Recurrence of Lymes Disease?

Hi,

I'm new to this forum, and I was wondering if anyone can shed light on this to help me and my doctor figure this out.

I was diagnosed with lymes disease as a child, twice. Both times, I was treated with antibiotics and seemed to get better. I was diagnosed in the flu-like symptoms stage and I lived in an area with deer ticks, but never came back positive on a blood test.

Now I'm in my mid 20's. I started seeing a chiropractor, and things started getting odd. I'd have muscle tightness after adjustments and this was throwing the chiro for a loop. He told me a few visits in that I was a "special" case. After an adjustment one day, I had my shoulder and arm tighten as if I had pulled it. In the weeks after, I started getting tingling sensations in my head on the left side that felt like burning. These lasted 30 seconds or less. I also felt like my brain was pushing on my head. This sent me to a neurologist who could only point to a nerve being pinched in my neck. I soon noticed I was getting muscle tightness everywhere. I started getting swelling in my right heel and the achilles tendon started flaring up. Not too much later, I started getting sick. This turned into a lot of heat in my neck (and tightness), heat in my spine, pain between shoulders. I woke up one morning feeling very hazy and had a fever, sickest I've felt in a long time. Went to urgent care, and got antibiotics. I thought I had an ear infection as I had a cyst in my ear at the time, but I think this was a misdiagnosis. During antibiotics, I had burning in my feet and upper back at times, continued pain in my upper/middle back, rib soreness, extreme fatigue. My joints started popping/cracking around this time and were almost painful. I had blood work done during this time that came back as high white blood cell (just barely) and high calcium (again, just over the borderline). I took Augmentin at first and was switched to Sulfameth/TMP. The chiropractor thought that nutrition was a problem before I got sick, and the neurologist thought I needed to take a supplement as well, so I was taking a potent multi-vitamin and Migrelief (a mix of magnesium, b12, and feverfew). I got my blood tests back about a month after I took them (lab forgot to send them...) and I stopped taking the supplements. I'm taking a blood test in a week to find out if my calcium and PTH are normal, but Lymes Disease just occurred to me as a possible cause.

After I stopped the supplements, my body relaxed a bit. After antibiotics, a lot of symptoms have gone away, but the one that keeps bothering me is my joints cracking and popping. It isn't painful, but it happens daily when I wake up and I hear it a lot in my wrists throughout the day. I still get it in my ankles, hips, wrists, and knees. My shoulders also grind a bit and this shifts from side to side. When I was sick, I had very loud cracking sounds from the ankles and hips. I think my doctor is chasing the high calcium levels, but would a recurrence of Lymes Disease make sense because of the chiropractic? I know this is super long, but please, any help would be appreciated. I never used to have my joints crack, even during chiropractic, until I got sick this last time. They still crack, albeit a bit less than before, but it scares me every morning and when I crack throughout the day.

Hi Sagan,

Welcome to the forum!

I agree with the others that it sounds like Lyme. Take some a few moments to read the "New to Lyme.. Start here" thread at the top of the forum. There are symptom lists there -- you may recognize somethings about your self that you just thought were part of normal wear and tear.

It could well be that you were not treated thoroughly when you had Lyme when you had a child and then stirred things up when you had the message, as the others suggested.

The best thing for you to do would be to go to a Lyme Literate doctor and get an evaluation. It would be a shame for the disease to get a hold of you at this point in your life -- or any point, for that matter!