Sore Temple - Only Left Side - Happens when either exercising or talking loud??

Hi April8

Welcome to the forum!

Glad to hear you got a clear diagnosis and timely treatment.

It is usually recommended that you continue treatment 2 months beyond the cessation of symptoms. At least according to the International Lyme and Associated Disease Society (ilads.org

Have a look at our "New to Lyme?" thread at the top of the forum. It has a lot more resources like that as well as a good section on detoxing.

Detoxing can really make a lot of difference even for someone like you who has a good diet, healthy immune system and a very active lifestyle. Give it a try!

It comes only during flare-ups. As I said, I've been off the antibiotics for a while now. It only happens when I am tired, exercise or talk loudly (like during basketball practice). You could say 'throbbing' I suppose, but the main thing is it's sore/tender to the touch. When it calms down it's normal (or like my right temple). To me it's visibly noticeable, like after I come back from a run.

Hi April!
I get those types of pain in the temple - although mine is on the right side. It's part of the headaches that I have from my Bartonella infection. Have you been checked for the other tick-borne infections that usually travel along with Lyme Disease?

Three weeks of abx really isn't enough to kill off enough bacteria since you were infected in June and you started treatment in November. Here is an excerpt that I wrote in another post, to someone else that wanted to know if three weeks of abx was enough to see a difference in their symptoms:

" in three weeks you may not have even reached a point where enough of the active spirochetes have been exposed to the abx in your blood to have made even a dent in your infection. Time for science! LOL! The bacteria can move between three different forms;
*Spirochete form - this is the active form that can be found in the blood and killed with abx.
*Cyst form - these little buggars can actually "cloak" themselves, making them invisible to the immune system, allowing them to avoid any attacks.
*Cell Wall Deficient form - I believe this is the form that lives in biofilms, a nasty mix of things that actually create a safe 'community' where bacteria and other non-goodies can thrive and stay safe from all attacks as well.

So in order to make a real difference in your bacteria loads, you have to be on a strong enough dose of abx for a long enough time to catch the bacteria in the blood stream. Unfortunately these bacteria don't show up in the blood as often as other bacteria. Most bacteria repeat their life cycle in 24 hours or less - B.burgdorferi (the infecting bacteria of Lyme Disease) life cycle is actually more like 2 - 3 weeks."

I should also add that just one or two rounds of catching these bacteria in the blood stream is rarely enough to make much difference in the bacteria load your body is likely dealing with - unless you were one of the lucky ones who had a tick attach, had a bulls eye rash show right away and got treatment started within days of that appearing. Then the infection is still trapped within the skin only, which makes it easier to kill off.

So I'm going to bump this thread as I'm still dealing with the issues stated in my original post. I've been down just about every path imaginable and no doctor can give me a diagnosis. I'm now under the care of the best headache doc in the states, taking a high dose of indomethacin and unfortunately it doesn't seem to be doing the trick.

It'll be three years since the symptoms started and I feel like I've made almost no progress. Just when I think I'm getting somewhere the symptoms return. It's now beginning to affect my work as travel is very difficult. I recently had to return early form an overseas trip because the discomfort was so bad.

Any ideas? Things seem to be getting very slowly worse. I'm wondering if a PICC line of some abx is the next step. That's about the only thing I haven't tried. Again, the area that is affected is around my left temple, that's pretty much it. I've learned to tolerate it but like I said it's been getting progressively worse. I've been to every doctor imaginable.

Thanks for any insight/replies.