Hi Colin!
Welcome to our community!! I'm so glad you found us!
I would encourage you to look further into Lyme treatments as well. The symptoms you list are very much in line with having Lyme, and the MS drugs will set you backwards in your healing if you actually have Lyme.
And no one can tell you how long you will need to be in treatment as it differs for each of us. I healed very quickly for someone who had these infections for over 40 years, others need to be in treatment longer for many reasons.
If you haven't yet, it would be helpful for you to start with reading through the thread at the top of the forum titled,"New to Lyme?...Start here!!", as it is packed full of important information, symptom lists, helpful links and pdf's, how to detox when one has these infections, information on probiotics and much more.
For more information on finding an ILADS (International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society) trained LLMD in your area, you will need to enable your email option in your profile in order to receive any recommendations, as we don't allow doctor's names and contact info to be posted on the forum for several reasons. You can enable your email option in your profile, under 'edit profile'. Be sure to click the submit button to actually save your preference.
You can send me an email by clicking on my screen name or the small blue envelope under my screen name. I may have contact information for some LLMD's in your area as well. Please include your state and area that you would like to find a LLMD in and I will see how close I can get to your
location.
You can also email the Tick-Borne Disease Alliance at[url]
[email protected] for LLMD referrals and you can go to
tbdalliance.org/ to learn more about
these infections.
You will want to find an ILADS (International Lyme And Associated Diseases Society) trained doctor, as ID Docs (Infectious Disease Doctors) believe Lyme is hard to catch and easy to treat, and don't believe in the reality of chronic Lyme. Go to the ILADS site to read the new (2014) Treatment guidelines to get you started on your Lyme journey.
www.ilads.org/lyme/ILADS_Guidelines.pdf