Now, that I knew I had Lyme’s, I didn’t know whether to continue physical therapy or not.  The physical therapist recommended that I speak to my doctor first. So, I stopped.  I didn’t want to make things worse.

I went to my primary care physician to follow up on my laboratory findings. I said, “Well, it looks like I have Lyme’s.”

She said, “I guess that’s no surprise.”

It was an odd thing for her to say, but I think she was referring to all the symptoms that I gave them to justify getting tested.  This doctor is by-the-book, and you need a boatload of symptoms for her to prescribe a possibly unnecessary laboratory test.   I don’t know how long I’ll keep her.

The doctor put me on doxycycline twice a day for three weeks.  When I asked if that would be enough, she said it was the established treatment. I had read that people with chronic lyme’s needed more. In her defense, most doctors don’t like their decisions questioned, but she was talking to a medical laboratory scientist, and I knew more about laboratory tests than most folks. So, I asked if it would be possible to get a CBC, a CMC, a CRP, a magnesium, and a vitamin D.  She said, “Why do you want all that?”

I said, “Because I’m curious to see what they are.  I mean, I’m having symptoms.”

“Well, we have a good explanation for those symptoms.  Your CRP  (C-reactive protein, a measurement of inflammation) will be sky high and so will your white blood cell count.”

I was thinking that we could monitor my progress by watching my blood levels, especially my CRP, but I guess the cost isn’t justified.  I wanted to know if my vitamin D and magnesium levels were low, because low levels can cause fatigue and other symptoms.  She said, “I don’t even know my own vitamin D and magnesium levels!”

A complete blood count (CBC) and a comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP) would let me know how my body systems were functioning overall.  Oh, well, so much for preventive medicine.

I told her that both of my knees still hurt when I crouch and that they swelled after exercise.  She examined them and found no swelling.  She had me get them x-rayed to make sure nothing else was going on.  I asked if the pain would go away with the antibiotics. She said it would if the pain was because of the Lyme’s.  She thought it was arthritis, though.  I told her that I didn’t think it was arthritis. She said that you usually only have one joint affected when you get Lyme’s.  Yeah, I thought that, too, because I read it online, but the physical therapist explained to me that that wasn’t true…and I trust the physical therapist more.

The x-rays showed no signs of arthritis or fluid build-up.  Good news!  And…I was right.

I began physical therapy to strengthen my hip, and I did notice a difference.  But as my hips improved, I began to get swelling in both knees and the inside of my right foot continued to hurt.  When I gave the physical therapist my history, she was genuinely concerned when I mentioned the possibility of Lyme’s disease.  I told her that the orthopedist said it wasn’t an infection, but she encouraged me to get tested, anyway.  She said she had been bitten by a tick, had no symptoms, got herself immediately tested and was positive.  She took antibiotics and was completely cured.

So, I called my primary care physician and requested to be tested for Lyme’s.  The nurse wanted a detailed history to justify the test.  Once they were satisified, they sent me a lab script in the mail, and I had my blood drawn.

In the hospital laboratory where I work, I am allowed access to my own test results.  Two days later, I saw that my  preliminary test for Lyme’s was positive.  I called the doctor and asked for antibiotics.  They told me that the results hadn’t even been uploaded, yet, so they had nothing official to go on.  I waited another five days for the Western Blot confirmatory test results.  My testing revealed that I had been infected with Lyme’s some time in the past.  It wasn’t a recent infection.  Crap!

Finally, I was placed on doxycycline antibiotics for three weeks.  I was surprised that the doctor didn’t ask to evaluate me, so I made an appointment to talk to her, anyway.  I had a lot of questions, including whether or not I should get an infectious disease doctor to take over my case.  There are a lot of horror stories about chronic Lyme’s out there, so I want to make sure that I get the best treatment.

