First off, I'm a 25yo(26 in 2wks) male. I'm going to go back in time, to when I first realized I had been infected.
July 2009 - Went to Spring River in arkansas with my then girlfriend. Drank heavily (as most college students do there) but ended up blacked out, puking everywhere, everytime I drank. Looking back, I believe this was my first true symptom of Lyme. Seeing as how I made a fool of myself and the people I was with, my girlfriend at the time decided it was time to part ways. We hadn't been dating all that long, maybe 2 months at most. For some reason, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was depressed for the first time ever, and extremely fatigued. Suffered through it for a while, and started to realize my low dose ADD medication (20 mg Adderall) helped me to "cope" with the "depression."
August 2009 - Whilst driving home to Memphis from Nashville from a gig (I'm a drummer) the fatigue was so debilitating I had to slap myself and chug energy drinks just to make it home. (No adderall that weekend) I went to a buddy's place later that night, where I found the TINIEST tick I'd ever seen in my life. I showed it to my buddy, and he said "Man you should really get checked out for Lyme disease." I quickly dismissed it, because I'd been bitten by ticks all my life, and knew about
Lyme, and I was never going to get it. I had attributed all these weird symptoms to the break up I had just sustained with my girlfriend. "Just get through it" I told myself. Well, a couple of days later, I couldn't get off the couch. SLAMMED. This went on for about
a week, and I started thinking back to the tick. Researched Lyme for the first time ever. All the symptoms fit. I looked in my pubic region where I found the itsy-bitsy tick, and whaddaya know? Red bulls eye rash. BINGO!
I went to the clinic at Walgreens, showed the Nurse Practitioner my rash, and immediately she was convinced I had Lyme. No tests, because she said that the tests are wildly inaccurate, and a round of abx should do the trick. So I did two weeks of Doxycycline, and by the start of week 2 I was back on my feet and feeling great! I was so relieved!
I started Fall semester of my Jr year at the University of Memphis, only days later. I also began taking my Adderall, as I did each semester. That semester was hard, but I got through it.
Spring semester 2010 - I began noticing that my Adderall began losing effectiveness. My Dr at the time attributed this to building a tolerance to adderall, and bumped my dosage from 20mg, to 20mg 2x a day.
This helped. But not for long!
By my next fall semester, I was at 60mg a day. STILL struggling with fatigue, brain fog, the usual Lyme stuff. Only, I had NO clue the Lyme was still present. I just blamed it on insomnia caused by Adderall. I'd stay up for days at a time, because I simply couldn't sleep. It got to the point where I was just downright abusing this powerful stimulant. My doctor asked ZERO questions, just kept bumping my dose.
Spring 2011 - I was up to 80MG a day Rx'd by my doctor. EIGHTY MILLIGRAMS?!?! Good heavens. I just kept feeling worse and worse, but didn't know why. I was also drinking pretty heavily, as I was gigging in bars most nights of the week in a band. I have no problem admitting that I was abusing both alcohol and adderall, but when you feel bad all the time, youll do almost anything to feel better. Boy was I wrong.
I quit that band and pursued DJ'ing, which did nothing for a lifestyle change, only made it worse, really.
I had dropped out of college my Sr year, due to my lack of motivation, and dedication to DJ'ing and playing drums. The adderall simply didnt work anymore, (other than to keep me moving) so why even bother?
September 2012 - I helped coordinate a HUGE 5k benefit at Shelby Farms (LuvMud/LuvGlo) set up all the blacklights, sound etc and DJ'd three days in a row to thousands of people. The stress of the event, lack of sleep, and WAYY too much red bull (it was sponsored... no telling how many I drank) led to some VERY strange symptoms. I had some insane facial paralysis, to the point where I couldnt talk. Knees were purple, mind was a wreck.
By the third day, I had run out of adderall, and still had to DJ another full day. Whilst on stage performing, I had a MASSIVE panic attack. I absolutely freaked. I told the event coordinator I had to take a break. So... I went home to get more adderall. I nearly got lost coming home... it was scary. I took my FULL daily dose of 80mg (supposed to be split up through the day) and sat down on the couch to let it kick in. But here's the scary part. I fell asleep, and didnt wake up until 6 hours later. I looked at my phone - 26 missed calls. I had slept through my entire next set, the breakdown, pack up etc. ALL of my eqpmt left there... in the rain.
I decided then and there, I had to do something about
my health, and fast. I had a sneaking suspicion for months that I still had Lyme and that it was slowly tearing me apart, but this was the camel's back.
After that weekend, I haven't touched Adderall! It was the hardest thing I have ever done, but its over now. I went to an INCREDIBLE holistic Dr in Tunica (won that gamble!) in November, and now Im on a slew of abx and supplements: Mepron, Doxy, Flagyl, Hydrocortisone, cytomel, nyastatin, just to name a few. I'm herxing pretty badly, so I know that they are working. All in all, I'm just happy that I had the brains to finally figure out I was still sick! This has been a LONG frustrating ride, but I'm on the other side of the mountain, hopefully!!
Thanks for reading, it sure feels good to get all of that out!!!
- Adrian
Post Edited (AdrianBerryhill) : 1/13/2013 2:46:50 PM (GMT-7)