Any women have strange spotting with their cycles?

Hi all -
I am not new to this forum, I just couldn't log in (it appears that my lack of visiting this site for a while has forever locked me out as it doesn't except the 1 and only email address I've ever had to use to retrieve my password). I joined this forum back in January and am coming up on 1 year of abx treatment with lots of ups and downs. I have a good LLMD who doesn't appear to be worried but my anxiety appears to get the best of me at times and I'd love to know that at least someone out there is also going through this or has.

With no positive lyme tests, even from Igenix, though a case history of over 24 years of all of this, I am being treated for lyme and a really bad case of bartonella. I have had massive herxs on the abx and symptoms that I've had during all of my pregnancy losses and on and off for the last 20+ years, started to reappear again and then after reading more I found out that they were common lyme and bart symptoms.

So... my miscarriage a year ago had brown bleeding through out the first trimester until I lost the pregnancy. I was evaluated as much as possible prior to the loss and after the loss was re-evaluated through maternal fetal medicine, my OBs, and even through a Fertility specialist to make sure there wasn't something there going on (though haven't had troubles getting pregnant - just carrying the pregnancy). After the pregnancy my cycles were all over the map and always started with brown clumpy blood at the beginning of the cycle. This had never happened before this mc and my OB felt that it was just hormonal and would eventually subside or I could go on the pill.

I was put on natural progesterone by my LLMD and I'm not sure if that or the abx and lyme treatment made my cycles last 10 days, lots more bleeding then my normal 3 day cycles, and were coming every 26-28 days instead of my regular 34-35. I have seen my OB about this multiple times. I am seeing a maya abdominal massage therapist and practicing this at home. I am doing vaginal steam baths at the beginning and ending of my cycles each month (this is the 3rd month). I am now off the progesterone and my cycles are shortening to 3.5 days in length and last cycle was 29 days and this one is 32. But the brown blood in the beginning is still there. Some months its worse then others.

Since no ultrasound or sonogram has seen anything in my uterus, my ovulation appears to be back to normal and I did a month long saliva hormone testing (after blood testing showed nothing wrong) and everything came back perfectly normal. I'm confused, not sure why this brown bleeding early in my cycle is occurring. It used to occur at the end of a cycle but now I'm not getting that but instead at the beginning of the cycle. I don't want to go on the pill I just want to figure out what if anything I can do to turn things around and if this sounds normal to someone or if it's odd. I feel like my cycle should be starting based on general feeling and my snapping attitude (a new symptom in the past year - never had pms before). Nothing comes, then there's a bit of brown. Then my cycle starts, lots more brown with red blood and then just red blood then after a few days, it just stops. No major cramping, no other strangeness just a slow start and abrupt end.

Can lyme live and thrive in your uterus? I'm curious because of all of my pregnancy complications. It's like my uterus is a hostile environment when it comes to carrying a pregnancy but nothing in my blood work or testing is showing it as an issue. Can lyme and the treatment effect your cycles in this way? This started before I was treated for lyme. Any other women have experience with this, specifically strange bleeding (not in length between cycles but the darker, brown or orange bleeding with thicker blood). If you've experienced anything like this, what if anything have you done and has is gotten better? Any advice? I am tired of seeing my OB and talking to my LLMD about this since no one seems to be able to figure this out. I've got at least another year of abx treatment ahead of me and hope to figure this out sooner as opposed to later. Maybe this isn't lyme related. Not sure.

Would like to ease my anxiety. Thanks all!

Thank you ladies for your input. It's been quite a relief. Shabbychic, I've heard the same thing from my acupuncturist. I'm encouraged by both you and WWJD20 that there may be hope in the future that this will get better. I had wanted 3 to 4 children. I've had 4. Only one living. I had a stillbirth, then my daughter, then a late miscarriage at almost the 1/2 way point in pregnancy and then a year ago a miscarriage at 12 weeks. I feel that at 35 with one child I should be grateful with what I have. But I can't seem to get the thought out of my head that I want more. I am getting older and with my LLMD telling me that I've got at least another 12 - 14 months of treatment ahead of me and I'll be 36 in February, I don't know if my body will be successful after all of this treatment. It's tough. The hardest part has been every month starting a cycle with the brown blood and being reminded of the same brown blood that I saw during my last pregnancy for the last three weeks before the miscarriage. I hope that this can get all worked out for me and that some day things will return to normal. After 24 years of dealing with all of this stuff on and off, I'm not sure if I even know what normal would be like but I'm ecstatic at the possibility that some day I will have an opportunity to experience life like non lyme people do. We all deserve this. Thank you ladies for jumping in and sharing. And it's not TMI! If anyone should apologize it's me! This group is so wonderful!

Hey Shabby Chic -
I do have Bartonella and that appears to be the main issue I'm currently dealing with. I started about 2 years ago with massive bladder issues. After an emergency room visit with a bunch of scans, I was sent to my endocrinologist to rule out diabetes insipidis. Then onto nephrology to rule out kidney disease since I had some erratic blood tests and blood in urine, pains, suspected utis and bladder infections (none of which I had) and she then sent me on to a urologist after seeing me for 3 months and clearing me of everything. I was told it was likely stress so on I went. Urology evaluated me, did a scope and then sent me on to a bladder pt. They worked with helping my hips get re-aligned, strengthening my muscles and working on bladder control since at that point I was peeing every hour or so up to 18 times a day. My bladder was exhausted. I never figured out how lyme/bart played into all of this but had read that urgency and frequency were common. For me, it was as if one day I just woke up and had to run to the bathroom 16 times that day. The previous day I had gone something like 7 times. We thought I was having allergic reactions to a bad batch of fish oil. But not the case!

I'm hoping to start a post this week to get a bunch of feedback from people about Bart. I know that it's sometimes hard to separate the infections but I'm fairly confident I don't have some of the co-infections. My doc keeps on telling me that Bart is huge for me. My shins are killing. My bottoms of my feet are getting tight, burning and hurting on and off. I get lumps in my stomach, arms and initially breast tissue. They come and go and have led to ultra sounds, mamograms and thermography to make sure all is good. The bladder issue is just one additional piece to add but thanks for helping me add that piece to my puzzle! It makes sense. It's funny how it all eventually weaves together. Hope to pick your brain more in the future if you don't mind.