I'm off all antibiotics after two full years of treatment with them. I did orals for a year followed by Rocephin IV for 11 months.
After coming off all antibiotics and losing my gall bladder to Rocephin I am suffering severe bouts of nausea.
This is a symptom I never suffered before. All of my other symptoms are gone with the exception of small episodes of myoclonic jerks. These however have improved drastically from the begininng.
After being on antibiotics for two years I know my system has to go through not being on drugs.
Has anyone else out there suffered severe nausea that stops you dead in your tracks where you can't function?
Barb
[ 07. November 2008, 03:38 PM: Message edited by: sfcharm ]
Posts: 281 | From san francisco | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
up
Posts: 281 | From san francisco | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
-
Nausea = LYME??? Anyone?
Well, actually, I thought this was just part of it. I've had nausea for decades. Partly from inner ear involvement but it is a frequent presence with lyme.
Ginger capsules or ginger tea is my best helper in that regard.
sammy
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 13952
posted
Yep, that was one of my first symptoms. Miserable. It's with me every day to some degree. Sometimes i'm too nauseated to move or even open my eyes. Not good when I have to work. Zofran helps sometimes but usually even that isn't enough. I guess i've just learned to deal with it. Not fun though, I understand.
Posts: 5237 | From here | Registered: Nov 2007
| IP: Logged |
AZURE WISH
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 804
posted
I do have nausea from lyme/babs...
but there are many other causes of nausea. If your nausea is that severe i would definetely want to see a gastro dr.
posted
I believe I have Lyme meningitis in my neck. When the atlas bone is affected, I can be dizzy. When C2 is pulled, that can cause me nausea, I think from the vagus nerve being affected. So that's part what I go to the chiropractor for.
I wonder if Lyme can affect the vagus nerve, and so induce nausea, without any bone subluxation.
Posts: 13116 | From San Francisco | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged |
Angelica
Unregistered
posted
I think there was a whole article in the Lyme Times about LD and what it can do to the vagus nerve.
IP: Logged |
posted
Nausea has been my most debilitating symptom with this disease. It was the first symptom that presented with 3 years ago and it is primarily the only symptom I am left dealing with today (after 16 months of treatment).
It has definitely been more tolerable since treating. I continue to look for other causes of my nausea but have yet to find an answer and since it seems to continue to improve with each month of treatment, I continue to treat TBDs.
Couple things that can cause chronic nausea with no associated abdominal pain (besides antibiotics of course) are things such as gastroparesis, crohn's disease, endocrine imbalance (e.g. cortisol) and some neurological conditions. Make sure you have a thorough differential diagnosis to rule out other causes of your nausea.
The LLMD (considered one of the best) I currently started going to said my case was very unusual....meaning that many of his patients experience nausea but it almost always resolves with treatment. He said he's of course had some patients that do have remaining symptoms (e.g. joint pain) after extensive treatment but he's never seen a case like mine in terms of having intractable nausea. My point is that for those of you dealing with it, it will likely pass with proper treatment.
No anti-emetic treatments worked for me. I at one point was so bad that my PCP even drugged me up with Marinol....that didn't help either. For me, it was just treatment and time.
Posts: 561 | From mass | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
clairenotes
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 10392
posted
Possibly food poisoning...
There has been research that suggests some of the food poisoning microbes like salmonella and e coli can exist in the body long after initial infection in a more subtle way.
Also, GI viruses were discussed recently.
Claire
Posts: 1111 | From Colorado | Registered: Oct 2006
| IP: Logged |
hshbmom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9478
posted
Angelica, I believe you're talking about the article by Dr. VTS, "Bells Palsy of the Gut, and Other GI Manifestations of Lyme and Associated Diseases"
For Lyme-induced (neurogenic) nausea we've tried phenegren, zofran, and reglan. None have seemed to really help. At times they help a little, but nothing eliminates the nausea entirely.
Robin, yes the vagal nerve, or any other nerve can be affected by Lyme disease. The vagus nerve is one of the longest nerves in your body, possibly the longest. It can affect many organs and body systems.
