Sheryl H's Story
I have had Lyme disease for over a year now and would like to share my story to help others and hopefully encourage them. I was bitten I think a year and almost 4 months ago, by a tick I never saw, nor had a bull's eye from. I had been gardening and hiking that Spring and also went to an outdoor show where we were sitting on the grass. So I am pretty sure during one of those occurrences was when I got Lyme Disease.
I began to feel extremely sick when I was visiting my daughter at school. I became very weak, had vomiting spells, and felt extremely fatigued. Then my symptoms disappeared. I thought I'd had food poisoning. The strange thing was my children were fine, and we had all eaten the same thing. All of my symptoms disappeared and I felt ok, and totally forgot about the crazy symptoms I had experienced.
Unfortunately, the symptoms returned when I was at a grocery store, when I became very dizzy and had diahrrea. I immediately knew something was wrong and went to a walk-in clinic. The Dr. examined me and thought I had Lyme disease. I was shocked. What was Lyme disease???? She started me on my first round of antibiotics and told me if I was still sick after the doxycycline, to see my primary care Dr.
This was when I truly started to learn about Lyme disease. I went to a Dr. after I was finished with the doxycycline, because I still was extremely ill with flu like symptoms, achy joints, fatigue, and I remember being so sick I could not get up off the couch. I saw doctors who gave me shots and medicine which helped me and I had one Dr. who had never seen me physically, look over my records and tell me on the phone "Looking at your records we do not think you have Lyme."
I immediately called the Lyme support group in my area recommended from the Internet, got my records from that doctor's office and struggled to find a good LLMD. By this time I had read enough about Lyme disease and was pretty sure that was my problem. My first tests came back false-positive because I had started on antibiotics. When I got to the LLMD he looked at me and said I can tell you have Lyme, and I want you to get more blood tests done at a different hospital.
I was totally hoarse when seeing him and he said that was the give away. Sure enough, I had the blood tests come back positive. He immediately started me on tons of abx's and now after this amount of time I am doing better. I have struggled everyday with this disease. I have spent an average of $15,000 last year on medicines, and supplements for treatment; Some of which included unnecessary testing at the time for thyroid, heart , and other testing.
I have become an activist for Lyme, helping as many others as I can. We have formed a group to educate the public in our state and I have been to many rallies including MOW, where I made ribbons for everyone in our state with Lyme disease. I have documented many families in our area and others with Lyme disease and attend support groups , forums , health fairs, meetings to help bring awareness of this horrible disease.
I have pushed forward to help in political meetings to get the truth out about Lyme disease. I am amazed at how naive and unaware people are about this disease even here in Ct. I hear so many mistruths and misconceptions about the disease and realize the public needs to be informed. That is our goal. I will press on through my aches and pains to help other families so others will protect themselves and not get bitten. I work in the health insurance field and am now appalled of the denial and pain we with Lyme have to go through with insurance cos., doctors, etc...
Everyday I struggle to get better and raise my children. I am a divorced mom with two. My kids are wonderful and we have grown very close - but this disease sometimes is very difficult to deal with. I pray we will find a cure quickly and continue to have our stories told. We will not be kept down, and need eachother with Lyme to stand strong. Love to the families with Lyme disease and all of those suffering .
Sheryl
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