Need advice

Hello everyone, I am going through a crisis and might need advice.

To start off, I am a 25yo Second year medical student. As most might know, there is this syndrome called Hypochondria (in medical school it is Medical school syndrome). I am on the forum, because about three weeks ago, I went through an anxiety crisis after learning some cancer pathology. I diagnosed myself with Lymphoma, Oral Cancer, Internal maligancy. During this time, I was really convinced I had them, and visited all of our professors for medical advice. They all did physical exams, and confirmed that it was none of them. During that time, I was so stressed an developped twitches all over the body and JOINT POPPING (sounds like tendons hitting bones). This is still going on until now.

After googling, I came to an old healing member's message (king1422) who had these 2 symptoms and much more (pain, dislocating joints) and was tested positive for LD. This brought much anxiety again, because i'm starting to think I have lyme. Well, I am from PA and the only exposure I can think of was about 4 years ago when we went on a church camp and stayed in cabins. I don't recall being bitten, and have not really been sick.

As of right now, I don't have any joint pain, severe neuro problems, deporsonalization,  eye pain, etc... Only presenting with muscle twitches and 3 joints that are popping (making that sound) alot --> both toes, and right thumb. I went through my professors and they told me that usually, patient with Lyme Disease will develop PAIN of some form. And since we are having exams, they think i'm under school stress (as most of my classmates are presenting with muscle twitches).

My question is, when do you think you were exposed to the bite and how long did it take for the actually symptoms to manifest itself. Were your symptoms prominent such as PAIN, neuropathies and such? Based on medicine, 4 years is more than enough time for major/classical Lyme symptoms to present itself. I have always had some kind of anxiety, and medical school (pathology) has just made it worse.

Sorry for being long, but does it sound like I have LD or it is a case of health anxiety.

Thank you for your reply.

Hi Kidfromtheblock!
Welcome to Healing Well's Lyme Disease forum! I am sorry to hear of the issues you are having! Going through Med school would most definitely cause some pretty serious anxiety IMO!! LOL!

As Carrie said, Lyme can lie dormant in the body for years - even decades, until the right amount of stress is felt by your body - then it likes to come out to play, basically unchecked by the immune system -as you probably already know.

I would think that your best course of action would be to get in to see a LLMD (Lyme Literate Medical Doc) in order to be evaluated properly. Just getting a blood test would not be conclusive, as the tests that are available are not accurate. They require the infections to be active in the blood stream, and they just don't stay there for long.

In my experience, I was infected first with RMSF (the spotless variety) at the age of 5, and I have been infected & re-infected with Lyme, Babeosis, Ehrlichia, and other tick-borne infections many times over the years. Being that I "grew up" being infected, it's hard for me to know what symptoms came from what infection.

As Carrie said - It's great that you are a second year Med student and maybe one day you would be so kind as to look into helping all of us who are infected with tick-borne diseases, by advancing the research or even by becoming a Lyme Literate Medical doctor yourself!! I know we could sure use the help!!