Can Lyme be mild and relapsing/remitting? (long story)

I don't know whether to pursue the possibility of lyme disease or not.
I don't know whether what I feel is anxiety/stress-linked and I should work on that or if I should continue to look for physical causes.

I'm not bedridden and never have been. I've never been in particularly bad pain. And things even got a lot better for about a month. Through it all, I've been able to function pretty normally. And that doesn't sound like most chronic lyme sufferers.

But I still feel like something is wrong. I have no knowledge of a tick bite and symptoms began in winter. I've always had an awesome immune system.

It started 6 months ago with pretty constant mild dizziness and fatigue with some head pressure and a li'l bit of a low fever (there was also one nosebleed, but I don't know if that matters). I'd hit my head skiing a week prior to symptoms starting, so I thought maybe that was the cause.

Then I randomly woke up with night sweats- bad enough to dampen my shirt a lot. I freaked out over leukemia but a CBC was okay. My head pressure increased and combined with some pretty bad derealization, all while mild dizziness continued.

Night sweats and sleeping problems subsided and I haven't had them since.I stress again- NO JOINT PAIN, NO NECK PAIN, NONE OF THAT. CT scan normal.

I kept worrying, and when a part of leg felt numb and I had tingling down that leg, I freaked out about MS.

An MRI was normal, though, and I haven't felt much numbness or tingling since- sometimes in hands, and once my arm felt kind of dead, but I haven't dealth with that for a while.

I have intermittent sore throat and ear ringing. Also I have one floater in my left eye that won't go away, but nothing beyond that.

Dizziness began to subside, but with arrival of what seemed like a faint butterfly rash and mouth sores, I began to worry about lupus. Sometimes my hand joints are a little stiff or painful, but it's barely anything. I worry because my pee is super foamy, but any time I do a dipstick test it doesn't detect any protein.

Sometimes I get shortness of breath but it goes away. Sometimes I feel like I'm vibrating/ heart is going too fast, but when I take my pulse on my neck or wrist it feels normal. Blood pressure has gone up a lot from what it used to be. I also randomly hiccup/burp a lot and sometimes get rib pain.

For about the last month, I was feeling pretty great- basically no dizziness and just felt normal as a whole...but recently, perhaps due to final exams stress, I've felt a distinct return of the dizziness, fatigue, and heart pounding feeling, along with slight headache.

Also, I get a lot of muscle twitches all over my body.


I don't know what to think. I waver between Lyme, lupus, and anxiety.

Anxiety could cause the dizziness and twitches and just general hypervigilance. It did get better and maybe it's just getting worse now due to stress.


But so many things seem like Lyme and it's been so scary to distinctly feel like I'm sick again after feeling better. But would Lyme be so mild and non-progressive in these 6 months?

I'm not bedridden.
I'm not really in pain.
I'm just dizzy and worried and sad and a little off.

I don't know if pursuing an LLMD would be a waste of time and money or whether it would be productive. I also have this fear that they sort of diagnose everybody with Lyme.

I don't know if I should focus on destressing and ignoring or if I should go into the Lyme theory when I don't seem as terribly affected as most people with Lyme, leading me to believe it may just be stress.

cubs103 I am familiar with all of those symptoms. Many are classic for lyme, Bartonella & Babesia.
I'm confused are you new here and never tested or treated lyme & Co.?

I sure would pursue finding a LLMD doc if your lucky enough to have one near you and can afford them.

I have had lyme since I was 23 and now I am 70! Although I didn't begin to feel sick until my 40's I didn't find out I had lyme until 4 yrs ago. It all gets more intense as you get older and your immune system gets worn down.

Your young and your immune system has not had the years and years most of us here have had to hit rock bottom, so don't delay.

Just a guess but its possible that that hitting your head could have brought it to the surface. That happens a lot where some kind of trauma or stress to the body brings it out. But I am glad to hear you have had the docs check out other possibilities.

The other thing that comes to mind is it is possible to get lyme disease form your mother when she was pregnant with you……just something to check into.

I was thinking once finals are over for me to maybe check it out. It's been 6 months without anything getting worse, in fact, many things improved.

But still I got upset when the dizziness and fatigue came back and it might be time to just check, especially with the muscle twitching.

I live in Chicago. Does anyone know of any good LLMD's around there?

thanks, jm. Did you mean "could probably get by ignoring it for years if you chose to though"? Like since my immune system seems to be doing a good job?

I know sooner is better than later though. I worry about spending around 1000 on Igenex and LLMD consultation and it not coming to anything....but then again I've totally wasted a couple thousand before on buying a terrible used car.

So I'd think taking that step to investigating my health has to be worth more than that, right?

I'm going on a West Coast trip for 2 weeks in about 10 days with my boyfriend and I reallllly want to have a good time. Nothing is debilitating, the mild dizziness just is frustrating and upsetting.

Any tips in the short term for feeling good?

No one worth seeing? I'm a college student, I don't even have a car. I did get like two doctor's names in Chicagoland area when I requested them from a website.

http://www.chicagolyme.com

Maybe these people would be able to assist you with info and a support group to give you ideas and options in your area

I think it can be.

For years, all I dealt with was a very slow, mild degradation of my intelligence, mental capacity - so slow to the point where I would just write it off as stagnancy from not feeding my mind as much as I once had, slow to where, in some cases, I just grew used to the changes, because I didn't know better.

Looking back, that was so stupid of me.

Oh, that, and occasional aches, or sounds of stretching or popping, in my a couple of my joints.

Just like you, didn't feel much pain, any of the more serious stuff that many report, but I didn't feel normal either.

It had the chance to grow for a couple years, before I even realized that something serious was happening to me, to realize that it wasn't just me growing stale from inactivity, it wasn't in my head, and set out to find out what was the cause, what I could do to regain my health.

As for what you can do on the short-term to feel better, it may not mean much to you, being in your situation - it never amounted to a whole lot to me, whenever it was said, but it really could be a lot worse, man. Though, I'm sure you already know that, in some way.. just thought I'd reiterate.

I wish I could be where I was at a couple years ago, let alone cured, healthy. I just want a piece of good health, enough to live with.

But, yeah, like you said, sooner is better than later. You could get by ignoring it, yeah, but you'd be sacrificing your future in the process. If you do have Lyme/coinfections, it will hit you, one day, and there will be no denying its presence, trust me.

So, yeah, all you can, and stick with these people on the forum - they, their words are good help. I hope you can draw something good from them, and I hope the efforts you'll be able to make will be enough.

Good luck. Sorry if I'm poor assistance. Ha..