Hello. I know this is a long post, but I think I may have Lyme disease, doctors in my country (Argentina) say it does not exist in this country, but I found independent studies (from 1995) that confirm that for example in the province of Córdoba (place I usually travel since I was a teenager) 30% of people with symptoms of arthritis have Lyme. I want to get the test to confirm (or not), but because of restrictions on imports it is very difficult, and to import the meds too, because to do this I need a doctor prescribes me the meds. So I want to post my story, because in my country I think it's almost impossible to get a diagnosis and I feel I'm alone and I'll die without help. I'm 25 years old and I'm living without my children as I can't take care of them. I hope someone can read it and let me know what do you think and if there is a LLMD I can contact by Skype to get some help. Thanks.
2009-2010: my first pregnancy. I got rash on my back and chest for months. Doctors said it may be hormonal.
2010 - present: feeling low blood pressure after eating, intermittent.
6/2011: sudden pain in the lower part of my back that left me unable to get up off the floor without assistance for 3 hours. In the emergency room they checked me and said I had nothing.
2012 - present: infection in my left eye resistant to the antibiotic.
12/2012: birth of my second daughter.
01/2013: tingling and trembling eyelids, lips, hands and arms for a week, calm down after sleep and during the day it reappear being stronger at night. MRI of brain: normal. Doppler ultrasound of the arteries of my neck: normal.
4/2013: sore right knee, doctors told me it's because my spine is a little crooked. I have a calcification under that same knee, on my femur, but they say that it is not related to pain. One night I got tremblings like having fever and severe pain in the joints of the right side of my body and feeling faint. My blood tests show insufficient vitamin D and high levels of alkaline phosphatase (a little higher than maximum). Analyses discarded rheumatic diseases, hepatitis, AIDS, Chagas.
12/2013: feelings of impending faint and intermittent palpitations. Feeling of discomfort in my body, it's difficult to explain, like it bothers me to be in my body. Mild exhaustion.
03/2014: palpitations at night, intermittent feeling of imminent fainting during the day. Indigestion.
03/28/2014 (evening) few minutes after going to sleep I started to feel like my lungs were closing, and palpitations, as I was coughing through the afternoon, I thought it was a bronchospasm, I went to my mom's house 4 streets from my house and I felt that I was "walking on cotton" when I got her home I could hardly speak, my heart was beating fast and very short of breath, I fell to the ground unable to move, I could only shake my head and speak, my breathing was automatic and I could not control it.
My brother checked my blood pressure (he is a nurse) and told me it was very low and I was very pale. In the emergency room I could not sit because I fainted, I lay on the floor and my sister was holding my legs, I told the doctor that I felt a problem with my breathing. he checked my blood oxygen, blood pressure and pulse and said I was having a panic attack. My blood pressure was a little high 140/100 (when my normal pressure is 110/70) .
He asked me to stand and walk and I told him that I was going to faint, he forced me and I had a fainting or near-fainting, I was unable to move at all but being able to see what was happening. They laid me on the stretcher, I was injected with a sedative and they did a blood test to measure sodium, calcium and potassium. Everything was in normal ranges.
Since that night I got:
-Orthostatic Tachycardia (intermittent first, then all the time). If I'm still standing I get vertigo, fainting, with difficulty breathing and something like (as I could investigate) diaphragm "negative myoclonus" , as if someone were pushing hard my abdomen and it takes out all the air from my lungs. After those episodes of fainting and vertigo I remain stunned and very weak.
-The First month I slept many hours at night and day, I was stunned.
- Episodes of almost fainting with tachycardia, followed by tremors and spasms of upper and lower limbs, sometimes feeling that my eyes went turned back. After that I am very dazed and dizzy.
-The Neurologist thought it could be partial epileptic seizures, and in the emergency room they provided me medication for seizures intravenously and it intensified all my symptoms: lightheadedness, tachycardia, my limbs went from tremors to the overall stiffness, inability to focus my eyes and hyperacusis. When I returned to my house I heard noises and saw things that were not there.
-Intermittent vertigo.
-Intestinal pain and diarrhea (even eating very healthy)
-Muscle spasms
-Loss of short term memory
-Ectopic heart beats.
-After pushing myself to do something, (like hold my children next to me in the bed to watch a movie) my breathing muscles become weak and I have to sleep face down as I got the weird thing with my diaphragm taking off all the air of my lungs.
-Sensation of when I'm falling asleep that my airways are closing or my breathing stops or it's going to stop.
-Sensation of when I'm falling asleep I’m passing out.
-Intermittent rashes and hives.
-This last 4 months: inability to sit or stand without consequences: my symptoms worsen.
-I need to eat every hour and drink plenty of water.
-Insomnia and difficulty with falling asleep because of the symptoms. Shortness of breath and dizziness if I lie down on my back.
-Tremors like chills as cold but not being cold nor feeling cold.
-Worsening with the heat.
-Lack of concentration.
-Inner tremors. Specially at the very same moment to wake up and fall asleep.
-When I'm sitting or standing: feeling I'm dying.
-Between 1 am and 4 am my heart beats weird, palpitations. it beats very fast and very slow suddenly
-Ringing In one of my ears.
-I need To have pillows under my head to avoid dizziness and vertigo.
-Feeling that I'm slowly dying.
-During August I felt constant fainting, even during sleep. During these kind of fainting I feel the need to shake my body to avoid being unconscious.
-Sensation of sudden need to sleep that least one hour but being unable to sleep.
-Sensation of lack of oxygen. Intermitent or standing or sitting.
-Sensation that I'm moving but I'm not.
- Abdominal ultrasound: normal. Chest radiograph: normal. The pulmonologist said my lungs are ok.
All my faintings (except for the beggining of the first one when I got all the another syptoms) were with my blood pressure and glucose in normal ranges.
My doctor gave me clonazepam, I took just a quart of the lower dosis tablet and it made all my symptoms worse for 2 hours.
A doctor told me I may have cancer and asked me to do a tomography, I didn't do it yet because I had not the money.
I take beta blockers that help me with the tachycardia but not completly. ( I could get 200 bpm lying down before it)
DIAGNOSTICS:
- Arteriosclerosis (even with bad cholesterol below the minimum)
- Cardiac dysautonomy: resting and orthostatic tachycardia.
Thank you so much.
Post Edited (solesol) : 12/22/2014 5:02:51 PM (GMT-7)