Lyme Diagnosis Today -- HELP!

welcome , read the new to lyme , refiance and hold on..go with your gut...dont let it do its damage...you may want to get tested as autism sometime is congential lyme and heavy metals...my psych stuff was bartonella ..ever had family cats ?

/www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=3722012

Post Edited (bluelyme) : 12/1/2017 12:13:09 AM (GMT-7)

Hi Maria's mom!

Sorry to hear your daughter tested positive for lyme. But it is bittersweet that you uncovered a piece of information in her health puzzle. She must have been experiencing some symptoms recently, or for some time, for her university to have tested her. Kudos to them for testing. Now, how to proceed.

Speaking as a mom who has gone through this twice with four family members being treated......I would trust your gut.

Lyme is complicated. I applaud the university is telling you that your daughter has lyme . But are they telling you she probably has a co-infection, too (ex:babesia/rocky mountain spotted fever, bartonella, too? Probably not.

You need to go to a lyme literate doctor who is versed and immersed in the lyme & coinfection treatment arena. To echo Girlie, if you are thinking Dr. J in DC. Their clinic is considered one of the leaders.

To speak to your other children. It is possible they have lyme, too. My son back in 2014 developed hallucinations, anxiety in addition to pain. With abx treatment he was mentally fine. My daughter for the past year has been believed to be bipolar, has been suicidal, has been hospitalized, and only with starting back on abx have symptoms started to resolve.

Please email or post if you have any questions. I am happy to answer.

Warmly -

Peppermint Tea

Thank you for the feedback. We have an appointment on Monday with Dr. J in DC. It is likely that she was bitten recently as that is when her unusual symptoms began. Evidently, Lyme is relatively common in Rhode Island. I'm thankful for this forum and I'm sure I'll have many more questions.

Tina

I'm pondering whether my daughter has a new exposure to Lyme or whether she has been dealing with it for a while. She has tried several medicines for her anxiety disorder with multiple instances of side effects that led to her needing to stop the medicine. The most unusual side effect was myoclonic jerks (I think), periodic involuntary movements that were frightening to observe. They resolved when she changed medicines.

My doctoral training (PhD in Education, so no medical training) reinforces that correlation does not mean causation. Is it possible that Lyme impacted her reaction to anxiety/depression meds and contributed to side effects? I'm thinking I should get her records from her psychiatrist and bring them to Monday's appointment the the LLMD's office.

On the same note, Maria had a positive IgM reaction, but no IgG reaction. Does that mean equivocally that she has a recent exposure? Or is this lab result possible even with a long-term exposure?

She has a couple of other strange symptoms -- one was her likelihood of chewing the inside of her cheek. I mentioned that and she replied, "I've been doing that for years." I'm wondering if she may have been infected with Lyme years ago?

How relevant is it to treatment to decide if she has an acute or a chronic infection?

So many questions. So much gratefulness for this forum.

Tina

Maria has a couple of weeks left for this college semester. Should I anticipate that her symptoms will immediately get worse, to the point of impacting her studies? Today she has no symptoms, but last week she was taken to the hospital for weakness and dehydration. Should we wait and start ABX when she breaks for the holidays? Does early treatment with ABX impact long-term outcomes?

She is in Rhode Island and I'm in Kentucky.

It could be that your daughter had Lyme but her immune system kept it in check. We have a suspicion that our DS had a low-grade case of Lyme prior to the bite that sent him over the edge but we have no definitive proof other than some symptoms. I suggest that before you go to JC you and your daughter talk and go over some of the Lyme/tick symptoms on the online check lists - mark it up, put in dates to best of your recollection and take it with you to JC. They have a form you will fill out too. No random symptom should go unmentioned. For example our DS had a sudden milk allergy appear. Here is a pretty comprehensive one:

/www.lymedisease.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Symptomchecklist-burrascano.pdf

JC did tell us when we had to wait for 3 weeks after DS had finished his doxycycline round given by the pediatrician before we could get an appt there that these infections are slow growing and a few weeks wouldn't make a big difference (granted his bite was a year old). He did crash hard a few days after starting treatment and missed a lot of the rest of the school year. Every patient is different though.

Maria's Mom said...
Maria has a couple of weeks left for this college semester. Should I anticipate that her symptoms will immediately get worse, to the point of impacting her studies? Today she has no symptoms, but last week she was taken to the hospital for weakness and dehydration. Should we wait and start ABX when she breaks for the holidays? Does early treatment with ABX impact long-term outcomes?

She is in Rhode Island and I'm in Kentucky.

Discuss this with the NP at the appointment.

Maybe they will be fine with delaying treatment for two weeks - until she's finished.

Unless it's an acute infection - then they will most likely want to treat her right away. In that case it is best to treat a.s.a.p.

But, if she's had symptoms for months...I can't see a couple weeks making a difference.

EDITED: I see you mentioned her symptoms started recently.