Lyme Disease

Anyone ever have issues with this?

I developed it from a tick bite a while back and had gone undiagnosed and asymptomatic for the most part for god knows how long.

Recently I had gotten multi course antibiotic therapy for a sinus infection and became almost housebound sick from herxing reactions since, then getting a proper diagnosis of lyme.

I force myself to continue to work but had to drop out of school temporarily to treat this…

I had no real symptoms for a while except constantly being sick too often, and issues gaining size even while eating in extreme excess and having an awesome program and the like for those two years.

Recently I had symptoms of fatigue that were pretty bad on and off again before the antibotic treatment I did several months ago, as well as sensitivity to light and sound, hypersomnia, and other weird neurological things that would come and go…

After the antibiotic therapy the fatigue become extremely intense, had developed really bad sleep issues, and chronic neurological pains, random weakness, twitches, cramps, spasms, severe vertigo, ear ringing, and really bad cognitive and behavioral changes like feelings of dementia, and personality changes, drowsiness, lethargy, depression, mood swings, bouts of extreme agitation etc… I also have mild chronic brain encephalopathy, hypo perfusion in certain areas of the brain, as well as issues with POTS/OI that come and go.

I also have been getting severe bone and joint pain when herxing for a few days at a time using treatment protocols with flu like symptoms along the other chronic symptoms that have seemed to come and go in severity…

I am seeing an LLMD lyme specialist to treat this currently.

I also have been using some supplemental antibiotic herbs and other system management supplements that have helped a ton.

Hopefully I can treat this relatively quickly and get my life back soon enough, its been really rough but at least I have the correct dx and am getting treatment! I would suggest everyone be sure of having awareness of this very underdiagnosed disease and get tested themselves!

Here is a link to current treatment guidelines by Dr. Burrascano

http://www.ilads.org/files/burrascano_0905.pdf

Here is a good documentary with plenty of information for you and your health.

Did you get the bullseye rash?

Lymes is terrible, watched a few people die in older age from complications. Get your shit taken care.

Good luck man.

Your timeline is a bit confusing. When did you realise you had Lyme? Why do you think you weren’t able to make gains? I’m guessing your body was using incredible amounts of energy trying to fight this thing.

[quote]Gettnitdone wrote:
Your timeline is a bit confusing. When did you realise you had Lyme? Why do you think you weren’t able to make gains? I’m guessing your body was using incredible amounts of energy trying to fight this thing.[/quote]

Sorry lol, I had started developing worsening progressive fatigue over a year and a half ago, then had the start up of severe symptoms during antibiotic therapy several months ago…

I had been bitten multiple times in my life by ticks, both in CA, NJ, and possibly in PA…

I do not know which tick bite did me in though, I had once pulled off 8 ticks while with my ex girlfriend here in California in 2011, and had probably picked some up in PA with my other ex girlfriend sometime in late 2012. I believe i contracted it sometime around this time period.

I had issues with gaining weight and staying healthy sometime in early 2013. though the fatigue had a time lapse of several months following weird changes in body weight and the like.

I had good timing with treatment though as a few times I felt my heart almost stopped and had to check myself into the ER more then a few times as a result of that, for some reason I have issues with extremely low blood pressure as a result of infection.

Have you stayed lean?

Hope you end up okay, after you’ve had it for a couple of months you can get neurological damage, and if it’s persisted longer, bad things like arthritis and more severe neurological issues

Here’s some videos of it disseminating throughout your body
http://www.plospathogens.org/article/fetchSingleRepresentation.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000090.s002
http://www.plospathogens.org/article/fetchSingleRepresentation.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000090.s003
http://www.plospathogens.org/article/fetchSingleRepresentation.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000090.s004
http://www.plospathogens.org/article/fetchSingleRepresentation.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000090.s007

Here’s the article that it’s from, there’s some more if you want to scroll down and check them out

Fyi, for anyone else, if you ever notice the red bulls-eye that someone mentioned above, don’t delay, go see a doctor immediately, eg same day.

That shit scares me. My wife and I bought our first house last year and we are in Central NY (Upstate for the NYC people) and our house is surrounded by 300 acres of dense woods. We bought the house in spring and our 2-year old loves being outside, like if it’s over 40 we are outside for 10+ hours a day just exploring the woods. I sprayed our lawn and the side of our house every 2 weeks from the time we moved in (April) to the end of October with a product called Cutter and treated all our clothes with permethren (sp?) and the shit still scares me.

If you don’t remove the tick within 24 hours, you get the rash, if you don’t get the rash treated within a few days, you get Lyme Disease, the longer you go without treatment, the worse it gets. It’s just a fucked up thing. I’m sorry to hear you have it man, it sucks. I have a few friends that had to quit their jobs while they dealt with it after being undiagnosed and even when they were able to go back to work they’ve never really felt “normal” again for more than a few days at a time. One of my wife’s friends who has it is a teacher and she literally works mon-fri and then sleeps all weekend. Like wakes up saturday night and eats and goes back to bed after a few hours and wakes up Monday for work.

I did stay lean but dropped about 30 pounds in the span of half a year, despite relatively normal diet, obviously I took into consideration of de conditioning as I have not been able to work out… But still seems odd.

Fyi bulls eye rash only happens about 40 to 50% of the time, it is no way a good indicator of knowing you are infected or not… I think they mention a flu like illness which happens at the first stage of infection is a better indicator.

