AGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Okay, just needed to get that out. I'm hurting A LOT right now. Like every muscle, joint, tissue in my body is causing me so much pain.

I just started a new antibiotic, minocycline, a few days ago. Apparently it's doing something. I have had herxes before but none like this.

The other day I was pretty scared. I started getting this weird burning sensation throughout my whole body. It's hard to explain. It felt like a contraction almost because it would start off just in my sternum area and then radiate all throughout my body getting worse and worse. Really weird! I was getting chills too. And on top of that I felt like I was going to lose consciousness. This all came about while at a restaurant, eating lunch. It was very frightening. I came pretty close to having Matt rush me to the ER. Luckily the scary stuff subsided and now I'm left with feeling like I've been hit by a truck.

I researched minocycline herxes on one of the Lyme websites I frequent. Apparently a lot of people experinece pretty bad reactions to mino. It is a very strong antibiotic and is capable of passing the blood brain barrier and other small spaces. So it can be very effective. Most of the people that said they herxed badly from mino ended up getting good results in the end. So hopefully the same will happen with me.

10 months later...

It's been just over 10 months since I started treatment for Lyme Disease. Sometimes I feel like I haven't made any ground. I definitely thought I would be much better by now. However, when I think back to how I was feeling when I was first diagnosed, I have made some progress. Either that or I'm just getting better at coping with this. I would like to think the first thought is true. That I have made some gain in taking all of these antibiotics.

When I was first diagnosed, I couldn't go anywhere by myself. I felt so lightheaded and dizzy all of the time I was terrified that something would happen when I was by myself or worse when it was just me and Holden. So I saved all of my errands for when Matt was home. I also would have to hold on to the basket or stroller a lot during this time. It became a regular thing for Matt to say "Do you want to push the basket (or stroller)."

Now I don't feel lightheaded nearly as often. I can go to the store by myself. I no longer have to hold on to anything for support. That is certainly some improvement! I need to start looking more at what has gotten better besides dwelling on what has stayed the same.

I started a new antibiotic called levaquin a few weeks ago. I wanted to try to treat some possible co-infections. Levaquin usually targets a co-infection called Bartonella or "Cat Scratch Fever". I've been on it nearly 3 weeks and haven't seen much difference. Usually it causes a severe herx reaction in people that have Bartonella. So maybe that means I probably don't have that... which means I can start treating other possible co-infections.

I think next I'm going to see about treating Babesia. I treated it for a couple months early on in my treatment. All of the co-infections are based on clinical symptoms. I quite a few symptoms of Babesia so my doctor put me on Malarone (an anti- Malaria drug). Babesia is a protozoan that is why you can't treat it with antibiotics. Well I didn't stay on the treatment for long and wasn't sure if I took the meds correctly. You are supposed to take it with fat or else the Malarone won't absorb properly. I would get kind of lazy and just drink a few oz. of milk with it. I know that has some fat in it, but maybe it wasn't enough??

So that is my next step... trying to treat Babesia. I really hope I can start improving more rapidly. I want to be completely better so bad!!!!