he walked much much easier... you could see the change in his gait when he want from concrete to grass and vice versa, so I mapped out a route to take were we could walk on grass as much as possible.
If your Bean-baby doesn't have the really noticeable and horrible symptoms that my old dog did I would guess that he isn't infected that badly and his recovery and future management should be a lot better. My dog was already middle-aged when he got it, too, and I think that also makes a difference. I think a much younger dog would have an easier time of it.
They give the vaccine anyway because they may get bit again while they already have the disease and that would just add to how bad it was. The vaccine also doesn't last forever - I think they need it every year, and it's also not 100% foolproof. Regular ticks that you can see aren't the ones that carry the disease. The carrier ticks are what's known as the "deer tick" and they're so tiny the likelihood of finding one on the dog or even on yourself is pretty nil. Humans tend to get a huge bruise-like patch where the tick bit (my brother did but at the time he thought it was just a bruise), but not always, and dogs very rarely get this bruise-like patch, so looking for that is pretty useless. The only way to know is to look out for the symptoms and try to protect the dog as much as possible during the tick months. Always use a good tick and flea protection aid and try not to let the dog into high grassy areas, woods or anywhere that deer tend to be. We have deer all over the place in my area, so you really can't avoid places they might be... they wander across the highway and hang out in highly populated areas even where you'd never think a deer would want to be. My dog that got it was always on the sidewalk in a pretty populated area, so it baffled me how he got it in the first place, but the damn deer here are everywhere.
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