VERY worried about liver (cyst and symptoms)

I just joined this forum, and I have been beside myself with stress for a month now. I have been referred by someone here to an LLMD, but I need someone to talk to about my liver.

For the past month, I have been experiencing crazy symptoms and completely overlooked my bullseye rash. Doctors even said it was fine and nothing to worry about.

Came across a discussion about Lyme on an anxiety forum. Everything makes sense now!

Got 3 weeks doxy from an ER doc, but they couldn't test on me (would be useless anyway).

Now I have all these crazy muscle aches, joint pain, night sweats, swelling of my legs, pressure headaches, constantly cold, clay-colored stool, actual liver pain, CT scan showed a liver cyst (afraid it's a bad case of babesia).

I am worried SICK about my liver. I am so beside myself with worry that these parasites will cause liver damage/failure and I WILL die before seeing a LLMD.

Has anyone gone through this before being diagnosed/treated? I am worried that each day will be my last. :( please, please help if you can!

Hi Cdavislyme!
Welcome to our community!
First of all, I'm so sorry about all that you have had to go through, but know that it will get better.

My husband had to go have his liver checked out and they found small cysts also. After we panicked a bit, we did some research, talked with many others and have come to realize that small cysts in the liver are not something to necessarily be panicked about - they come and go, usually without causing many issues by themselves.

I've tracked down your posts and have read all of them - I believe. You have only been infected about a month, right? And your blood tests are coming back okay for your liver, right?

While the yellowing skin and clay colored stools are alarming, you have plenty of time to correct the situation. During my first round of infections (I've been recently reinfected with Lyme), the whites of my eyes turned yellow and I had those clay colored stools too. A simple - yet gentle, remember you are sick! - liver detox took care of mine. You can find all types of liver detox teas, or use one that's a favorite of yours. Just be sure that it's gentle.

I've noticed that it's been suggested by several other members for you to read the "New to Lyme?" thread that sits at the top of the forum - I too encourage you to take the time to read through it if you haven't yet. It has a lot of important information in it.

The Bull's eye rash by itself is diagnostic of Lyme disease - you just have to find a doctor that realizes this - an LLMD. Did you happen to take a picture of it? If not, no big deal, but if you should get more, please be sure to take a picture of it with something like a penny in the picture so that doctors can understand the size of it.

While I completely understand the panic you feel, you should really take a deep breath and relax a bit. The chances of you dying from these infections immediately are not very high. If you have any heart issues (besides palpitations), that only means that you need to be checked right away - not that you will die right away. Many have much more serious heart issues and heal just fine.

I'm not understanding where you are in Cal., would you mind emailing me and explaining a bit more and I will be happy to send you a list of LLMD's in your area that will actually believe you and help you to heal.

What I would suggest that you do right away is to start detoxing. During the course of their little lives, the bacteria die and they die in much larger numbers once we start treatments. When the bacteria dies, it puts off toxins that our bodies seem to have trouble detoxing on their own, which -when we are in treatment is called a herxheimer reaction, or herx (formally called "Jarrisch-Herxheimer reaction") because we get a "flood" of toxins essentially. But if you were to start detoxing now, you would have a head start on getting the toxins moving out of your liver, kidneys and other organs and tissues. We have a great list of detoxing suggestions (and easy ones too) in our "New to Lyme? " thread.

Yes, those are all typical symptoms of Lyme as well. The doxy you are on, as you know isn't high enough to really kill off any bacteria. At 200 mgs a day, it's only enough to keep the bacteria from replicating. But detoxing will still help some now, and will get your body prepared for treatment.

Is it possible to get severely anemic within days? Read some scary stories on google

Here's my point of view (triage RN).

Clay colored stools, bad sign! especially in the presence of the other s/s you mention. Get thee to an acute care clinic if you don't already have a Dr appt. somewhere!

The clay colored stool happens when your gall bladder stops releasing bile into the bowel. Bile is what makes your poop dark. There's several possible reasons the bile isn't getting into the bowel;
bile duct obstruction/ mechanical blockage/ compression from a swollen liver, or maybe bile isn't being produced, which is a more ominous sign.

DO NOT rely on internet dx with this! you need medical evaluation by a doctor, possibly an US, CT, and if necessary ERCP, the doctor will have a hepatic panel (also called LFT) drawn and will know what to do from there.

Do you still have your gall bladder? If so, then you need to get it functioning again. Finding a LLMD and getting in to see them would be a good place to start, as they won't do anything that will possibly set you backwards.

Your liver is what makes the bile, so your liver is struggling, as we have already figured out for you. The gall bladder stores excess bile and is supposed to release some each time you eat to help digest fats and fat soluable vitamins.

Since this isn't happening every time you "go", I would say it's not an emergency, but it's definitely something you should bring up with the LLMD at your first appt.

Also eat foods that will help the liver, and use milk thistle if you aren't allergic to rag weed. Garlic, grapefruit juice and a few others mentioned in the article below:
www.naturalnews.com/035946_liver_cleanse_foods.html

My son had whitish stool for several days...Dr. give us a kit to take stool samples so they could check for parasites. It showed nothing.
It resolved itself about a week later.

Sometimes anemia can cause lighter coloured stool. Our son suffered from this for many years due to undiagnosed celiac disease. It wasn't confirmed if the light stools were caused from the anemia or not.

For peace of mind, you could go to your regular Dr. and just get some blood work done - to check your liver function and also your hemoglobin/feritin levels.

Most likely, though, it is Lyme related, as Trav said.

Girlie,
Blood work is all good! Thank you very much.