Chronic Lyme or Hypochondriac?

Hi All,

I know you can't possibly answer this question definitively, but... I want to share my story and see if I should even be worried about it.

First, I do not have any recollection of being bit by a tick and am not even a person who normally does anything where I would even come into contact with ticks (not since I was a kid anyway and I'm 40).

If I did have Lyme, I have no idea when it would have even started, but years ago - definitely over 10 or more. I have had the "flu" or something numerous times with high fevers over the years (once, 4 times in a year) so I cannot use that to pinpoint anything. I've only had a weird rash once and that was a few years ago, but my symptoms started years before that. I was told the rash was ringworm and from looking at pictures online, it did look more like ringworm than Lyme. It was a small thin red circle with a whitish/yellowish center. No red dot in the middle.

My problems started a long time ago with feeling tired and sleeping a lot. No one has ever been able to explain why. Over the years, numerous unexplained symptoms have appeared and disappeared. I've gone to the doctor for a lot of them, but never got any answers. And then a lot of times the symptom would just go away on it's own or become intermittent. Here is a list in the order I remember:

Severe pains in stomach (sometimes bringing me to my knees)
Chronic fatigue
Stiff neck (chronic)
Hand and head tremors
Night sweats
Panic/anxiety attacks
Sensitive to light and sound (would lay on couch in the dark all day sometimes)
Severe mood swings, became delusional once (ended up being diagnosed with bipolar disorder - no prior history in the family)
Poor memory, spaciness, forgetfulness, forgetting words, trouble expressing myself, difficulty concentrating (chronic)
Irritability
Constantly bouncing leg
Numbness in arm
Chronic diarrhea which suddenly changed to severe chronic constipation
Knee pain (once for months)
Very low blood pressure
Repeating UTIs and small amount of blood in urine
Difficulty swallowing
TMJ
Pain in my wrists
Sharp shooting pains in ear and along jawline
Swollen hands with numbness, tingling
Some kind of dermatitis on my cheeks
Early awakening
Heart palpitations (PVCs), fluctuating resting heart rate

This is where I'm at right now. As I am writing this, I am wearing a cardiac event monitor for the PVCs.

Even though I know these are a lot of symptoms, I have always kept a full time job. I say that to point out my symptoms have never become debilitating, which is one reason why I'm questioning if Lyme is even possible.

I came here because someone mentioned to me PVCs can be caused by Lyme and when I looked up the symptoms, noticed I had a lot over the years. The main thing that is driving me crazy is my cognitive functioning, fatigue and just feeling that I should feel better. My husband and my mother think I'm a hypochondriac and are tired of me trying to find out what's wrong. I'm really frustrated, but at the same time think maybe they're right. Maybe I am just paranoid. I am functioning and not in any severe pain. On the other hand, I'm frustrated that I just don't feel right a lot of the time.

Any advice?

Thanks.

Hi,

Thanks for the replies and support. That's the thing that bothers me - that the blood tests are not accurate. I have read they can give a false positive. I am scared to death of taking antibiotics long term without even having a definitive test. If I could just get a test and know for sure, this would be so much easier. Plus I've read 2 of the most commonly used antibiotics are Zithromax and Amoxicillin. Both of those give me severe stomach pain.

Even though my list of ailments are long - the ones having to do with pain or numbness, tingling went away fairly quickly (except my knees that one time) and either never came back or are rare now and short term.

You'd think I'd be consistently getting worse... ? Could I have Lyme and never get to a debilitating point?

Thanks again.