New to Lyme - Breast Worries

Hi Justascarf!
I am so very sorry that you have a need to be here, but I am sure glad you found us! I'm sure you will find a whole lot of information here, but almost more importantly - lots of support!!

Did you mean that you have read through our "New to Lyme?...Start here!" thread? If not, I would highly encourage you to do so!! It's packed full of relevant information, symptom lists and informative links that have been put together by our members here! Most of those who have read through it have said that it was very helpful!!

We also have a pretty good search function on this forum to help you narrow down your search for information from past posts. We must be our own health advocates now and the best thing to arm yourself with is knowledge about our infections and the different ways to treat them!

You do have enough of the symptoms that I believe it's wise for you to be evaluated by a Tick-borne disease specialist. You do have the option of using abx (anitbiotics) alone to treat, abx and herbals (many have found this to be very helpful), or by 'natural' treatments alone or in combination with abx.

If you want to use abx in any combination or alone, here are some places to contact for a referral:
For information on finding a Lyme Literate Medical Doctor(LLMD) in your area, please email our long time member, Dan's Mother at:[email protected]

You can email Stephanie at: [email protected] You can also go to: www.turnthecorner.org/ if you want to learn a little bit more about Lyme Disease.

You can also go to The Lyme Disease Association and search for LLMD's 3 times in a month. You have to register first. Here is the link:www.lymediseaseassociation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=277&Itemid=74

You will want to find an ILADS (International Lyme And Associated Diseases Society) doctor. The ILADS site is another great place to read to get you started on your Lyme journey. www.ilads.org/lyme_disease/treatment_guidelines_clearing_ilads.html

You can also ask the members here for a referral, although you will need to enable your email in your profile to do that, as we don't allow members to post Dr's names or info. If you don't want to use the email address you have now, you can create a second one on your own, or you can go to the tab at the top of the page marked "email". That will take you to where you can create your own email just for use with Healing Well!

As far as the female issues go, I've had lumps in my breast, but not large ones and they have gone away with treatment. You are smart to have already had things checked out!

One thing I have noticed, although it's not with lumps in my breast, is that lots of things reoccur with Lyme and other tick-borne infections! I would think that I had something taken care of, and after a bit, the issue would just pop back up! I can tell you though that with treatment these things have come back less and less often and generally for a shorter time each time they showed up. These infections can sure make the body do some crazy things!!

I too had a couple of miscarriages, and mine were due to long-term chronic Lyme. I have had two beautiful kids (who are now adults and dealing with their own Lyme) since that time!! For more information on kids and Lyme, here is a great site to visit - just promise you'll come back! Giggle! www.drjoneskids.org

The doctor that you saw during Christmas sounds like a wonderful, knowledgeable doc!! What he told you was correct. All of those things create stress and Lyme and friends feed off of that stress in a way. Stress lowers our immune system response, so these little critters get to come out to play, reeking havoc in our bodies.

In the "New to Lyme?" thread, the second post down, and about 1/2 through that post, you will see instructions on how to detox. It's simple and relaxing for most. Although I do need to caution you to start off slowly and with only warm water (not hot or overly warm), as this has the potential to cause even more aches and pains. Also be careful to only stay in the warm bath for no more than 7 - 10 minutes for the first time, at least until you know how your body will respond.

The reason I am suggesting heavily that you detox in this way, is because it sounds like you are experiencing a Herxheimer reaction, or Herx as we call them here. This is just an overload of toxins in the body, and the body just can't deal with all of them, so we need to help our bodies to get rid of those toxins. Our skin is one of our largest detox pathways, so the dry skin brushing is pretty important as well. Drinking plenty of lemon water (eight 8 ounce glasses at least) will not only help you stay hydrated, but will help your body stay in a more alkaline state. Viruses and bacteria like an acidic state in our body, and they will try very hard to keep it that way!

This may be a whole lot of info at this time for you, so I'll stop here for now. We all chip in to help those asking questions, so others will be along shortly to add their ideas as well!

I would suggest that you keep your OB appt, just to be sure that things are all okay!

Welcome to our spot!!! Remember that you are no longer alone in this!!