Lyme may affect the sensory or the motor function of the nerve. Some people may become dizzy, while others are just off-balance. Some experience nausea, and some experience vomiting.
Your physician will probably order an ENG test to rule out true vestibular problems. An ENT doctor can perform that test.
Posts: 1672 | From AL/WV/OH | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
-
Clairenotes has a good point. Food poisoning is often overlooked and, now, it also appears to be much more complex than previously thought.
I came across some articles about this a while back:
LONG-TERM ILLS TIED TO BAD FOOD - Symptoms May Arise Years After Poisoning
- By Annys Shin, Washington Post Staff Writer --Tuesday, September 2, 2008; HE01
Excerpts:
* Over the past decade, as medical experts have sought out the source of certain chronic illnesses, they have increasingly found links to episodes of food poisoning, sometimes many years beforehand, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
* "What the classical medical literature says and what we've seen is not the same," said Donna Rosenbaum, executive director of Safe Tables Our Priority, or STOP, a nonprofit that represents people who have suffered serious food-borne illness.
* There may be a way to prevent the worst HUS cases and their consequences. Doctors in Washington state have found that it is important to hydrate a patient if they even suspect an E. coli infection. Doing so helps reduce the extent of injury to the kidneys.
- FULL ARTICLE:
Over the past five years, Sarah Pierce has suffered repeated kidney failure, spent three years on dialysis, had the plasma in her blood replaced twice, and lost a fiance, friends and a job -- all because of something she ate.
Pierce, now 30, was infected with a toxic strain of bacteria, E. coli O157:H7, that can be spread through undercooked meat or raw produce.
Today, she has a healthy kidney donated by her brother, a full-time job and a husband. But the medicines she takes to keep her body from rejecting her replacement kidney carry a high risk of causing birth defects, so she has ruled out pregnancy.
"I would have liked to have had children," she said. Pierce belongs to a small subset of people who develop long-term health problems from food poisoning. Their ranks are growing.
Over the past decade, as medical experts have sought out the source of certain chronic illnesses, they have increasingly found links to episodes of food poisoning, sometimes many years beforehand, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Campylobacter, a bacterium associated with raw chicken, is now recognized as a leading cause of the sudden acute paralysis known as Guillain-Barr� syndrome.
Certain strains of salmonella, the bacterium involved in the recent outbreak in Mexican raw jalape�o and serrano peppers, can cause arthritis.
And E. coli O157:H7, a strain of an otherwise harmless bacterium that lives in animal intestines, can release toxins that cause hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, a kidney disorder that in 25 to 50 percent of cases leads to kidney failure, high blood pressure and other problems as much as 10 years later.
This list is just the beginning of the many health problems some people are now attributing to food-borne infections.
"What the classical medical literature says and what we've seen is not the same," said Donna Rosenbaum, executive director of Safe Tables Our Priority, or STOP, a nonprofit that represents people who have suffered serious food-borne illness.
The CDC estimates there are 76 million cases of food-borne disease in the United States annually.
The vast majority of people experience it only as an unpleasant bout of diarrhea or abdominal pain, though an estimated 5,000 to 9,000 Americans die each year from food poisoning.
A handful of pathogens are responsible for more than 90 percent of those fatalities: salmonella, listeria, toxoplasma, noroviruses, campylobacter and E. coli.
Those most susceptible to infection are small children, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.
Until recently, doctors were focused on the acute phase of food-borne infections, but since the 1990s, there has been "a more gradual recognition that some of the pathogens do have long-term [effects]," said Marguerite Neill, an infectious-disease specialist who teaches at Brown University.
"We're already on the right track in terms of [saying] food-borne illness is more than diarrhea and may end up with long-term [illnesses]." Some doctors are now wondering, for example, whether food-borne infections trigger irritable bowel syndrome and colitis, said Andrew Pavia, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Utah.