Regular testing probably helps.

Thanks for the links definitely interesting to see how the little fuckers operate lol, also the documentary under my skin is really fucked up, I feel so horrible that those people are suffering that badly! I hope they can get better or don’t have to endure so much more of it.

To be honest this stuff isn’t really provoking much a fear response out of me though and honestly I don’t fear death either so in the possible case it does stop my heart, shut my brain off I am not gonna let it run my life or make me miserable…

@Jscoope

It can be harder to treat in later stages but usually most people can make a full recovery as long as the entire bacteria is eradicated from the system… A lot of times it may seem to be “cured” but in reality people are still walking around infected until they have a major flare up again and it is obvious that it is still there. It really takes a specialist and really aggressive and pro longed treatment to clear everything out, especially co infections which most traditional antibiotics do not treat.

I wonder if your friends and wife’s friends still have some form of co infection or active ongoing infection that would explain the ongoing fatigue, I would definitely suggest getting more accurate testing if I was them through IgeneX or LabCorps; also getting in touch with an LLMD for a long term treatment and maintenance plan.

There are also some natural anti tick sprays you can use on you and your families clothing while going outside, as well as making sure your skin is covered and doing routine tick checks.

I contracted Lyme Disease when I was younger. Full-blow bulls-eye rash and everything. Luckily, I got to the doctor soon enough that it never developed any further. That shit was scary though.

How the hell have you been bitten so many times? I spent a lot of time in the outdoors over the last fifty years and have yet to get bit. Little fuckers creep me out though so maybe I am more vigilant.

My Dad got Lyme’s disease a while back, when he was working in Bahrain. Unfortunately, everywhere he went to kept telling him it was impossible, as Lyme’s disease doesn’t exist in the Middle East. This was even though he knew he had been bitten by a tick (letting the dogs sleep on the bed with them, as well as actually finding the tick responsible). He was given various over-the-counter antibiotics that did nothing to help.

He went without proper treatment for almost a year; at the worst he was suffering from crippling full-body pain that would leave him curled up and whimpering on the floor. He finally found someone that diagnosed it and put him on emergency treatment (iirc he was on an IV drip every day for 3 months). He developed asthma shortly after.

Fast forward a few years and he now has really bad arthritis in his hands (my family on both sides have no history at all of arthritis) and a few months ago he suffered a stroke; he only admitted the other day that he can no longer sign his name any more.

I know it’s kind of an extreme case, but shit really is nasty.

I had Lyme and talked about it at length in another thread: Lyme Disease / Lower Body - Injuries and Rehab - Forums - T Nation

It’s definitely a nasty disease.

damn yeah good thing you caught it early!

          I don't know how I have been bitten so much lol, to be fair though this is over the period of my entire life, once when I was really young in jersey, then pulling the 8 off I found hiking with the ex girlfriend.. Have no idea how I got 8 of them on me then.. And then like one while visiting my other exgirlfriend in Pennsylvania. So fucking pissed about it though, its pretty much ruined my life as of now, I am just hoping I can get better soon and start normal living again..

        damn man that is pretty extreme about your dad, does he have noticable inflammation in his hands in joints? or is it not that visible to the eye? I definitely had the inflammation and bone / joint pain but it was never really ever noticeable from the outside, maybe cause I caught that part early?I had no idea you could get it in the middle east though that is intense!  

It sounds like in your dads case though he is still dealing with an ongoing case, has he seeked treatment for his ongoing issues yet? Things like athritis usually go away once the bacteria is fully cleared out. Usually it takes much longer then 3 months of IV treatment in late stages.

It also infects the heart and causes complications like endocarditis and bacteria breaking off into the brain can cause strokes… I wonder if it was an issue of the lyme bacteria causing that? It definitely did weird things to my heart, and very notable things to the brain as well…

Thanks for the link Dr. Pangloss, very interesting stuff!

In regards to anyone that knows someone, or is possibly infected themselves I would highly suggest getting on a combination of herbal Samento and Banderol supplementation. It may not be a cure in and of itself but it has certainly helped me.

I live in Bahrain and have also tested positive for lyme. I am also being told the same thing that it’s impossible as lyme doesn’t exist here. Where are you from ? I am from UK but the test there was negative but the one from Igenex USA was positive on 7 bands. Where did your dad get treated as nobody will accept my results even though I’ve been sick for almost 7 years

[quote]jenbah wrote:
I live in Bahrain and have also tested positive for lyme. I am also being told the same thing that it’s impossible as lyme doesn’t exist here. Where are you from ? I am from UK but the test there was negative but the one from Igenex USA was positive on 7 bands. Where did your dad get treated as nobody will accept my results even though I’ve been sick for almost 7 years[/quote]

I actually made it quite some time ago. Anyways I caught it in Pennsylvania and was diagnosed in California. My father was never treated it was just me. I was also negative on the standard western blot but positive on the IgeneX western blot.

The western blot that is traditionally given only tests for a very few strains of the bacteria, whereas the IgeneX version through that lab tests various other strains. I am currently under the care of a doctor attached to Los Robles hospital local to me. I was told of these test differences from my own doctor. That info alone makes me more confident in treating the correct issue, on top of my obvious exposure obvious Lyme symptoms. I had also seen major improvements in symptoms since starting, though it has been a very up and down process.