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Lyme disease affects different areas of the body in varying degrees as it progresses. The site where the tick bites the body is where the bacteria enter through the skin. As the bacteria spread in the skin away from the initial tick bite, the infection causes an expanding reddish rash that is often associated with "flu-like" symptoms. Later, it can produce abnormalities in the joints, heart, and nervous system.

Lyme disease is medically described in three phases as: (1) early localized disease with skin inflammation; (2) early disseminated disease with heart and nervous system involvement, including palsies and meningitis; and (3) late disease featuring motor and sensory nerve damage and brain inflammation as well as arthritis.

In the early phase of the illness, within days to weeks of the tick bite, the skin around the bite develops an expanding ring of unraised redness. There may be an outer ring of brighter redness and a central area of clearing, leading to a "bull's-eye" appearance. This classic initial rash is called "erythema migrans" (formerly called erythema chronicum migrans). Patients often can't recall the tick bite (the ticks can be as small as the periods in this paragraph). Also, they may not have the identifying rash to signal the doctor. More than one in four patients never even develop a rash. The redness of the skin is often accompanied by generalized fatigue, muscle and joint stiffness, swollen lymph nodes ("swollen glands"), and headache, resembling symptoms of a virus infection.

The redness resolves, without treatment, in about a month. Weeks to months after the initial redness of the skin the bacteria and their effects spread throughout the body. Subsequently, disease in the joints, heart, and nervous system can occur.

The later phases of Lyme disease can affect the heart, causing inflammation of the heart muscle. This can result in abnormal heart rhythms and heart failure. The nervous system can develop facial muscle paralysis (Bell's palsy), abnormal sensation due to disease of peripheral nerves (peripheral neuropathy), meningitis, and confusion. Arthritis, or inflammation in the joints, begins with swelling, stiffness, and pain. Usually, only one or a few joints become affected, most commonly the knees. The arthritis of Lyme disease can look like many other types of inflammatory arthritis and can become chronic.

Researchers have also found that anxiety and depression occur with an increased rate in people with Lyme disease. This is another important aspect of the evaluation and management of this condition.

What is Lyme disease?

Lyme disease is a bacterial disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi (boar-ELL-ee-uh burg-dorf-ERR-eye). Within 1 to 2 weeks of being infected, people may have a "bull's-eye" rash with fever, headache, and muscle or joint pain. Some people have Lyme disease and do not have any early symptoms. Other people have a fever and other "flu-like" symptoms without a rash.

After several days or weeks, the bacteria may spread throughout the body of an infected person. These people can get symptoms such as rashes in other parts of the body, pain that seems to move from joint to joint, and signs of inflammation of the heart or nerves. If the disease is not treated, a few patients can get additional symptoms, such as swelling and pain in major joints or mental changes, months after getting infected.

Can animals transmit Lyme disease to me?

Yes, but not directly. People get Lyme disease when they are bitten by ticks carrying B. burgdorferi. Ticks that carry Lyme disease are very small and can be hard to see. These tiny ticks bite mice infected with Lyme disease and then bite people or other animals, such as dogs and horses, passing the disease to them.

How can I protect myself from Lyme disease?

• Whenever possible, you should avoid entering areas that are likely to be infested with ticks, particularly in spring and summer when nymphal ticks feed.
• If you are in an area with ticks, you should wear light-colored clothing so that ticks can be spotted more easily and removed before becoming attached.
• If you are in an area with ticks, wear long-sleeved shirts, and tuck your pants into socks. You may also want to wear high rubber boots (since ticks are usually located close to the ground).
• Application of insect repellents containing DEET (n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide) to clothes and exposed skin, and permethrin (which kills ticks on contact) to clothes, should also help reduce the risk of tick attachment. DEET can be used safely on children and adults but should be applied according to Environmental Protection Agency guidelines to reduce the possibility of toxicity.
• Since transmission of B. burgdorferi from an infected tick is unlikely to occur before 36 hours of tick attachment, check for ticks daily and remove them promptly. Embedded ticks should be removed by using fine-tipped tweezers. Cleanse the area with an antiseptic.
• You can reduce the number of ticks around your home by removing leaf litter, and brush- and wood-piles around your house and at the edge of your yard. By clearing trees and brush in your yard, you can reduce the likelihood that deer, rodents, and ticks will live there.

How can I find more information about Lyme disease?

Learn more about Lyme disease, including answers to frequently asked questions, the natural history of Lyme disease and a narrated documentary, at CDC's Lyme disease web site.

