We are searching for advice/direction for my 52 y/o brother-in-law who began having mysterious health problems over a year ago. I typed his symptoms into a Google search, and found a site with a long list of symptoms that can be caused by lyme disease, and he has probably half of these symptoms. He lost his job about
18 months ago while living the Lake Tahoe, California area, where they have been known to have lyme carrying ticks, although he denies knowledge of any bites.
After he lost his job as the general manager of a hotel, he wrote it off as his just not being ready for a managerial position. He had been middle management at another hotel for years in another city, and had no problems. After his dismissal he moved back to his previous city, got a job as a desk clerk at another hotel, and within a month he was dismissed from that job as well. We live out of state, and could not see him in person to realize his problems. We heard through his friends that he had lost weight, seemed depressed, etc....so we wrote it off to his having lost his manager job and then just couldn't handle the desk job due to stress.
Right after he lost the second job, he rear ended someone in his car, and the car was taken to a body shop. Then he lost his cellphone, was wandering through a neighborhood looking for a friend's house. He apparently mistook someone else's house for that of his friend, and the residents there saw him walking around on their property and called the police. When the police arrived and asked to see his ID, he found that he had also lost his wallet. He was put on a 48 hour psychiatric hold. Family members who lived several hours away traveled to his city to find out what the problem was. When they found him, his apartment was in disarray, and he wasn't speaking normally. They wondered if he had had a stroke or some other event. He had never had any problems like this before.
They put him on a plane and flew him to our home, which was the best course of action we could think of.....so that we could regroup and figure out what his problem was and get some help. He has been with us for about
a year now, and we still don't know what caused this change in him. Yesterday I typed several of his symptoms into a Google search, and the top hit I got was a site about
Lyme disease. It had a long list of symptoms, and he seems to have several dozen of these symptoms. He doesn't think he was ever bitten by a tick, but we have been unable to get a definitive diagnosis. He has been to a neurologist, an internist, and two psychotherapists, and the most common diagnosis he got was bipolar disorder. I see many more symptoms he has on the lyme disease list than I do on any bipolar disorder list of symptoms. I'm hoping that if I give you some of the symptoms he's exhibiting, that someone might give us an opinion.
From what I've read so far it appears that there is no definitive test for proving if you have lyme disease. Is this true? After I give you his symptoms, I'm hoping someone might also know what other disorders could cause these symptoms besides lyme disease....and if there is any way to test to find out exactly what is going on. Naturally, if he does have lyme disease the sooner it is treated the better. I'm hoping there is a way to zero in on what the actual problem is.
Here are symptoms I saw on the Lyme symptoms list that I think he is experiencing:
* Brain Fog (he used those exact words I believe….said he feels like his brain is in a fog)
• Brain block when trying to focus
• Head unclear, can’t remember, thinking off
• Anger and frustration
• Medical tests have turned up negative
• Difficulty thinking and processing information
• Difficulty planning and organizing
• Difficulty problem solving/decision-making
• Difficulty seeing or taking in the whole picture
• Difficulty multi-tasking
• Difficulty thinking quickly or responding quickly
• Saying something without processing it correctly
• Difficulty making calculations
• Slow processing of information
• Difficulty learning new tasks
• Difficulty maintaining focus and concentration
• Easily distracted
• Inattention, trouble sitting still
• Impatient
• Interrupting others in mid-sentence
• Difficulty in expressing ones self. Difficulty in word finding. Halting speech. Stammering, slow, hesitating.
• Difficulty keeping up in conversation or understanding what is being said. Disrupted participation in conversation.
• Declining performance in work
• Difficulty chewing? ( I see him making chewing motions with his mouth when he’s not eating)
• DIGESTIVE SYSTEM DISTURBANCES
• Stomach upset
• Bloated belly
• Unusual constipation
• Bowels stop working for many days
• NIGHT SWEATS (he said he awakens every night drenched in sweat)
Since he has been living with us, he held two jobs briefly and was dismissed from both. He had trouble learning the necessary components of the jobs, difficulty making decision and simple computations (making change as a store clerk). He is generally cleerful, but gets annoyed and angry when he doesn't agree with what you're saying. His speech is somewhat slow and halting. His whole personality is just different from how it was before, like someone with a mental disability. Also, he has had lots of problems with quivering in his hands. He has trouble doing any hands-on work, and struggles just to figure out where to begin when trying to accomplish a task. He didn't have any of these problems until the last 18 months as far as we know. He has also had lots of problems with his digestive system. about
six months ago he told us he was having trouble urinating. His abdomen became very distended, and we ended up at the emergency room. They had to put in a catheter and drained off 3500 ccs of urine I believe it was. He was released from the ER with a urine bag attached for three days or so. Since then he complains that he urinates too often ("I can't retain water") and he blames it on the catheter and bag he had for three days. He's also had many episodes of constipation. He tried fiber (Metamucil), which didn't seem to help, stool softeners, and finally several enemas. He has borderline constipation on a chronic basis now it seems.
Well, what do you think anyone? He doesn't have any savings, and his only medical coverage is Medi-caid, so I hope we won't need to spend a lot of money trying to chase down what the actual problem is. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Post Edited (SearchingForAdvice) : 3/9/2017 6:34:10 PM (GMT-7)