Randi's Story
I am a 38 year old married female with two children. My daughter who is 9 also suffers from Lyme Disease. My story began back in 1991 when I was hospitalized for 4 days with a diagnosis of viral meningitis. I was not tested at the time for Lyme.
From 1991 through 1997 I suffered several bouts of increased liver enzymes,and fatigue and mood swings. I attributed all this to life's daily stresses. I was diagnosed with Epstein Barr in 1996 and began putting on weight at that time. In November, 1997 had an ovarian cyst the size of a golf ball removed with part of my ovary.
I felt better and then in May,1998, just six months later, had emergency gallbladder surgery. Still no one considered Lyme nor did I. I began to have constant knife stabbing shoulder pain in my right shoulder prior to gallbladder removal. All doctors including orthopedist said it was tendonitis from work.
By March of 1999 I was still feeling lousy and tired and fat. I decided to go with my dearest friend to her Doctor in CT because he practiced holistically and used some nutritional medicine. He is also a Lyme specialist, but I never thought I had lyme. After speaking with me for 30 minutes he said "You have Lyme Disease." I did not believe him but agreed to blood work.
In the few weeks following blood work prior to results I began having several neurological problems. Short term memory loss, difficulty with word retrieval, spelling difficulties, getting lost in my town, and severe headaches, to mention a few. My Western Blot was positive and then I had a SPECT scan done at Columbia Presbyterian hospital with results pointing to long term Lyme. The SPECT showed that I had decreased blood flow to parietal and temporal lobes.
One month later after trying biaxin with no changes, I began IV rocephin for 76 days. Had a break and then 2 weeks later began flaggyl. This made me sicker than ever! I was 85-90% improved neurologically but began increased muscle and joint pains. As of August 10 I am medication free and in a lot of pain.
I will see my Doctor September 1st where he said he may begin bicillin injections. So this is my story. I guess you could say I too have chronic Lyme Disease. I hope for all of us that they can find a cure! God Bless all of us!
Randi
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