Hello all, I would like to start out first by saying how much I appreciate anyone reading this and giving their opinion. I know it is kind of long but I would REALLY appreciate some advice....
about 8 months ago I started getting sick. It started out with huge hives all over my body (never had them before) then I was very ill for a while did not even get out of bed for days. I was receiving academic scholarships at this time which helps me pay for college and I take out student loans to help me raise my son. I have health insurance for my boy but not for myself. At this time my son and I were living with my mother in SE Michigan. The house had a pretty bad mouse problem. We live across the street from a large field. The mice got so bad that when I got home from school there would be mouse droppings on my bed (sorry I just felt I needed to share that). After that I started experiencing all types of weird symptoms such as:
pain in scalp (all over) with a huge chunk of what seemed like dry dead skin.
some hair loss
swollen glands all over
large sore lumps deeper under the skin than pimples, they would pop up on my neck, face and armpits. I could not pop them because they never came to the surface of my skin.
started having anxiety attacks which I never experienced before and slight depression (these both went away)
general feeling of being ill nearly everyday
no energy what so ever
COMPLETE FATIGUE even if I slept a full night. This got so bad throughout my semester that I would not be able to make the 30 min. drive to campus, I would sometimes have to pull over in grocery store parking lots to sleep, other days I would make it all the way to campus but by the time I got there I did not have enough energy to get out and walk to class. Needless to say I started missing classes constantly no matter how hard I tried to make it out there and I was constantly finding myself sleeping in my car in random places. In the end I lost my scholarships and had to drop classes I was actually failing. I was VERY dissappointed in myself. Then I came down with this horrible acne which I never had before and my face turned a bright red that would not go away (similar to mylar). My doc thought lupus and tested me for everything including lyme. He did the western blot right off the bat. Everything negative. I am a very thin girl, I am 5'8" and only about 107 lbs. Durning this time I dropped 20 pounds and I was around 85 lbs. None of my clothes fit and I felt horrible. about 4 months after my initial symptoms, the worst began. My son got very ill one evening, running very high fever and broke out in a few hives (his first time as well). By the next morning I was rushing him to two hospitals including childrens hospital. By this point his joints (knees and ankles) were extremely swollen and he could not bend them. I was running through the parking lot holding him as he screamed and he was stiff as a board. He was in pain if I even touched him. It was horrible. Both hospitals had no idea they blew it off as an unknown viral infection. He seemed to recover a couple weeks later with some antibiotics. A couple weeks later I began with my joint pain and slight swelling. Mostly knees but wrist and thumb as well. Pain changes joints all the time. The year before all this happened I was diagnosed after an MRI with degenerative disk disease, multiple severely herniated disks and pinched sciatic nerve. But I was never in an accident or anything for this to happen and I am only 26. Right before all my symptoms of this present illness I started getting the steroid injections into my spine because I could not walk. Throughout all this I also developed some type of weird rash it is more like blotches. Big white patches on my skin mostly on my legs and my bottom. The blotches are always in the same spot when they appear. Then my hands and feet would randomly turn beat red and blotchy and the veins in hands and feet bulged out of my skin. After a while my feet and hands just bacame numb (especially feet). At times the numbness moves into legs and arms and has a purplish tint. At times my ankles and feet swell up pretty bad as well. Cuts I had would not heal especially blisters on my feet. I had muscle twitching all over my body but it only lasted for a couple days on and off. Now I am starting to have breathing problems, especially when I lay down for bed. One day I had a blind spot when I would try to focus on something such as the computer, when I would look directly at it it would dissappear. then there was flashing lights in my peripheral vision. There are times when I cannot turn my head but I chalked that up to my spinal problems. I have dizziness. Luckily I gained my weight back but it was weird because I gained a lot more than I was before I lost it (which I am very happy about actually looking healthy for once in my life)!! I bruise so easily now all over my legs. Now I have rib cage pain all the time, sometimes my entire rib cage, other times just certain parts. Very uncomfortable. The bottoms of my feet hurt every morning I wake up, even though I was just sleeping all night. Occasionally the bottom of my left rib cage protrudes. I have breast pain and broken blood vessels that pop up all over my body. Just last week my mother told me she believes she has ringworm (to me it looks similar to lyme rash). She also said she is not feeling well and she thinks she may be going through menopause (She is only 42). Then I remembered that our dog had severe arthritis a couple years ago to the point that she could barely stand up and walk. She had it for a while then one day it just went away. I read that lyme in dogs will present with arthritis then the arthritis just goes away. A close doctor friend of mine started me on doxacycline off record since I do not have insurance. If I go to a regular llmd and get a diagnosis, I feel it will hurt my chances of getting insurance with a prior condition. I started taking the meds and felt much worse for about 2 weeks. It got to the point of only being able to stay awake for about 10 min at a time for an entire day and a half. Then I started feeling better. I have a little more energy but I am still having joint pain/ pain in other places/ limb numbness/ swollen feet and ankles so I know whatever it is, its not gone. So here is why I wrote this entire post out. Since I lost my scholarships I am struggling a little more than before (financially), can someone tell me if they think I should still spend the cash on an insurance plan. I dont want to waist the money if it is unneccesary. However I feel if I have it, my son and mother may as well. Please tell me if this sounds like lyme or not. These are hard times right now and I would just like a little guidance. Thank you so much for making it through my extremely long post. Greatly appreciated!!
Christina