Healthy skepticism or denial?

I don't know exactly what to put in the subject heading. It's more a rambling of thoughts that I'm hoping someone can clarify for me.

I have not been diagnosed with Lyme. I was tested 3 wks ago and was negative on the ELISA, had a very low CD57, and have not had any other tests. I do not have the typical Lyme symptoms of joint pain, fatigue, weakness, etc, though I know there are tons of other symptoms. I have no recollection of a recent tick bite, though I got several as a kid, though I only remember the large ticks and I've never had a bullseye rash. I have lived in NM for 12 yrs, but grew up in MA. I traveled to MA this summer, but do not recall anything but mosquito bites.

Anyway, I have had weird symptoms this summer, but all can be attributed to other things. Anxiety and thyroid imbalances mainly, but also poor diet and sleep which all started after my dog died in May. I've had thyroid issues for years, but the anxiety is new along with the bad sleep. It's not that I can't sleep. It's just been lots of things like my son or I getting a cold, staying up late researching how to help my dog (before she died) and traveling for nearly a month while staying up late and being woken early. I'm not having insomnia.

It seems like Lyme, anxiety, and thyroid can be the cause of practically every ailment. How do you distinguish between them? I know I have low thyroid (per symptoms, lab results, a decade of experience, and low temps). I know I have recently developed anxiety. That could be from the death of my dog, the low thyroid, weaning off 7yrs of steroids earlier this year, possible Lyme, or all of the above.

I wouldn't even be on this page if my doc hadn't mentioned it, though neither of us think it's Lyme at this point since other lab work, history, and symptomology point to other things, yet it's in the back of our minds. Just in case we put me on Doxy 200mg daily, but it gave me a rash so we discontinued after 8 days. I felt no worse on it (no herxing), but it made me super nauseous if I didn't eat with it.

So when do you go hunting for Lyme if you have two other very likely causes of your symptoms? When do you treat even if you have negative test results? Do you just treat the known issues and resort to Lyme when you haven't improved enough?

My gut tells me I don't have Lyme, but there is that what if in the back of my mind. I don't want to ignore something that could really impact my long term health, yet I also don't believe it would be healthy for me to treat a condition that I don't have which has consequences of its own. Long term antibiotics is not healthy, but neither is having Lyme.

I am focusing on getting more sleep and better food now which is helping A LOT, but I still have some weird symptoms, which I think are from anxiety. The primary symptoms of concern are just related to what feels like nerves. I was having tingling/buzzy feelings in my extremities as well as some burning skin, but those are gone. I now just have the occasional feeling like water is being splashed on me, but I had that once before when I first diagnosed with Hashimoto's years ago. It felt like a sprinkler had hit my legs. I remember it distinctly. Anyway, the weird skin/extremity feelings are the only symptom of concern to me because they're weird. I don't have numbness though or trouble feeling. Balance, muscle strength, etc are all fine. It's just a weird revolving door of weird symptoms. First the tingling which went away, then some burning, then some weird chest pain, then a sore shoulder, then the water splashing on me...it's never all at once and overall I am improving as I focus on improving the anxiety. I'm so weird.

Thanks for listening.

I would suggest that you get in treatment for your thyroid issues, and try some anti-anxiety meds for a couple of months to see how you do. If that clears up your remaining symptoms, then you can move forward being relatively sure that you don't have Lyme.

I would say though, that it's not just ticks that spread these infections any more. Mosquitoes, biting flies, ants, fleas, spiders, bed bugs - most any insect that can bite, draw blood and then survive to bite again has the potential to carry these infections because they are so wide spread.

And kudo's to your doc for even thinking Lyme could be a possibility and doing what he could to help in case it was. But 8 days on an abx isn't enough for a herx to occur most likely. Many don't experience a herx until they have been on abx for several weeks or even a few months. It all depends on how high of a toxin load you have.

The typical 1st tier screening test used is the ELISA, which is a horrid test that needs to quit being used - it's not very sensitive at all, and it's based on the immune system reaction with an infection that inhibits the immune system, so it's not very accurate. The Western Blot, which also relies on the immune response (again not smart since the bacteria inhibits the immune reaction) does at least give what bands you show any reaction to and from that we can sometimes help people determine that they do have Lyme due to them testing positive to Lyme specific bands. There aren't very many labs that invest in good testing practices for these tests, although Igenex and Stony Brook Labs do. I would encourage you to have these tests - or the more accurate PCR tests (which test for DNA of the bacteria - ran to see if any thing turns up.

Check out the New to Lyme thread here, there are some treatments described.
https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=1606610

Also buhnerhealinglyme.com

Another treatment some of us use is Byron White Formulas (http://byronwhiteformulas.com/) which are available from doctors' offices, though there's a website somewhere where you can get them on your own.

Thank you!