20 year old male recently diagnosed with lyme, overwhelmed

I'm not Mustard Seed, but I have had all those symptoms and more. I had a doctor scream at me that if I didn't start MS treatments that day, I would die -that was about 25 years ago, and I've never had MS treatments.

Here's a different way to look at it. MS has no cure, treatments are meant to help you live more comfortably and longer is all. Lyme doesn't have a cure, but you can put it into remission. Lyme is frequently misdiagnosed as MS because the symptoms can be so similar, and there is so much controversy out there about Lyme.

So, by trying Lyme treatments, even if you do have MS and Lyme, you could at least lower your symptoms, if not put them in complete remission.

elymenate said...
Mustard Seed, from what you can gather from my symptoms, do you believe I could have both lyme and MS?

I'm not much of an expert on MS. I believe it's diagnosed via lab tests like lumbar puncture (looking for certain markers), MRI (looking for lessions), and other testing to see how fast your nerves react to stimuli. I don't know how you'd do on these tests.

Even if you did all these tests and came back positive for MS, that still doesn't rule out Lyme.
Maybe you have only Lyme.
Maybe your Lyme has triggered MS.
One thing is for sure though, we know you don't have "just" MS, because of the positive Lyme test.
The flu-like symptoms on top of that makes this a slam dunk.

Regardless, your #1 treatment option right now should be Lyme treatment (whether that be pharmaceutical or herbal). If you could get a copy of your full Lyme test results from your doctor and post them here that would be great too, so we could see exactly what antibodies your body is producing.

As a guy similar age to you, my best advice would be this:

1.) Book an appointment with a well-respected Lyme Literate Medical Doctor.

2.) Read "The Wahls Protocol". This lady is an MD who had MS. She cured herself with a very specific diet, basically overloading her body with vitamins and nutrients from natural sources. She's now doing scientific MS trials with her diet. Amazing story, amazing book. It will change the way you eat forever. Here's a TED talk she did a while ago (before writing her book I believe):

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc

3.) While you're waiting for your LLMD appointment, read "Healing Lyme: Second Edition" by Buhner, and start adding in some of the herbs he recommends asap.

4.) Start a small detox protocol and build it over time.

Don't wait for your LLMD appointment to start treating.

julymorning said...
What he's saying is MS is a name given to a bunch of symptoms. Like saying you have a painful arm, without identifying the cause as a broken arm.

Lyme often creates symptoms that can be mistakenly called MS. Lyme disease is an actual bacterial infection. MS doesn't have a known specific cause.

Not mistakenly sometimes. It's 100% accurate to say someone has both MS and Lyme, if the Lyme presents with autoimmune components that attack nerves.

Post Edited (Mustard Seed) : 4/28/2017 1:44:41 PM (GMT-6)

Hi scottharry - welcome to our community!

Are you currently being treated for Lyme disease?

Feel free to share your story with us here.
It's a great group - lots of knowledge and support.


We encourage our new members to take a look through the thread at the top of the page titled: "New to Lyme?..Start Here!" It's packed full of useful information.

Hi elymenate (clever name),
Welcome to the forum. I'm not the patient - my 20 year old daughter is. She had symptoms for a year - was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and tested for MS before we found an MD who did the Western Blot with both Labcorps and Igenex, and she came back CDC positive. Before she was diagnosed with LD (she had 2 Elisa tests for Lyme which came back negative), we were actually hopeful for a diagnosis like M.S.!! It seems crazy now, but we were so puzzled by all of her symptoms (including neuro symptoms such as a tremor), and she was so debilitated, that we wanted a diagnosis that made sense. I'm super glad that she is properly diagnosed now, and will start antibiotic treatment soon. She is detoxing in the meantime.

I've already heavily relied on this forum to provide me with info, and a place to vent - so I'm happy you found it too.

scottharry said...

elymenate said...
I had also never found a rash on me, but did experience flu like symptoms 2-3 weeks before my other symptoms started appearing.

My symptoms almost from onset are numbness and tingling (I can still feel things, just an odd feeling), muscle twitching, muscle spasms, headache, fatigue, gastrointestinal problems (diarrhea, constipation, loss of appetite), blurry vision, and post urinary dribbling. Are these things that Lyme can do?

Did you experience any kind of trauma prior to your symptoms starting that you may recall? Can be a road accident, a death in the family, got very drunk and loss memory for a while - anything like that is classed as a trauma that can trigger off Lyme if you should already be carrying the bugs and they are being contained/deactivated by the immune system. Then when the trauma occurs the immune system gets compromised / turned off for period and they become active and you get symptoms quite all at once. I this way you could of been bitten as a young child and your immune contained it at the time best it could.

Scottharry,
Welcome and sorry you have to go through this. In answer to your question about trauma activating the disease, all I can say is possibly. I ask myself this question also. Last June, we had an avalanche of stressful events while traveling. A month later I started having symptoms and got shingles. 2 months after that, the $%&¥¢ hit the fan and I became incapacitated with fatigue and all the rest of the Lymeco & ebv symptoms. I don't know when I was bit. I can't help but think the travel stress may have been the trigger.

I've had worse stress in the past 10 years, illness & death of both parents, death of 2 dogs, auto accident that required a painful surgery. One of my current symptoms, pyriformis syndrome has been around for about 10 years and flared during my mom's demise and after a dog died. The travel incidents weren't as stressful as the other things I mentioned. I'll never know when I was infected, but suspect it may have been further in the past than last year. You'll probably never know. Ruminating on it isn't healthy, forward........