However, long-term health effects of food-borne infections are hard to study, for a variety of reasons. First, it is tough to prove a link between some of these illnesses and later chronic conditions such as arthritis.
Second, despite annual outbreaks across the nation, the subject hasn't attracted much public attention or funding, Neill said. Also, federal health-care privacy laws make it difficult for researchers to approach anyone who is not in their direct care.
To get around the last of these problems, STOP is setting up a national registry of victims of food-borne disease who would be willing to participate in longitudinal studies.
The registry could help researchers determine, for instance, how frequently food-borne infection leads to chronic health problems and what role factors such as genetics play in who develops them.
A Case Study
Researchers and clinicians face unique challenges when studying the long-term effects of HUS. The first outbreak associated with E. coli in the United States was in the 1980s.
Many of the earliest victims are only now entering their childbearing years.
Also, the number of HUS cases is small. Only about 5 to 10 percent of the 73,000 people each year who get sick from E. coli develop HUS.
The impact of HUS, however, is great. In the acute phase, microscopic blood clots may form in the kidney, leading to kidney failure, Neill said.
Sometimes the kidney can be rescued with temporary dialysis. Less commonly, these blood clots form in organs such as the brain and cause stroke or seizure. There may be permanent damage to the kidney.
According to a long-term study of 157 HUS victims co-written by Pavia in 1994, more than half developed kidney problems seven or more years after the initial illness.
These people face a lifetime of medical treatment. "Anyone with HUS will be monitored for the rest of their lives. If the acute course was severe enough, the risk of long-term kidney complications, including end-stage renal disease and kidney transplant, is quite high.
The future medical cost alone can then be in the millions," said William Marler, a Seattle lawyer who sues retailers and food companies on behalf of food poisoning victims.
That is the scenario Elizabeth Armstrong faces. Her two daughters got sick after eating bagged baby spinach in 2006. Her older daughter, Isabella, who was 4 at the time, survived with no apparent health problems.
But her younger daughter, Ashley, who was 2 at the time, developed HUS. She has only 10 percent kidney function and will likely need more than one kidney transplant in her lifetime, including one before she is an adult.
Also, when she becomes an adult, Ashley may face the same dilemma that Sarah Pierce did: deciding whether bearing a child is worth the risk.
There may be a way to prevent the worst HUS cases and their consequences.
Doctors in Washington state have found that it is important to hydrate a patient if they even suspect an E. coli infection. Doing so helps reduce the extent of injury to the kidneys.
More research needs to be done to identify other effective interventions, said Phillip Tarr, an HUS expert at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
FOOD POISONING: WHEN TO SEEK HELP (No author listed. Assume writers to be staff of Washington Post.)
Tuesday, September 2, 2008; HE03
Of the estimated 76 million cases of food-borne disease the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates occur each year in the United States, the majority cause symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting for just a day or two.
The CDC recommends consulting your doctor if diarrhea is accompanied by:
� high fever (temperature over 101.5);
� blood in the stools;
� prolonged vomiting that prevents keeping liquids down; or
� signs of dehydration, including a decrease in urination, a dry mouth and throat, and dizziness when standing up.
A doctor should also be called if the diarrheal illness lasts more than three days.
Food poisoning cannot always be avoided. Tainted food does not always smell or taste bad. However, the CDC lists a few precautions people can take to reduce the risk:
Cook: Meat and eggs need to be cooked thoroughly. Ground beef should reach an internal temperature of 160 degrees. Eggs should be cooked until the yolk is firm.
Separate: Avoid cross-contamination by washing hands, utensils and cutting boards after they have been in contact with raw meat or poultry and before they touch another food. Chill: Refrigerate leftovers promptly.
Clean: Wash your hands before preparing food. Rinse fresh fruit and vegetables in running tap water to remove dirt. Discard the outer leaves of a head of lettuce or cabbage. Avoid leaving cut produce at room temperature for many hours.
Report: Notify your local health department about suspected cases of food-borne illness. Scientists use this information to control the spread of illness and learn how to prevent outbreaks in the future.
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic