I am writing for my 78 year old mother. She has seen many doctors and nobody can determine what is wrong with her. They did the Ink Blot test and said she does not have Lymes. Yet, something is terribly wrong and she is getting worse everyday. She is suffering severe pain. She thinks she does not have Lymes since she does not have the most typical symptoms and the one blood test the doctor did was negative. However, if she is still having so much pain that began when a tick was attached to her ear for a week, how do you get a doctor to diagnose Lymes or at least, to do more tests to completely rule it out?
She started in late January with a very stiff neck that gets a little better and then worse, but has never gone away.
She has extreme muscle pain in her back and hip. She has most recently fainted suddenly and fallen flat on her face. They did a MRI and ruled out a stroke. She is now unable to walk or move her legs. She can hardly use her right arm because of extreme muscle soreness. She has become very depressed because of this pain.
Could these be symptoms of Lymes and if so, what can you suggest that I could do to convince her to see a LLMD? Thanks for any help you can give me.
Posted by disturbedme (Member # 12346) on :
Yes, those are all symptoms of Lyme Disease.
I don't know what you can say to get her to an LLMD, but she will NOT get better unless she finds a doctor that will support her and treat her, and that means going to see a LLMD. Maybe if you tell her that much?
Also, it is not called Lymes, it is Lyme...
Good luck! Hope your mother listens to you about finding a LLMD.
Posted by 22dreams (Member # 17846) on :
sorry to hear about your mother's health problems. I'd just like to add that testing is deplorably inaccurate (46-58%) even the best of them can't be used as a diagnostic tool.
so no test can rule lyme in or out.
As disturbedme said, strongly suggest finding a LLMD. Convincing someone -- that's a toughy. I'm not a persuasive person, so I'll leave it to others here for suggestions.
I don't know if bombarding her with information will help.