Quote:
Originally Posted by ksos  Chi,
If you do not mind me asking, do you know how you contracted Lyme disease? I ask, because I never knew it caused pain, for one, and number two, I contracted it around 7 years back when a red circle appeared right in the center of my chest. My MD knew I had two dogs and told us to have them tested and sure enough, there was a big, fat engorged deer tick that was on the inside of my poor dog's ear, which cause her so much itching that she also needed surgery afterwards.
I was placed on some weird antibiotic for forty days, if I recall, and it started with an "H". I never hear of it before, and I forgot the name of it now. I know that the Lyme made me so tired, though, or maybe it was the antibiotic...I just never knew that it would cause pain. Hmm. One learns something every day. |
I dont remember getting bit. I never had a rash. I just know I started having alot of pain last november and wasnt diagnosed until February.
I never knew it could be this bad either.
I did 40 days of amoxicillin then the pain came back. Then I just got done doing 28 days of doxycycline. Both antibiotics.
The pain went away at first but comes back in a few weeks.
It is crazy. I must be in late stages.
Heres what I found on wikipedia.
Symptoms
The Lyme disease bacterium can infect several parts of the body, producing different symptoms at different times. Not all patients with Lyme disease will have all symptoms, and many of the symptoms can occur with other diseases as well.
One early sign of infection is a circular rash called erythema migrans or EM, which occurs at the site of the tick bite. The rash, sometimes referred to as a "bullseye" rash, expands over a period of several days, reaching up to 12 inches (30 cm) across. Most EM lesions remain red throughout or are redder in the center. Only 9% of EM lesions exhibit the central clearance of the classic bull's eye appearance, however.[5] The rash may be warm but is not usually painful. Some patients develop additional EM lesions in other areas of the body after several days.
It is important to note that the EM rash, though considered a "classic" sign of Lyme disease, occurs in less than half of all patients. .[6]The disease can progress even in patients who do not develop the rash. Patients may also experience flu-like symptoms of fatigue, chills, fever, headache, muscle and joint aches, and swollen lymph nodes. In some cases, these may be the only symptoms of infection.
If left untreated, the infection may spread to other parts of the body within a few days to weeks, producing an array of discrete symptoms. These include loss of muscle tone on one or both sides of the face (called facial or "Bell's palsy), severe headaches and neck stiffness caused by meningitis, shooting pains that may interfere with sleep, heart palpitations and dizziness caused by changes in heartbeat, and migrating joint pains. Some of these symptoms may resolve, even without treatment.
After several months, untreated or inadequately treated patients may go on to develop severe and chronic symptoms affecting many organs of the body including the brain, nerves, eyes, joints and heart. Shooting pains, numbness or tingling in the hands or feet, problems with concentration and short term memory, severe weakness, vision problems, intolerance to sound and touch, vertigo, back pain, heart block, psychiatric disorders, and swelling of joints are just some of the myriad disabling symptoms that can occur.
Common bullseye rash pattern associated with Lyme Disease.
Characteristic "bulls-eye"-like rash caused by Lyme disease.The incubation period from infection to the onset of symptoms is usually 1–2 weeks, but can be much shorter (days), or much longer (months to years). Symptoms most often occur from May through September because the nymphal stage of the tick is responsible for most cases.[7] Asymptomatic infection exists but is found in less than 7% of infected individuals in the United States.[8] Asymptomatic infection may be much more common among those infected in Europe.[9]
Other less common findings in acute Lyme disease include cardiac manifestations (up to 10% of patients may have cardiac manifestations including heart block and palpitations[10]), and neurologic symptoms (neuroborreliosis may occur in up to 18%[10]). In addition, simple altered mental status as the sole presenting symptom has been reported in early neuroborreliosis.[11] Patients have been known to get Baker's cysts.
Chronic symptoms
Cases may progress to a chronic form most commonly characterized by meningoencephalitis, cardiac inflammation (myocarditis), frank arthritis, and fatigue.[1] Chronic Lyme disease can have a multitude of symptoms affecting numerous physiological systems: the symptoms appear heterogeneous in the affected population, which may be caused by innate immunity or variations in Borrelia bacteria. Late symptoms of Lyme disease can appear months or years after initial infection and often progress in cumulative fashion over time. Neuropsychiatric symptoms often develop much later in the disease progression, much like tertiary neurosyphilis.
In addition to the acute symptoms, chronic Lyme disease can be manifested by a wide-range of neurological disorders, either central or peripheral, including encephalitis or encephalomyelitis, muscle twitching, heightened sensitivity to touch, sound and light, paralysis [12] polyneuropathy or paresthesia, and vestibular symptoms or other otolaryngologic symptoms[13][14], among others. Neuropsychiatric disturbances can occur (possibly from a low-level encephalitis), which may lead to symptoms of memory loss, sleep disturbances, or changes in mood or affect.[1] In rare cases, frank psychosis has been attributed to chronic Lyme disease effects, including mis-diagnoses of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Panic attack and anxiety can occur, also delusional behavior, including somatoform delusions, sometimes accompanied by a depersonalization or derealization syndrome similar to what was seen in the past in the prodromal or early stages of general paresis