posted
I have been doing some research and I ran acroos this website, I am fixing to go to my 4th doctor about these problems and I going crazy with getting the run around. He is not a Lyme dr that I know of, he is a Rheumatologist.
If there is anything that you can think of that might fit this problems please let me know so I can research them to have questions to ask the new doctor( I will have my files sent to him before hand). I am driving 2 hours from my town to see this doctor that I have been researching.
All of this has happened in the last 6 months. Around the time that I had bronchitis.
This is the order that I remember to the best of me that it came. I never have fever; and none of the spots are red.
I hit my right fourth toe on a chair months ago and it is sore sometimes from the toe up about 3 inches into my foot on top and bottom, I can't pull my toe up at all. When I stand up on it at work it burns really bad. My fourth finger on my left hand swells really bad like a sausage almost everyday and stays that way for hours if not all day, may one day a week it will go down(this is the worst of everything to me).
In have also noticed that when I salty things the swelling is worse, even if I drink tons of water. My fourth finger on my right hand does not swell but is more of pain from my finger into my palm. I can't bind them when I get up in the morning.
On both fingers if you squeeze the bones they hurt extreme bad. Not all the time but most of the time they do. I woke up one morning and my neck hurt really bad I thought that maybe I had slept wrong but the pain never goes away, I can't turn my neck to see on traffic when turning onto a road I have to get up in my seat to see if something is going.
My thumbs hurt, normally, both at once to where I can't pull them in to pick anything up. I can't grip to open my meds, a bottle anything like that. My left wrist is swollen and I wear a brace on it at work but it normally does nothing but doesn't let it get any worse.
My left wrist does not hurt. In both of my thighs the muscles ache and a have a hard time walking after I have been sitting for a while (20 minutes sometimes). I have lower back pain and knee pain. The knee pain sometimes is horrible; I have to wrap them up in blankets and go to sleep. In the past two weeks I have been having unbearable pain in my arms.
In both normally from the elbow to the wrist, the muscles hurt more than anything, it feels like my elbows are going to pop but they can't. In the morning it is so bad that I can't brush my hair, wash my hair and sometimes put my own clothes on. I have tried celebrex, mobic, 800 ibuprofen, and sulfasalazin 500. The last one I tried to take but the pills are awful.
I could not get them down. My sed rate is always extremely high and they don't know why. I have had 2 rh test done and they are both negative. I am going to try another doctor, hoping that it will get better.
Cortisone shots don't help I have had 2. Uric test was good, FANA test was okay, C reative protein was okay, and the parvo test was negative. Negative lupus test. He said that he thinks that is it the start of Rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia. What do you think??
I don't remember being bite by anything and I have not had a rash that I can pin point having.
Thank you for anything that you can tell me.
If I have posted this in the wrong place please let me know.
Ashley
[ 03. May 2008, 05:54 PM: Message edited by: shoebottom ]
Posts: 8 | From Mississippi | Registered: May 2008
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posted
I got this website referral from WrongDiagnosis.com, if anyone wanted to know.
Posts: 8 | From Mississippi | Registered: May 2008
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posted
You would get more replies if you posted this in Medical Questions.
FORGET about seeing another non-Lyme Literate MD!!!
Go to Seeking a Doctor forum and ask for help in finding a REAL doctor!
-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96239 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
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daise
Unregistered
posted
Hi Shoebottom,
You explained yourself well. Thank you.
You are in a whole lot of pain and confusion. I don't blame you! And you're scared. This is a website full of people who know what it is to be scared.
I agree with what's been said.
I have no medical training, OK?
First, you have had Lupus ruled out and that's a good thing.
It sounds like you are having neuro problems and so then, you'd think, a neurologist could help, and maybe they can--if it's not Lyme!
However, your signs and symptoms are such that I would say you need to be properly assessed for Lyme disease.
There is only one way to be assessed: by an LLMD (Lyme-literate MD) who is also an ILADS (International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society) doctor. This type of doctor is way out of the mainstream of conventional doctors.
Please turn and run from an infectious disease doctor (but for a precious handful,) because they don't take Lyme seriously. At all.
I'm not saying you have Lyme ... but it could be: you have neuro signs and arthritis. That's two different body systems affected.
And bronchitis recently, that's three: if you have had that before, maybe it's exxacerbated now that you are ill with other things.
Could you have carpel tunnel? That's when the carpel tunnel in your wrists becomes inflamed and causes problems with your thumb and the first and second fingers next to your thumb.
Since you have it on both sides, I wonder STRONGLY if you have carpel tunnel caused by hypothyroidism. My severe hypothyroidism is what brought-on Lyme disease in my opinion!(The lyme germ had been quietly hiding in my body for nine years.)
Simple: Get three blood tests from any doctor: TSH, Free T4 and Free T3. Hypothyroidism is common and epidemic in the general population.
For TSH if you test outside the range of .3 - 3, that's a thyroid problem, although most labs don't use the new range yet, even though it's been out for 4 years or so!
If you are positive for hypothyroidism, go to your library and see if they carry: Living Well With Hypothyroidism, 2005 Edition, by Mary J. Shomon. There is enormous help in that book.
She also has a fantastic website for search help: www.thyroid-info.com which ties into her about.com site.
You are right to wear a brace, to pevent further damage. Especially at night. 50 mg of B-complex goes a long way to help any neuro problems--especially carpel tunnel.
It's curious that the Lyme germs often attack the thyroid!
Back to Lyme. You wrote: "I don't remember being bite by anything and I have not had a rash that I can pin point having."
Ticks may be so tiny you never see them. Most don't remember tick bites. Most adults don't get the rash!
Most conventional doctors will not help you with Lyme. In fact, if you mention "Lyme" to them, they may start foaming at the mouth and will say about anything to get you out of their office!
You wonder: what happened? What'd I say? Our illness is too complicated for them and so they can't make easy, big money off us.
Newbies to this website get the newbie package from BettyG. I'll alert her.
You've had your signs and symptoms 6 months. If you have Lyme disease, it's hard to say when you got it.
To find an LLMD, go to the top of this page and click Forum Home, then "Seeking A Doctor." We post for doctors with a topic title showing our state. We protect our precious Lyme doctors by sending you names of LLMD's by private message (PM.)
Also, at the top of any page, on the left, in the leafy menu click "Support Groups" to find a group in your area.
They can open doors locally. They can tell of experiences wth this or that LLMD so that you will feel comfortable with your LLMD choice.
Consider all your choices.
If you have Lyme, after a year of signs and symptoms, if not well before then, you get a brain infection of Lyme. Ya. You may have head pain. Certainly cognitive problems. Short-term memory. Disorientation. Difficulty reading. Brain fog. EXHAUSTION. Vertigo-like problems. Eye problems. And much more.
This is called neuroborreliosis, a brain infection of the Lyme pathogen. I'm just telling you straight.
Very important: go to www.ilads.org, to the left menu and click "Treatment Guidelines" which takes you to "ILADS Guidelines" and also Dr. Burrascano's 33 pages of tips for 2005. Print!
A book: Coping With Lyme Disease, by Denise Lang and Kenneth Leigner, MD.
Hang-in there, shoebottom. I know you are in a whole lot of pain and wondering what is going on with you. Yes, it could be Lyme.
I'm too pooped to tell you about tests, except that no test is 100% accurate--at all. That's why Lyme is a clinical diagnosis.
But I have to tell you this: If any doc wants to give you a Lyme titers test (ELISA) REFUSE IT! It is wrong so often it's rediculous and is used by docs and some insurance companies to deny treatment.
I hope I haven't scared you off! We don't sugar coat anything here in Lymeland.
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