I'm 21 and I'm slowly dying a very painful death.

I have been diagnosed with Severe Disseminated Lyme Disease. Unfortunately, I've also been diagnosed with Severe Tertiary Lyme Disease, along with; Neuroborreliosis, Bartonella, Babesiosis, and Erichliinisis (Sp?). ...

Over the last year, I've had severe headaches, swollen glands, stiff and painfulllll joints and bones/muscles, swollen neck and stiff neck, fevers, isomnia, mood swings out the kazoo, change in diet, losing weight, swollen liver, stomach problems, swollen ribs and swollen tissue around some parts of my spine, I've had one seizure (and I have no history at all of seizures, and just plain feeling drained and tired all the time. Oh, and extreme motion sickness?

I was diagnosed with Lyme in January of last year, and I didn't find out that it was lyme until 3 weeks after my symptoms started. They immediately put me on 100 mg of Dioxcycline, 2 times a day for a month. After the month, I felt fine, but then I had a flair-up like a month later, so I went back on dioxcycline for two weeks. Had a repeat of the time table pretty much, went back on diocyciline. I started to get really stiff joints and swollen glands really bad at the end of April, and that was when my neck started to give me issues. I went to the doctors in May, and was once again prescribed dioxcyline, along with anti-inflammatories for my neck and pain killers for the pain.

I flew out of the States in June to England, to live with my boyfriend  (now husband) for a month. He's english! :) I just had fevers and exhaustion and headaches for that month, but nothing too severe. I flew back home in July for three weeks, then flew back out to England at the very end of July. I've been here ever since.

I started to get really sick in August. I had horrible headaches and neck pains. It got to the point when I'd lie down in bed, that my breath would catch from the pain I had in my back. It was an absolute nightmare. I noticed that right below my lower right rib-cage, I had a puffy look. Me and Matt (husband) finally decided it was a good idea to go see the doctor, and as I'm in England he couldn't give me a proper look, but he said that I needed to go on Dioxcycline again for the swollen glands, and take Iboprofuen for the neck and back swelling, and that with the antibiotics, my liver inflation should go down. So once again I did another round of antibiotics.

I noticed that the neck and liver and just all of the symptoms seemed to either fade away or minimize after I took the antibiotics. I was just fine for a month, I always felt tired, but compared to the rest I was fine.

Then in November, my symptoms returned and got so extreme that I had to fly home to see my normal doctor. He doesn't believe in "Prolonged Lyme"....so he just felt that I was coming down with the flu and that the aches and pains were just a symptom of the flu. The problem with my neck and back, he thought were just muscles spasms. Now I've played tons of sports over the years for school and outside of school, and I know what muscles spasms feel like!? These were not it. Furthermore, he said my liver swelling was just a small infection un-related to Lyme that would be flushed out with the antibiotics.

So I took the antibiotics once again, and this time the symptoms weren't pushed away completely. They weakened to a point where I could stand them, but they were always there. I flew back to England a few days later.

I was fine until December 13th. I woke up that morning, as me and Matt were taking a train into London that morning for a job event that Matt had. I had just gone downstairs to get a drink, when I came up Matt was still sleeping, and I sit down at the computer. I was in the process of drinking soda, when it felt as if I was having PVC's ( premature ventricular complexes-I have a history of PVC attacks) and that maybe my soda had *gone down the wrong pipe*. The only thing I remember was that I clenched the right side of my chest, cause the pain was on that side, I moaned and was banging my fist on the desk from the extreme pain that I had......then I'm waking up and Matt has me pinned against the wall for support.

He said that me banging on the desk woke him up, he looked over to see what was up, and that I'd flopped down and was having a full-on seizure. His cousin has epilepsy, so he immediately knew what it was and what to do. He tried to pick me up to carry me out of the room so I wouldn't hit my head on anything, but half-way through the act my body went limp and that he had to pin me to the wall to keep me from falling. So basically I had a seizure.

I seemed fine afterwards, I was confused, but all together fine. We assumed that it was from soda getting into my lungs, so we didn't go to the doctors like the idiot that I am. But ever since then I've been getting worse.

All of my symptoms have increased majorily. There was literally a week when I couldn't move out of bed because my neck was so swollen that it literally put pressure on my skull causing me to have an immense headache. All the symptoms I mentioned above have increased to insane ammounts.

So I flew home to America on February 3rd. I went to several doctors who had know idea what was going on with me, even though I've had two tests come back positive for Lyme Disease.

