Lyme Disease. How severe can it be?
Just today I had severe chest pains in school. I went to the nurse and told her about the pains and aches I’ve been having for one month. The pains I had included: flank pain, chest pain, joint pain, muscle aches, muscle twictchs all over (feels like somethings curdling inside my body) severe headaches, eye pain and tingling in feet, hands, legs and arms. These pains were spread out since March until now with no relief of the pain. My nurse said it could be lyme disease, so after school (I’m 17) I went to get blood work done and I should get the results back in 4-5 days. I was just wondering can one and a half months of not being diagnosed with lyme disease be enough to cause chronic lyme disease (if I have it)? If so, can it cause heart attacks and such and for how long does the chronic lyme disease last? Help is much appreciated considering I’ve been worrying non-stop for a month and half now. I have no recent history of health issues and I’m on Zoloft for anxiety.
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most lyme desease cases are completly curable, especially if you are able to find it the the first few months. You should be ok if it is lyme disease. Chances are unless you have had a tick bit in the last few months is that you do not have lyme dieses. Believe it or not I take zoloft too for OCD. at one time I experienced extreme changes in my body, loss of memory,confusion,twitching, and many other problems. as it turns out it was the zoloft that I tried to come off of that made me do this. Good luck and try not to worry
March 7th, 2010 at 2:16 amI don’t suggest that you worry yourself sick, but I do suggest you start getting much more proactive about this situation. Lyme disease is serious, serious stuff, which could drastically affect the rest of your life. And for lots of unfortunate reasons, the medical establishment is really not structured to help you diagnose it and treat it properly.
So, you’ve got work to do.
First off, you need to learn about the lab test they gave you. I’d bet big money it was an ELISA test, which has a very high false negative rate. (meaning it says you don’t have it when you actually do.) So, when the doc says "Good news! It’s not Lyme!" you have to be knowledgeable enough and strong enough to force the issue.
Second, for the symptoms you’re experiencing you really should be seen by a Lyme specialist, who has the knowledge and experience to recognize Lyme even when the lab tests are a bust. There aren’t too many of these guys around. I suggest you go to http://www.lymenet.org, click on "flash discussions" and then click on "finding a doctor." Also, the medical discussions forums on lymenet are a good way to connect with people who have gone through what you’re going through, and have wisdom and experience to share with you.
Thirdly, learn as much as you can about this disease. The following websites are a good place to start:
http://www.canlyme.com
http://www.lymeinfo.net
http://www.lymediseaseassociation.org
http://www.ilads.org
http://www.betterhealthguy.com
http://www.publichealthalert.com
http://www.freewebs.com/teenswithlyme
http://www.lymetimes.org
Are your parents supportive? Can you share this material with them? It’s a lot to digest, especially for a young person who isn’t feeling well. Best of luck to you.
March 7th, 2010 at 2:16 amLyme can be so severe that it may make you so fatigued you can not get out of bed for more than a couple of hours or so a day. It can wipe out your ability to think or concentrate on anything. It can give you aches and pains anywhere, especially headaches like you would not believe, neck aches so bad it is hard to hold your head up, muscle and joint pain in your arms , hands, legs and feet. Sometimes these become so bad you drop what you are holding or fall down if you are standing. Lyme wiped out my night vision for 2 years. With rigorous treatment I am on the way back.
Lyme disease is something to guard against. Leave no effort undone to avoid it. If you think you might have it find a doctor who specializes in tick borne diseases as fast as you can. Regular and infectious disease doctors usually will not treat it until it is gone. They take the standard for reporting to the government as the standard for diagnosing you. The 2 levels are quite different.
March 7th, 2010 at 2:16 amI doubt 1 1/2 months is enough. My cousin had it for about a month then got Bell’s Palsy which gave the diagnosis, I’ve had it for almost 2 yrs now, didn’t start treatment until about 4 months ago. I got the arthritis so my doc pulled me out of school about a month ago (I’m 16) but yours wouldn’t be severe enough for that, don’t worry yourself!
As for the blood tests, they suck. Most of it is a clinical diagnosis. Try to write down the approximate dates you remember having certain symptoms (for instance we pinpointed that I got it at the start of June ’06, and we realized that 2 weeks after that I got the flu, a tell tale sign especially in the middle of not flu season). It helps if your doctor knows a thing or two about Lyme and isn’t associated with the ISDA. The ISDA sucks. Their guidelines for Lyme treatment say no more than 2 weeks. I’ve been on Doxycycline, Famvir, Clarythomicin, and a few others that I don’t remember for about 5 months and I’m just starting to feel better.
It can cause problems with pretty much everything (lovely thought isn’t it?). Your nurse seems to know about Lyme, you should ask her for some more information. You’re lucky, I live in Florida, I went through about 20 doctors all saying that there’s no ticks in Florida (even though I said I thought I got it in Old Lyme CT!), that Lyme doesn’t exist, that I was just depressed and making everything up. I fly up to Pennsylvania every 3 months to see my doctor. If you live around there, check out Dr. Swami, he’s a really good doctor.
If you get chronic Lyme it’ll probably last a while, my doc tells me that I’ll probably be on and off antibiotics for the rest of my life. Don’t worry so much though, it definitely won’t help. I know my symptoms are WAY worse when I’m stressed.
If you want more info I don’t really have a good website, I think they all suck but here’s my email (I know tons of doctor names all around the nation lol I’ve been through it alllllllll) lymeelove314@aol.com
I wish you best of luck!
March 7th, 2010 at 2:16 am