Hi, I am looking for a doctor who sees patients who have already been treated for lyme in the state of New Mexico. Specifically, I would like to see someone who is familiar with "post-treatment lyme" symptoms.
I am a female in my mid-twenties. I grew up in Maryland and that is where I contracted lyme. I was finally treated for lyme (w/ 6 weeks doxycycline) as a teenager after being chronically sick for 2+ years (I never found a tick or rash). It was a dentist who finally caught it. He told me to get tested for rheumatoid because he noticed swollen joints in my hands. It was negative for rheumatoid and positive for lyme (serological testing was used to make the positive diagnosis, I am pretty sure).
Around the same time that my lyme was diagnosed/treated, I was also diagnosed with narcolepsy and polycystic ovarian syndrome. These have been fairly well managed with normal medical treatments common for these conditions for ~10 years.
Lyme symptoms have been recurrent since the diagnosis to varying degrees (chronic fatigue, aches, difficulty concentrating, vision changes, tingling in extremities, dizziness). Doctors often test me for thyroid problems and my tests are always normal. They ultimately end up blaming the symptoms on my other diagnosed conditions or reducing them to psychosomatic illness.
Extreme worsening of these symptoms over the past 6 months, to the point of becoming debilitating at times, has led me to seek out doctors open to considering my symptoms as post-treatment lyme. Because I have been given an official lyme diagnosis and was administered a standard treatment beyond the "early-stage lyme" phase (therefore classifying it as "late-stage" lyme more appropriately), I don't believe my treatment as a "post-lyme" sufferer should be particularly controversial. I just need to find a doctor familiar with the illness in New Mexico, where I now live.
Thank you so much to anyone able to provide me suggestions.
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
You are in a REALLY bad spot for lyme treatment. You will need to travel in order to get help.
There is no such thing as "post-Lyme".. you either have Lyme or you don't.
If you are still having symptoms, you have Lyme...or one of its coinfections.
I figured I was in a bad area for treatment. Are there any doctors in the Southwest region at all?
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
Arizona has one.
Posted by LG_89 (Member # 41247) on :
Does anyone know if there is a lab test I could have done from anywhere to determine whether or not the lyme infection or coinfection is still active in my body before traveling to a specialist out of state?
Posted by C.P. (Member # 38378) on :
There are two Lyme Doctors in Colorado who I know and have seen. Send me a private message if you're interested in learning their names. One is Dr. K with a two year wait, and the other is Dr. N. I don't know how long his wait is. C.P.
Posted by hopingandpraying (Member # 9256) on :