I have been having terrible pain in my chest, neck and upper back. LLMD sent me to a cardiologist last week. X-rays show moderate degenerative disc disease in the thoracic spine. I am 43 and have never had a back injury. Wondering if anyone knows if this can be caused by the lyme (had untreated 4 yrs, treated 8 mos.) or only made worse by the lyme. Waiting for LLMD to get report from Cardiologist and help me understand next steps. I am a busy mom with 5 kids, having a very difficult time managing this pain and don't have a lot of opportunity to take it easy either.
Thanks for your help.
Posted by delljen (Member # 25090) on :
I too was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease at 43. At the time I did not know that I had lyme, bartonella and babesia duncani.
I had never had any back/neck injuries.
I met with a neurosurgeon who insisted I have C4-5 fused. I went ahead with the surgery.
Yes, I think degenerative disc disease(DDD my abbreviation : )) can be caused by lyme and babesia.
I can only tell you what I would do if I had it to do over. I am a mom too so I understand your life. I would treat for lyme and babesia and bart, before I would ever consider any pain from DDD to be permanent. I would also try treating lyme and babs and than bart before I would ever have surgery to see if the pain would lessen/resolve first.
Hope that helps.
Also, it took a long time for babesia to show up in me. Don't wait to treat for it if you even think it may be a player in your illness.
My babs showed up after treating lyme for two years.
When my babesia would flare it would flare in my neck and spine and I didn't understand that those symptoms were babesia at the time. Treatment of lyme and babs has helped my spine and neck pain become a distant memory.
Posted by steve1906 (Member # 16206) on :
Same here, I said no to surgery, never had back problems before Lyme.
Now I have disk, spine & bulging disk problems that showed up on MRI's. I decided to just live with the pain. And by the way, the pain is much better than years back.
Good luck!
Steve
Posted by lpkayak (Member # 5230) on :
i believe lyme can do this-i agree tx it first. i raised 4 kids and had a horsefarm with lyme and worked full time. it wasnt easy. but you gotta do what you gotta do.
come here to general support when it gets hard.
Posted by dal123 (Member # 6313) on :
Yes, Lyme attacks the spine! this is why i do Raindrop therapy with young living essential oils, lyme and other bugs like to hide out in the spine, RDT helps to move them out and kill them!
Posted by jeng2495 (Member # 40587) on :
Thank you everyone I appreciate your responses. I haven't been having any improvement and will be starting IV soon. Last week I switched to Mepron and Minocycline are they for Babesia? I've only tested positive for lyme with igenex, negative on co infections through Clinical Lab.
Hope you're all doing well!?
Posted by poppy (Member # 5355) on :
I had such bad low back pain that I could not sit for any length of time. Had to drive 5 hours to a doctor for lyme treatment at the time, and every 15 minutes, stopped to get out and walk, rest my back. Plugged an inverter into car cigarette lighter to use heating pad.
Took one of those doughnut cushions with me everywhere to sit on, which helped a little.
Then it went away when I was treated for lyme and babesia. Had the impression it was more the babs, but that never really made sense because lyme affects the nerves. How could babs do this? But that is how it seemed, and the babs is gone along with the back pain, and lyme remains. Scans at the time did show some spine issues, but if they are still there, don't hurt. I think it is true that a person can have things show up on scans that are not causing issues.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I appreciate your responses. I haven't been having any improvement and will be starting IV soon. Last week I switched to Mepron and Minocycline are they for Babesia? I've only tested positive for lyme with igenex, negative on co infections through Clinical Lab.