Severe OCD - Is Lyme / Bart the culrpit?

Hey guys,

Firstly sorry for all this extremely long personal story, I just want to see if anybody can potentially help with what I should do.

Basically I just want to explain this OCD I am suffering in writing to see if maybe you can get a better understanding and maybe point me in the right direction .



I am 24 yr old male and was bitten when I was 15. But had no idea about Lyme until this year.

Basically I took LSD (2 years ago when I was 22) It was a horrible experience for me, I was in a state of panic for 12 hrs and ended up in emergency. The next morning I woke up and I had this intense cramping on the left side of my chest and rib, every moment of the day I was in excruciating pain, so much pain that you could actually see red marks on my chest from how hard it would cramp up, the more anxious I was, the more it would cramp up, It got so bad to the point that the tension actually bruised the inside of my ribs and felt like it cracked and I would have to wait around 2 weeks for this to heal up and in the 2 week period I could barely breathe due to the pain. It was extremely intense. The anxiety and stress from these cramps was so much to the point I was getting panic attacks all the time, mainly because I had never had anxiety in my 22 years and didn't actually understand what it was - Also want to note I still had no lyme symptoms besides this.

Eventually 8 months into these cramps I was extremely anxious about something to do with my work and my friend had given me a XANAX so I had taken half of it and all of a sudden the cramps had disappeared, and i was the most relaxed i had been in a long time. Few hrs later, the cramps were back! This is the moment I realised that this cramping was purely mental and whatever had happened with the LSD had done something to me.

I went to some psychiatrists who did not understand my condition and said nothing was wrong with me, so I stopped looking.

Eventually I realised that if I changed my thought about a body part I could actually move the cramps from the left side of my chest to anywhere on my body in a split second (it was like a superpower), so eventually, I was cramping my throat, my stomach, my sternum, and then each of these had there own problem, either my stomach would mess with my digestion, my throat meant i couldn't swallow or breathe, but eventually if I took my mind off things, the cramps would always fall back to the left side of my chest, which eventually became OK for me to accept because besides the pain nothing else was being affected.

Until one day, (March this year) my mind focused on my eyes, and then out of no where the cramps started in my eyes and the left side of my head (always left for some reason) and this was the most painful week of my life, I couldn't leave my bed because constantly my eyes were strained, i was in so much pain from these cramps that I was unintentionally doing to myself from this mental / OCD issue.

The cramps would cling onto the left side of my forehead and within 2 days I noticed that my hairline on the left side starting to recede, and then every few days if the cramping was really intense the hair would just keep going and going (I never had ANY hairloss before). Then within a week I noticed because the cramping was in my eyes aswell my eyesight started to get worse and worse, week by week (my eyesight was 20/20 and my hairline was completely perfect, I mean I was 24 with absolutely no hair loss or receding hairline so it was all extremely depressing for me)

Within a month the left side of my hairline had lost at least 5cm, I started taking photos each day just to see how every morning I would wake up and depending on how severe the cramps were the day before on my head my hair would fall out and I would wake up with my eyesight 2% worse eachday.

Then after 2 months I noticed ALL my hair started dying, meaning it went from thick to thin and eventually pieces started falling out Everywhere,, the cramping in my eyes all day means I can barely walk outside without my eyes throbbing in pain due to the sensitivity so I believe the sensitivity to my eyes caused the further hair loss.

Yesterday the cramping on my head was so intense that it gives me the worst headache that I was throwing up, so then this morning I woke up and again the area the cramps were focused (my left side of my forehead) has now lost another 1cm of hair as I wake up this morning - Again this is all something I am doing myself but cannot stop.

I open up my photobooth every morning to take a photo of my hairline over the past 3 months just to see how extreme it is. My hairloss is something that somebody goes through over 20 years, I am going through 1 year hair loss in 1 day.

Eventually 2 years later the lyme actually kicked in and then I had the same symptoms as most people, I am bed ridden, no energy, can't think properly but ontop of that I have to deal with this OCD that is physically hurting me each day.

Does anybody have any idea what this is, is this the Bart, is it heavy metals? Is it even related? I mean I had no stress, anxiety or OCD before the LSD incident, so I am just trying to figure out what to do.

Omg you are like me. By the way, the more you take pictures of your hairline, the more ocd you will become. I've learned this. The pictures and videos are justifications that you are not crazy and that it is happening, but it's something your doing all the time...checking. This makes the ocd worse. I have had to make deals with myself to pull away from everything habitual for three days to give my brain a rest.

Hello Julian,


I am so sorry to hear this. It pains me that someone can go through what your going through and not even have a definitive answer to what it is.

I have been battling Bartonella, Lyme, and who knows what else for 2 years. It has been a very long road but I am close to recovery (90% some days) In the beginning, I too had terrible OCD/intrusive thoughts for a long time, 6 months to be exact, before I knew I had Bartonella and Lyme (positive test). Once I was given this diagnosis and received antibiotics, my ocd and intrusive thoughts slowly dissapeared, it took about 6 weeks. I was on doxy twice a day.

However, although the ocd and intrusive thoughts dissapeared, I was still left with many symptoms. It wasnt until I was prescribed Rifampin that I truly turned the corner. I was on Rifampin for 8 months and it saved my life. I am now dealing with fairly minor Lyme symptoms and see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I strongly suggest you start Rifampin along with another antibiotic (doxy, mino) immediatley. God bless you and there is hope.

F-Lyme -
"However, although the ocd and intrusive thoughts dissapeared, I was still left with many symptoms. It wasnt until I was prescribed Rifampin that I truly turned the corner. I was on Rifampin for 8 months and it saved my life. I am now dealing with fairly minor Lyme symptoms and see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I strongly suggest you start Rifampin along with another antibiotic (doxy, mino) immediatley. God bless you and there is hope."


I was treating for over 9 months...but mostly targeting lyme with the antibiotics...and have finally started targeting bart - am on mino and have just added in Rifampin...I'm hoping I have the same results as you. I seem to be herxing almost non-stop. Started with the mino (100 mg daily for a week, then 200 mg) and now rifampin.
Not sure if you will be back on to this thread...but if so...how long for you before rifampin/mino combo started to help with symptoms? (I know it's different for everyone)

Yes, it helps...I have a lot of nervous system issues...CNS and PNS - including brain fog. I have nerve pain, vibrations in my body, shivers happening periodically throughout the day...so I won't expect results too soon...so I'm not disappointed.