I too, have my own story of misdiagnosis, but I think it's still important to point out a similar problem - diagnosing Lyme when in fact, it is another disease or infection.
There are cases where Lyme is diagnosed when it is not Lyme. I know the reverse is true by a zillion, but it's still good to remember the danger of misdiagnosing.
Treatment of chronic Lyme is tough on the body, especially if tough antibiotics are diagnosed longterm because the symptoms are not clearing.
The best Lyme docs know to weed out all the other possibilities while diagnosing the disease, but others may not be so smart, or may automatically assume that the weeding thru of all other possible diagnoses is done by prior docs.
Someone mentioned getting diagnosed with Celiac. It's possible that someone can have Celiac and Lyme - especially since we know that Lyme can cause autoimmune stuff. But it's also very true that the someone who has lyme may very well have Celiac disease.Thankfully, getting a clear Celiac diagnosis is made nearly 99% certain thanks to a new Celiac blood panel.
Thyroiditis can also look exactly like Lyme, as do a lot of other diseases. Because Lyme is a multi-system disease, it's easy to see why it's so hard to diagnose!
Depression is another difficult one! Lyme can cause it, but depression itself has MANY symptoms of Lyme - including pain syndromes and terrible headaches. Even the symptom of joint pain, or general aches and pains.
I just think it's wise to keep our minds open. Landing on a diagnosis after years of not having one to explain all of our bizarre symptoms can blind us to other possible answers.
My own theory is that eventually every disease, maybe even some in the autoimmune dept, will be shown to have an infectious base.
I've heard a doc. have the courage to admit that he/she was not certain what infection it is they were treating, but were willing to be led by the evidence - the radical improvement in symptoms. How is that for courage and compassion? A dr. who treated a particular case like this who might be hauled to a medical board by a duplicitous family member would be slaughtered - but every dr. on that board would want the same treatment when all other diagnoses failed to bring relief.
Very complicated!
Anneke
Posts: 364 | From California | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
my LLMD always says "Not everything is lyme"
just because I have lyme disease doesn'y mean I am not going to get some other disease that can be treated with other medicines, whether they be related to the lyme or not.
Posts: 615 | From maryland | Registered: Oct 2007
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