posted
I looking over some literature I came across the term "temporal arteritis". When looking it up, my headaches and facial problems seem to fit this ailment to a frightening degree.
If I have this, the only known treatment seems to be high-dose oral prednisone. Untreated, it can lead to blindness and even death in some cases.
Anybody have this as part of their Lyme profile? I looked it up trying to see a relationship between the two diseases and only found two links that showed any connection between them. It a fairly rare problem, but I am concerned enough about it to run back to the doc and get it checked out tomorrow. I had virtually every symptom of temporal arteritis when my sickness was at its worst three weeks ago. There are still headaches and tenderness in the temple after almost three weeks of doxy.
Anybody else been diagnosed with temporal arteritis, or know anything about it?
Posts: 50 | From Saratoga Springs, NY | Registered: Jun 2011
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fflutterby
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 28081
posted
My MD thought I had that before I knew I had Lyme. You can be tested for it. I tested negative for Temporal Arteritis. I do have Lyme and Bart though. I have been on antibiotics almost 10 months.
I hate to break it to you, but if you have Lyme, three weeks of Doxy is a drop in the bucket. I still suffer with the same symptoms as you. Get a good LLMD and hang in there.
-------------------- Psalm 46 1 God is our refuge and strength Posts: 1367 | From North Jersey | Registered: Sep 2010
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posted
My mother has temporal arteritis, but not Lyme. She does LOW-dose oral prednisone, and it's working just fine.
So do not assume you must take massive doses, Fogged. She got frequent blood tests to find out what would be the lowest possible therapeutic dose, and now she just maintains it. Good luck.
Posts: 228 | From Mass. | Registered: Feb 2009
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I get very nervous when I even think of having to take prednisone because of my bad eye. After a severe injury in the right eye I developed glaucoma. After every operation I had they had to use prednisone for a while to reduce the inflammation. I found out that I am what is considered to be a "steroid responder", meaning that taking any kind of steroid drives my eye pressure through the roof.
So far, after fighting for three years to keep my sight, I still have it, but anything could happen a lot easier than it could for a normal person. One more episode of sky-high IOP and it could get to the point where it would no longer be able to be controlled and then I would face blindness.
Posts: 50 | From Saratoga Springs, NY | Registered: Jun 2011
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posted
Carol, those look like a lot of the same symptoms of tick-borne disease as well. It gets very hard to tell what's what.
Yes, I had most of them. My acute illness began with a throbbing headache in the temples, mostly the right one. After a few days there was pronounced swelling right over my TMJ and the jaw was hard to move. I also has swelling and redness right over my right temple, but no engorged blood vessels like I've seen in photos of patients with TA (also called "Giant Cell Arteritis").
My question through all of this is:
"How do you treat the symptoms when so many illnesses share the same ones?"
Over the years, my family has caught a lot of things that we've passed around to each other. As I recall, some of them seemed to come with very specific aches and pains, like say, the head of my left biceps is killing me. Then my son who obviously has the same infection suddenly starts complaining of a pain in the exact spot. Soon, my other son comes down with it and two days later he's crying his arm is killing him and points to the same spot again.
When I would tell my primary about this he would just look at me like I had two heads. "Yes, aches and pains accompany almost all infection and illnesses." Why do they even list it as a symptom?
I look for unique signs and symptoms, like the jaw pain, blurred or double vision, throbbing headache on one side, etc.
I also had a profound of loss of appetite, weight loss (uh... 'cause I wasn't eating anything), fever, weakness, tiredness, general ill feeling, muscle aches, sweating (when the fever would break), and sensitive scalp. Should I worry? Of course... now I will.
I saw an abstract that mentioned a 70 year-old man who had TA and the biopsy of a section of blood vessel cultured positive for borrelia. They said that was the first case they had heard of. Are there more?
Posts: 50 | From Saratoga Springs, NY | Registered: Jun 2011
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