Looking for advice

I am a 39 year old male. I've been struggling with various symptoms really for the past year and a half (since I had my appendix removed). I'm not sure what my best recourse is moving forward.

At times over the past year and a half I've had jaw pain, pain behind my eye that led to an CAT Scan that came up clean, general muscle fatigue and lack of energy, and I've been treated for GERD for the past 6 months.

about 6 weeks ago I woke up one day aching/joint pain from head to toe. I felt very weak and most of my body ached. If I had a fever it was very low grade. No headaches. I also had abdominal pain that felt like hunger pains (even after I ate). The abdominal pain and aching gradually began to subside. Around the same time I started experiencing muscle twitching all over my body. The twitching has been most noticeable when I'm in bed at night, but throughout the day there will be a twitch here and a twitch there. The part of my body that had the most twitching are my calves, but the twitches impact every part of my body (head, abdomen, legs, arms, face, back, buttocks, feet, hands). I still have occasional joint pain though it is far from debilitating. Occasional aches in my knees and fingers and some lower back pain and moderate neck stiffness. My left thumb is a little more consistently sore. I first recall twitching last summer. It was specifically in the muscle at the base of my left thumb. This went on for a few months and then stopped. I don't recall any twitching after that until it started all over my body roughly 6 weeks ago.

Over the past two months I've also felt a bit foggy from a mental standpoint. I feel like my memory isn't as sharp as I struggle to remember names and details of things that took place recently. I also feel like I'm hyper-sensitive to light and sound.

While my aches and abdominal pain have improved over the past six weeks I've been feeling weak or fatigued in my muscles, particular my arms/hands. What has me worrying is the fact that my father was diagnosed with ALS around the same time most of these symptoms came on (6 weeks ago). I was under a lot of stress at the time of his diagnosis and wonder if my body sort of crashed when I found out. I also wonder what degree some of this is in my head at this point. I know there is a difference between muscle weakness and fatigue, but am having a hard time differentiating. My forearms often feel dead or frozen. My hands are quicker to tingle than they have in the past, but usually only when provoked (weight on them impacting circulation). Same with my feet. I feel like I've lost some dexterity, especially in my left hand, but I can't say for sure that I have lost strength.

I am curious about lyme because I am an avid outdoorsman and spend a great deal of time in forests and fields in Central and Southeastern Pennsylvania. I'm a prime candidate for it. I should be clear that I never noticed a rash and I don't recall having a fever in the last couple years. I also have not had headaches outside of a couple months last summer that led to the CAT Scan that came up clean. I'd love some feedback on my symptoms as I'm not sure if my next step should be to seek an LLMD or get a referral to see a neurologist. I'd love to get some suggestions for LLMD's in the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania area though I'm not sure what the protocols on this board are for that kind of information.

Thanks for reading.

Rumble, the symptoms you have described are almost identical to mine. Especially the muscle twitching/spasms (body-wide, but mostly in calf muscles). The characteristic nature of Lyme is in its transience and migration. In other word, the symptoms come and go, as well as move to different parts of the body - a knee will swell up, then a shoulder will ache, then your hand will go numb, etc. Kind of like the "Whack A Mole" game. Lyme also infects multiple systems - joints, muscles, bones, connective tissiue, cardiac system - and frighteningly the nervous system, affecting thought-processing and cognition. A my worst, I was unable to finish my sentences or to calculate a tip at a restaurant.
It sounds like you have Lyme. If I were you I would make an appointment with a LLMD. If you do have Lyme, you will NOT get properly treated via a 'traditional doctor.' That includes infectious disease specialists and neurologists. Like AIDS in the 1980's, we are on the frontier of a misunderstood disease which is a political football, and the medical community is just not with it yet. We patients know more about our disease than our doctors do.
Please know that typical serology testing (ELISA) that you would get from your PCP or at a hospital is WOEFULLY inadequate and unreliable. A clinical diagnosis will be sufficient for a LLMD to begin treatment, but he/she will probably order some more sophisticated tests just the same.
Additionally, I would be concerned about your father's ALS diagnosis. There is strong evidence of a link between Lyme and ALS (as well as Parkinson's and MS), and there is no definitive test for ALS. Like Lyme, it is a clinical diagnosis of exclusion. There is a school of thought that ALS might be simply profoundly advanced Lyme/neuroLyme. I think it would be well worth it to explore the possibility that your father might have Lyme.
I wish him and you good luck and Godspeed.
Please feel free to contact me privately if I can help with any more questions. This can all be overwhelming at first, and there is a great deal of confusion. Hard to sort it all out on your own...