HI

i was diagnosed with lyme in 1996. I have lumps too , frankly mine are sore at times, a couple of days ago they esp one was inflamed.

i recently decided to order my med records (30 bucks) anyway on a lot of the appt sheets it was written patient c/o sore something or other breasts.  I had forgotten how much this occured.   I sorta took to goin w/o a bra when possible, camis with a soft cup feel a lot better than a bra.

I tried to miscarry.  Thank God I did not.  I was at 19 weeks when I hemoraged .   My body was a total brat it did not want to cooperate, but through almost total bed rest and early but not too early I had the daughter I had already become soooooo attatched to. 

I hope you see your Dr.  And you feel better soon.

I'm so sorry to hear about everything you've been going through!

Sadly it's pretty common for people with Lyme to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia, despite extraneous symptoms that don't fit the description at all. It definitely sounds like you're on the right track with looking into Lyme.

I've had a ton of breast pain - which definitely progressed as the Lyme did, though I can't say for sure if they're correlated. Doctors have told me that I just have extremely thick breast tissue, and cystic breasts - which isn't as bad as it sounds! I actually had a surgeon get STUCK while doing a biopsy because the tissue was so hard - and also very tender! Caffeine supposedly contributes to this - do you drink a lot of coffee? Maybe cutting down would help. As I'm not a doctor I can't exactly diagnose you - but is it possible that the lumps are swollen lymph nodes? I'm pretty sure there are a lot of them in the breast area.

You're already doing everything you're supposed to do - you're paying attention to your body, and going to the doctor about your concerns. If it is Lyme that you're dealing with, you'll learn that it can cause so many varied symptoms - practically anything under the sun can be caused by Lyme. The bright side of that is that all the weird symptoms will go away with treatment.

Never apologize for a long post! That's what we're here for! I hope you find some answers soon.

Thanks all for your comforting advice. To borderlyme, I guess this could be swollen lymph nodes. That probably worries more then anything for fear of lymphatic cancer. My husband is about to bop me over the head because he is a science guy and has said that the first rule in science is when there is one answer for everything, the you have to start there. I know that Lyme can sit in your lymph nodes but I just wonder if my lymph node could get so big. They fit the description of cyst but I would have thought the ultrasound tech and mammogram doc would have told me that they saw cysts.

I was up all night racking my brain about this and worrying. Today I have lots of right arm pain and pain under my arm pit. Yesterday it was breast pain and some sharp burning. I keep on trying to read more to be armed with knowledge and have searched on here and found others with similar complaints. I guess I just need to accept that this could all be Lyme and see what the doc says tomorrow. Just hoping for good news for my birthday.

And the breast pain has progressed with treatment. It started after my 2nd pregnancy loss about 18 months ago. The docs told me that my pec muscles seemed tight and ropy and sent me to pt. it helped and the pain subsided but then in October it was back after the next pregnancy loss. My breasts were never lumpy before September.

As for hair falling out, it started before the pregnancy so it's not pregnancy related. My hormones were checked and my progesterone was a bit low. My thyroid was off too. I've been on synthroid for 15 years. My t4 was high normal but my free t3 was so low along with reverse t3. So I am now on t3 and hopefully as they build it up, it will fix that problem. And I don't do sugars or any caffein. I havent had chocolate in months but no coffee or caffinated drinks in 18 years.

Speaking of swollen lymph nodes, I just remember that after getting bit by a tick, the lymph node behind my ear got really swollen. The docs have been aware of this and did basically nothing (I was 12 at the time). That lymph node is not as swollen as it was but it is clearly much larger then the other ear. Could Lyme really be hanging out there for that long? I did read some recent researching rats about Lyme loving lymph nodes. Strange. I'm still trying to get my white about me and understand all of this.

I'm so sorry!
I get lumps and my breasts get sore. I was told it is from my 'impaired' lymph system. Also, I had a mamogram and they found calcified cysts.

My 'bad' estrogen is high which causes inflammation. Progesterone is the anti-inflammatory hormone. Your estrogen may be too high or you may need more bio-identical progesterone (I think docs figure it out by ratio of estrogen to progesterone).