About a month ago, I finally found a doctor who knew what he was doing. I went to him, and he literally broke down with tears at my diagnosis. He's seen many people with my severity of Lyme Disease that was pushed through the cracks. From my medical history he feels that I've had Lyme for well over 5 years.

The lyme has spread so far, that I literally have it in pretty much every part of my body. In my brain is the worst part. About a few months ago, I began to have extreme short term memory loss. In high school, I maintained a high GPA., because of how well my memory was. I literally had a photographic memory. Anything I saw I could repeat to you with 100% accuracy after viewing it for merely 5 seconds. But now I'm having problems remembering main character's names in novels! Along with an annoying stutter that I've developed.

The point is, that my doctor prescribed me for 3 months of oral antibiotics, then i'll be transferred onto Intravenous Antibiotics ( antibiotics administered through an IV). I'm turning 21 in 6 days, and my health insurance will run out. I wont have any method of paying for the IV. My husband is working on getting a visa that will allow him to work so that when if ever, I do recieve the IV I can stay at home because I'll experience a severe Herxheimer Reaction that is always occupanied with Lyme treatments (where your symptoms get more severe and you literally feel as if you are dying). I started the aggressive regiment of antibiotics three weeks ago. The first week was the worst. I couldn't move out of my bed. Then I started to slowly wean off the Herx. I was originally suppose to stay out of work for at least three weeks, but finances deemed that I had to go back. That was a week ago, and I am suffering a repeated Herx as a result of the newest antibiotic in my regiment.

I'm SEVERELY STRUGGLING with staying at work while healing. And when my insurance runs out I'll have no choice but to stay working as the oral antibiotics alone will be over $1,000 to maintain. Then I have to pay out at least another $1,000 to continue on with seeing my doctor and havign the tests I need performed. I've already had 2 orders of bloodwork done since January, an MRI, and a SPEC scan. The medicine that they inject you with costs $1,000 alone for the SPEC Scan!!!

 I need help! Without my antibiotics, my condition will again worsen! I'm 21 and I'm dying a slow, PAINFUL death. If there is anyone out there who can help me, please do so! It is a horrible thing to have Lyme Disease. It's a growing epidemic!  I just want my life back, and I want to be able to start a family with my new husband. Please help in anyway you can!

 Thanks so very much,

Brittany

 

(If you want to know more about Lyme Disease, please check this link out: http://www.underourskin.com/movie.html It's a documentary about Lyme Disease)

In January 2010 I had double knee replacement surgery. It took months before i could walk on my own without a walker or a cane. My goal was to be able to walk on the beach for my birthday on June 20th.

I reached my goal and there's no stopping me now. 

I make dichroic [fused] glass jewelry, sea glass jewelry, wampum and glass bead jewelry in my home studio which I sell on my website and on eBay.

Visit my website

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BELLE CHANTELLE

 

I am new to this website. I am not even sure if this is the right page for me. I currently have Oxford Freedom Plan - I've had this since 2005. I went through in-network for a while, constantly being misdiagnosed...finally when being misdiagnosed that I had cancer and ended up at MSKC...I was referred to an out of network doctor - through my surgeon at Sloan. Since that time - July, 2007, I was finally diagnosed with Lyme and have been seeing doctors (mostly out of network) ever since.

 I started my quest to find out what was wrong with me in September of 2006 and with in-network doctors got nowhere. Well, that's not entirely true - I now have chronic Lyme...which, had I been diagnosed right away, I would not be on IV antibiotics with a PICC line in me. On top of which, we've paid over $450,000 for my treatmet, of which Oxford has reimbursed only $129,000. I'm 33 yrs old. Luckily, my parents helped me pay for my treatments - which are ongoing...unfortunately, both of my parents, who worked very hard both of their lives (MBA's from University of Chicago) and both own successful small companies now, no longer have 401k's and have had to take out second mortgages to pay for my treatment.

 I tried to appeal to Oxford. It's laughable. Here I have chronic neurologic Lyme and they send me a letter that states I can only appeal the past 180 days AND THEN they proceed to include 39 pages, in the tiniest print one could imagine, of ALL of my claims since 2005.

 When I called Oxford, they give me no help and refuse to see Lyme Disease as a chronic illness. Also, as of right now, they refuse to reimburse us for the more than $300,000. 

