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• Cape_La
• Topic a bit about me..... 01/26/2012 11:33 AM
  
  
  My name is Sharon. I am 52 yrs. old. I live on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. I was infected by a tick bite almost 20 years ago. [July 1993]
  I have been ill ever since.
  
  When I was first infected I was extremely sick with a 105-106 fever that lasted 6 days, extreme photophobia, the light hurt my eyes so badly that I could not open them, every fiber of my being ached and I had a stiff neck that kept my head in an backward position [locked] and a headache that made me want to rip my head off. I had a classic bullseye rash on my abdomen [at my belt line] where a nymph had been absorbed into my blood stream. I slept 22 hours a day, sometimes 24 hours a day, sometimes waking up just to struggle to the toilet to pee, then collapsing in bed again.
  
  My friend made me black curtains for my bedroom with room darkening shades, my room was like a cave, and I spent all of my time in there.
  
  I had many, many health issues and it took 4 years to get a definitive diagnosis. During that time I was never treated for LD, just for my symptoms. Antidepressants, pain relievers, anti-inflammatory drugs, anti-seizure drugs, you name it, they tried it. I had blood tests done weekly as my doctor tried to explain my lack of immune response and low body temperature [normal was 93.7 to less than 96 degrees], low white blood cell count but apparent lack of infection, chronic fatigue and bone and muscle pain.
  
  I spent two years trying to convince him that I had LD, he would do a lyme titer [ELISA] test and get negative results. I would say it's a false negative because that's how LD works. He didn't know enough about the disease to properly treat me and at that time we did not yet have Lyme Disease experts in our local area.
  
  Finally a friend I had met through a support group told me about a test she had done. It was a tissue biopsy of a sample taken from the bicep. I managed to have the test done and waited an agonizingly long 8 weeks for the results, which finally proved that not only did I have  Borrelia burgdorferi but I had coinfections of Ehrlichiosis and Babesiosis.
  A triple whammy as they say in the medical profession.
  
  It took over 5 years to begin to see a gradual improvement in my cognition, memory, speech, muscle and skeletal impairment, vision, tendonitis, arthritis, migraines, Oh my heavens! The list is so very long!
  Almost 20 years later and with never being treated I have long lasting chronic effects from this disease.
  
   It will never go away.
  There is NO cure.
  And CHRONIC lyme disease DOES EXIST.
  I am living proof!