How are your adrenals? If your thyroid was not functioning well, most likely your adrenals aren't either since they go together. My thyroid tests always showed 'normal', but I knew they weren't. I came to find out that my receptors are blocked and even though tests showed normal, my thyroid was anything but normal! So, now I am on Cytomel T3. Is your thyroid med both T3 & T4?
I am also on a maintenance dose of hydrocortisone (cortisol) cause my body doesn't make any.

Hi Bustalymes-
Thanks for sharing. I've been told that I am estrogen dominant and that due to my lower then normal progesterone, that I needed to start that. My doc told me that your thyroid helps regulate all of this so if it is off, then until you get your thyroid functioning again, you can't expect your progesterone to work.
My adrenals appear to be within range but indicate that I have recently dealt with a stressful event. He's monitoring that. And the thyroid I was taking was T4 and now am on T3. They are gradually building up my T3 to hopes that they can force my body to start utilizing it properly. We'll see how that works. I guess I'm having a tough time dealing with the waiting period. If I were totally honest, whatever is going on, I've been dealing with for 20+ years without knowing what it was and I have tried everything. So I wish there was a quick fix, but I know there isn't! If there was, we wouldn't have all landed here. Thanks for sharing.

Just thought I'd follow up... my ultrasound and mammogram revealed only a small cyst and dense tissue so I'm in the clear. What a nerve wracking process though! I feel for you justascarf. Good luck today and I hope you get some good news and peace of mind as well!

I'm glad you got some good news! Keep using that biofreeze if it's helping! I use icyhot once in a while - I think that's probably similar - and it helps a lot, mostly with knots in my neck and shoulders. There are a bunch of natural antiinflammatories out there too if you're interested - plus many foods have antiinflammatory properties.

I had a lymphatic drainage massage a month or so ago - it was wonderful! And really made me feel much better! I hope it does the same for you!

someone might have asked this??

Milk products make my breasts lymphy like.

and yest the estrogen dominance makes them swell and hurt.

I use minimal minimal dairy.

I even get nervous with yogurt but i do it in the morning with flax oil
to stay regular.

also Traveler is saying lyme never travels alone and that is for some reason NEWS to people. It is never just lyme. It is 4 to 8 other things depending on how long this has been going on. I think many people have been bitten way more than once and it all comes out in menopause and
the other time it shows up especially in girls is puberty.

a lot of girls get MONO around that time and I believe it is lyme infection
taking over because of the hormone sweep that goes on during puberty.

and then they go on another 20 years after that, have trouble giving birth and either before menopause or at an early menopause brought on by this already lyme party going on all these years and the stress on the body of having children, suddenly LYME shows up roaring again.

meanwhile, it really was going on all along and a really good chance the children they did have were if not born WITH lyme were born with developmental deficiencies because it effects brain development in the fetus. We notice it and don't notice it depending on the child and the level of ADD or OCD or other issues that we kind of accept as the norm for
our children these days especially when there are so many great medications to make us think it is remedied.

It is a circle that is spiraling out of control. More back tracking is needed to really open everyones eyes before we can really move ahead with
seriously taking this "lyme" issue seriously.

it is so hard to maintain a focus because of all the cloudy confusion around a disease that is never fully recognized in the first place.

I am voting for which ever presidential canidate that recognizes the seriousness of the lyme lie.

We are exposing everybody else. It time to expose lyme.

OH Justascarf!! Please don't allow those inaccurate tests make you doubt a thing! With 95% of the symptoms, it's very unlikely that you don't have Lyme and any co-infections!! The testing that's being done is so very unreliable. only about 1/2 of those that have Lyme will test positive for it. I was on abx for a full year (back in 2007) before I got a positive Lyme WB, and it came back positive for RMSF as well, not once, but twice that year!

Even the CDC tells us that a diagnosis should be made clinically with the lab results only to back up the diagnosis, not to make the diagnosis. The blood tests only test for antibodies to the infections, so if your body is overwhelmed by the bacteria, it's not going to be making those antibodies.

Besides, no one here needs to "earn the right" to be here!!! This site is for those that suspect that they have Lyme and/or other tick-borne infections to come and to learn and share their experiences, and to get and give support!! Honest!!

So glad to hear you're doing better - sounds like a bit of a relief!