I don't know what to do. I am at a loss. I wake up and go to sleep crying every day. I have bankrupted my family and although they don't show it, I can't help but feel blame that this is what is going on. Part of my condition includes depression, anxiety and paranoia...all of which has gotten increasingly worse. I don't know what to do and I need help. I just want to make my parents whole. I have come to terms with the fact that I may never be able to live a normal life(like having kids, which I can't even think about that without crying). That I will be undergoing treatment for most likely, the rest of my life and try very hard not to complain about it or make it anyone else's problem.

I have called Health Care Advocates, but have gotten no response. I have looked on this website, but see nothing about Lyme - granted it's extremely difficult for someone with neurologic Lyme to locate things, unless they are in bold letters...even then, it's difficult.

 PLEASE if anybody knows of anyway I can accomplish my goal of helping my parents recoup their financial losses - please let me know.

Some days it's so bad I want to die and all I can think is if I die, there will be no hope at all for them to recoup what they've given (and I so appreciate), nor will there have been a purpose to have spent the money in the first place.

 

Please let me know what to do.

 

I WENT TO MED SCHOOL FOR FIVE YEARS WHILE BEING SINGLE PARENT OF TWO BOYS STARTING WHEN THE YOUNGEST WAS JUST IN DIAPERS.  I WAS BIT BY TICK AND COULD NOT FIND DOCTOR TO HELP ME FOR OVER YEAR.  LOST JOB.  HAVE MANY, MANY MEDICAL PROBLEMS AND STILL HAVE TO FIND PRIMARY CARE DOCTOR......WHEN YOU SAY LYME, YOU GET CANCELED.  I HAVE HAD SPINAL FUSION IN NECK TWICE ALREADY, NEED BACK SURGERY, ALZHEIMERS, ADA, HEART PROBLEMS, MORE..........MY SONS DOG STOLEN.  LOOKED FOR HIM FOR OVER YEAR AND HALF.  LOST HOUSE, HUSBAND.  HAD TO MOVE.  NEEDED ROOF, WHICH THEY DID VERY CRAPPY JOB, HOWEVER, TWO WEEKS LATER A TREE FELL ON HOUSE.  MY X TO BE, STARTED TO PUT UP FENCE FOR DOGS, HOWEVER, HE DID NOT GET PERMIT AS I ASKED, SO I HAD TO TAKE DOWN AND RUINED IT.  NOW, FOR ALMOST YEAR WE HAVE TO WALK DOGS THREE TIMES DAY, WHICH SOMEDAYS, I CAN NOT EVEN HARDLY MOVE.  MY X TO BE ALSO MADE MISTAKE ON FEDERAL TAXES FOR 2004, AT SAME TIME I WAS HAVING SPINAL FUSION IN PITTSBURG.  NOW, THE MONEY IS COMING OUT OF MY TINY DISABILITY  CHECK.........NOT HIS HUGE PAY!  I KEEP CALLING LEGAL AID FOR DIVORCE.  THEY PUT ME OFF DAILY.  I MANY NIGHTS HAVE TO DRIVE AROUND AND LOOK FOR SCRAP METAL, JUST TO FEED THE BOYS.  I HAVE VERY DIFFICULT TIME DUE TO LYME.  I AM SO TIRED.  MUCH TO DO, CONFUSED.  NO MONEY.  NEED HELP.  I HAVE VERIFICATIONS OF ALL I SAY.  MY X TO BE HAS ALSO DONE MUCH MORE DAMAGE.....SO MUCH THAT I AM VERY EMBARRASSED.  BEING ILL WITH LYME IS ALSO TORTOROUS.  NEED HELP!  ANY DONATIONS APPRECIATED.  THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS AND PLEASE PRAY FOR SMOKEY.  PS.  I WAS ABOUT TO RETURN TO COLLEGE.  ONLY 40 CREDIT HOURS TO TAKE FOR TWO MORE DEGREES IN WHICH I CAN DO HAVING LYME, HOWEVER, WITH THE TREE, FENCE, LACK OF MONEY, LOSS OF HUSBAND, HAD TO POSTPONE.  BUT, BELIEVE ME........I AM GOING TO DO AND SOMEDAY YOU WILL HERE OF WHAT IT IS.  WILL CONTAIN THE WORD SMOKEY, OF COURSE!  SOMEDAYS I WANT TO JUST GIVE UP, HOWEVER, I CAN NOT.  IT HAS BEEN ROUGH. 

ADDRESS:  422 MONROE ST.

CONNEAUT, OHIO  44030

THANK YOU AGAIN.