I don't mind the questions at all. I'm in my third year of treatment, and am doing much better than I once was. Although the treatment itself can be hard on the body. Late-stage Lyme looks a lot like other auto-immune diseases (fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, and multiple sclerosis). Lyme is a bacterial spirochete that attacks numerous systems and wreaks havoc through a body is left untreated or inadequately treated.
Before I started treatment my day-to-day life involved heavy fatigue, the kind that makes you feel like you are trying to move through honey or molasses or that someone turned the gravity up too high. I was unable to focus most of the time, and would forget things constantly, and thinking to a great deal of effort. It got to the point where I could read my assignments for class, annotate them, and not remember reading them or making the annotations. My balance was starting to go more frequently and I would list over a bit when walking. I constantly felt like I was going to fall down, and was getting bad attacks of dizziness and vertigo (though I didn't know that is what it was). The world would rush in and out of focus and I would need to lie down as soon as possible. I ached almost constantly, though rarely in the same place. One day it would be my hands, the next my knees, another my head. My skin would get super sensitive to the point where clothes or jewelry would actually hurt to wear. I would also have moments of transient itchiness where the itchy part of my skin would move and not settle down. Lyme attacks the endocrine system as well, and the dual attacks on both neurological and endocrine symptoms can cause or exacerbate mental illness issues. I had struggled with depression and anxiety before, but that first year of law school right before I entered treatment was one of the worst. I thankfully had a very good support network in place but it was a very hard year.
Now that I've been in treatment for a while (my doc's preferred treatment system takes, on average, 3-7 years), my day-to-day is much more bearable. I've gotten a lot of my brain power and functioning back, though I can loose it when I've had an antibiotic increase as the increase in bacterial die-off makes the symptoms worse. I am able to remember things better again, which is very nice. I can take the stairs a little more often than I was able to, and walk around events more frequently. Though if I am going to be out for a while I will carry my cane. I still have to watch my energy usage and not push myself too hard even if I'm feeling better, because I have no reserves and over doing it can set back my treatment and result in days of rest being needed.
I have to be very careful about what I eat as yeast overgrowth is a common co-infection and it causes problems of its own (the itchy skin, hair falling out, ridiculous acne) and it exacerbates fatigue and achiness. So I am on a very restricted diet that is mostly meat and green veggies. It has been easier to follow than I would have ever imagined because I get sick within about ten minutes of eating something I am not supposed to. So I had some biofeedback to let me know that "just a little" would hurt.
That's sort of a gloss of what Lyme is for me. I'm happy to answer questions, and if you want (and have the time), my posts discussing lyme (along with some of my posts that discuss the symptoms before I'd gotten my diagnosis) can be found here.
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Date: 2013-11-16 03:58 pm (UTC)Before I started treatment my day-to-day life involved heavy fatigue, the kind that makes you feel like you are trying to move through honey or molasses or that someone turned the gravity up too high. I was unable to focus most of the time, and would forget things constantly, and thinking to a great deal of effort. It got to the point where I could read my assignments for class, annotate them, and not remember reading them or making the annotations. My balance was starting to go more frequently and I would list over a bit when walking. I constantly felt like I was going to fall down, and was getting bad attacks of dizziness and vertigo (though I didn't know that is what it was). The world would rush in and out of focus and I would need to lie down as soon as possible. I ached almost constantly, though rarely in the same place. One day it would be my hands, the next my knees, another my head. My skin would get super sensitive to the point where clothes or jewelry would actually hurt to wear. I would also have moments of transient itchiness where the itchy part of my skin would move and not settle down. Lyme attacks the endocrine system as well, and the dual attacks on both neurological and endocrine symptoms can cause or exacerbate mental illness issues. I had struggled with depression and anxiety before, but that first year of law school right before I entered treatment was one of the worst. I thankfully had a very good support network in place but it was a very hard year.
Now that I've been in treatment for a while (my doc's preferred treatment system takes, on average, 3-7 years), my day-to-day is much more bearable. I've gotten a lot of my brain power and functioning back, though I can loose it when I've had an antibiotic increase as the increase in bacterial die-off makes the symptoms worse. I am able to remember things better again, which is very nice. I can take the stairs a little more often than I was able to, and walk around events more frequently. Though if I am going to be out for a while I will carry my cane. I still have to watch my energy usage and not push myself too hard even if I'm feeling better, because I have no reserves and over doing it can set back my treatment and result in days of rest being needed.
I have to be very careful about what I eat as yeast overgrowth is a common co-infection and it causes problems of its own (the itchy skin, hair falling out, ridiculous acne) and it exacerbates fatigue and achiness. So I am on a very restricted diet that is mostly meat and green veggies. It has been easier to follow than I would have ever imagined because I get sick within about ten minutes of eating something I am not supposed to. So I had some biofeedback to let me know that "just a little" would hurt.
That's sort of a gloss of what Lyme is for me. I'm happy to answer questions, and if you want (and have the time), my posts discussing lyme (along with some of my posts that discuss the symptoms before I'd gotten my diagnosis) can be found here.