A. Early Bartonellosis symptoms are often similar to LD symptoms. There may be a rash, but the rash is different from a Lyme disease bull’s eye and may look like long, thin red areas, somewhat like stretch marks. In many people Bartonellosis is a mild disease and the symptoms subside on their own. But in some cases, Bartonellosis may cause on-going fatigue, depression, anxiety, headaches, swollen glands, sore soles of the feet, GI problems, arthritis, generalized aches and pains similar to the other tick-borne diseases, seizures, neurological disorders, and even dementia. Vision loss and eye infections may occur. As with some of the other tick-borne diseases, the symptoms of Bartonellosis tend to come and go.
Some areas have a very high rate of Bartonellosis organisms in ticks, sometimes much higher than the rate for Lyme bacteria. Research has shown that Bartonellosis may be more often transmitted by fleas than by ticks.