I am pretty certain that I got the tick from one of the furry critters in our house. I don’t think it happened while hiking.  We have three cats and two dogs and love them to death.  Even though we spend a fortune on anti-tick and anti-flea medicine, I believe that the medication causes the ticks float to the top of their fur and infect us humans, instead. Well, I’m not giving up my pets nor hiking, but I will have to be more diligent about looking for ticks and promptly getting treated.  I’ll let you know how the antibiotics work. To be continued…

So, I made an appointment with a highly recommended orthopedist and filled out the paperwork on-line. When I arrived at the stark-white waiting room, the young receptionist gave me even more paper work to fill out.  On the paperwork, there was a diagram of the human body, and I was supposed to indicate which limb or joint was bothering me.  Well, I had multiple joint pain.  How could I choose?  Then I saw that you could ask for more paperwork if you have a secondary problem.  So I told the aloof receptionist that I had multiple joint pain and asked for the extra paperwork.  She looked puzzled and said just to “X” all the spots that bothered me and to tell the doctor when I saw him.  So, I placed an “X” on about six spots. I indicated that the primary problem was my right hip and the secondary, my back.

When my name was called, they took an X-ray of my right hip.  It made more sense to me why they wanted me to choose only one area. They didn’t want to X-ray your entire body.  I told the nurse that I liked the fact that they had their own X-ray machine.  The nurse explained that the doctors want all the information to make their diagnosis before the patient leaves.  I was happy about that.

My friend told me that this doctor would like a GQ model and she wasn’t kidding.  That doesn’t really impress me, though.  I’ve often found that arrogance goes along with the good looks.  To his credit, he was very nice and caring.  He checked my range of motion and told me that my hips were very weak.  He expected to see a lot of arthritis on the X-ray, but when he looked at it, there was only a little.  I told him about my knee and foot pain, and he recommended physical therapy for my hips.  He said that that should also take care of the lower extremity pain.  When I asked about my back, he said he would include back therapy, too, when he wrote the script for PT.  Basically, I was getting arthritis because I was getting older.

I had one more question for the doctor.  Recently, a friend of mine went to the doctor for hip pain.  She was an avid runner and always watched what she ate.  She found out that her hip pain was from metastatic lung cancer even though she never smoked!  Sadly, she died about a year later.  I wanted the doctor to reassure me that my pain wasn’t from anything systemic.  He told me, and I quote, “That is not even on my radar.  It isn’t cancer, it isn’t an infection, it’s nothing systemic, its just arthritis.”  I was relieved…at least for a little while. To be continued…

I haven’t written in a while, but I decided to revive this blog to share my journey with Lyme’s disease.  Hopefully, I’ll find out that it was discovered early enough that I will be 100% cured, and that this journey will be short.  But, if not, I’ll let you know how it goes.

A few months ago, I was bitten by a deer tick on my arm.  Don’t confuse these with dog ticks, deer ticks are very tiny.  My arm was a little red, but there was no rash, and I didn’t get a fever.  I showed it to Shawn and questioned whether I should go to the doctor  (I SHOULD HAVE). Shawn also had Lyme disease, but he had the classic bull’s eye rash, fever, and chills.  He went to his doctor and the physician’s assistant recognized it right away.  He was promptly treated and cured.

Because I didn’t experience symptoms right away, I quickly forgot about the bite.  It wasn’t until months later that I started having symptoms.  I have a routine of walking/jogging 3 miles, 3-4 times a week and never had a problem.  But when I decided to cross-train on the treadmill, I adjusted the settings too high and completely overdid it.  I think the Lyme’s popped at that time.  I broke out into what I thought was hives, and my back and neck became very sore.  You can get hives and sore muscles from overdoing it, so that’s what I thought it was.

After researching what would be a more appropriate speed and incline for me, I reduced the treadmill settings dramatically.  I still became sore in my back and neck.  I blamed it on the treadmill and went back to my routine of brisk-walking/jogging.  After I completed my usual 3 mile jaunt, I would be fine…until the next day.  My hips, knees and inside of my feet would all hurt.  I would rest for a few days, and try it again.  The same thing kept happening.  I remember visiting Cape May, New Jersey, around that time.  Shawn, my two daughters, Laura, Kayla, and I toured an old Victorian home.  At one point, I told Shawn that I needed to sit down, I couldn’t stand.  My joints hurt too much.  I noticed my left knee was swollen and my right hip still hurt.  Even though I could walk, it hurt to crouch to get things out of my drawer at work.  Every time I tried to exercise, it exacerbated my symptoms.  It was clear that it was time to see a doctor, so I made an appointment with an orthopedist.  To be continued…