My Lyme Story

Like so many Lyme sufferers, I have a story to tell. How this 'thing' called Lyme disease raped me of the life that I once knew. Turned my whole world upside down in a few short months.

For me I was 17 years old with the whole world ahead of me. I had a lot of friends, was a gymnast, cross country runner, competed in track. I led a very active life. Until Lyme ran over me like a freight train.

Soon I was having difficulty swallowing, I started getting panic attacks. My body was too exhausted to stand at times. A friend's mother died tragically during that time and I remember being at the funeral and having to sit in one of the only chairs available. There were people decades older than me whom I'm sure were wondering why this young person was taking one of the only available seats.

I had been told it was 'mono'. So I waited for it to pass. Soon, my thoughts turned dark. Of death. Constantly, I could not shake it from my head. I would speak with a classmate only to inadvertanly invision them in their casket. It frightened me to no end.

I began believing that this 'must' be a spiritual issue. I tried to go to church as often as I could. I wondered what I had 'done' that was so wrong that I was now cursed.

The last 18 weeks of high school were almost unbearable. I cried often. I missed 18 days of school, really 36 half days. I would go to school in the morning when most of my classes were and then leave before lunch. Especially at night, it felt like I couldn't get enough air into my lungs, my mom slept with me for weeks as I was sure I would not wake up. Back to the doctor I went.

This time I was told it was anxiety. I would just need to learn to overcome it. The depression got worse by the day. I felt so strange in my body. Light hurt my eyes. I didn't understand what was happening to me or how to stop it. I just wanted to be me again.

I graduated and started working a summer job in a factory. After work I would go to sleep and sometimes not wake up until it was time to work again. The fast heart rate happened before work at times and my mom would drive behind me and sit in the parking lot to make sure I would be OK.

The first year of this, I had a constant low grade fever. My friends talked me into giving blood at the blood mobile at school and I was too sick to argue. Then I was denied, I had a fever and would not be permitted. Thank the Lord I had a fever. A person with Lyme Disease should never donate blood or organs as it can infect the person receiving the donation.

The second year, my body temperature was 96. I went to another doctor four months after graduating. He tested me for Hepatitis, thyroid, and Lyme Disease. All was negative except for my thyroid which was "a little low, but not low enough to really do much" according to the Physician. I had just turned 19 years old.

The new doctor gave me a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and some vials of clear fluid and syringes. I was to inject myself twice per day and hope for the best. I did not improve. The last time I saw him, he said I would be like this forever as he couldn't help me. I went home and cried.

A few months later, I went to another doctor, this time a Chiropractor. He used something called electrodermal testing and told me that my Pituitary, Hypothalamus and Thyroid were not functioning properly. I took some of his treatments without much success.

I then heard about and started the Hallelujah Diet. I became a vegetarian overnight and purchased a juicer and started juicing carrots. In a few months I was well enough to go away to college. I still felt 'weird', but my energy and many of my symptoms had improved tremendously!

I got straight A's the first semester and all A's and 2 B's the second.

I continued to get stronger and then a few years later, relapsed again. This time I thought I just had anxiety, because the fatigue wasn't quite as bad as before. Plus I read about anxiety symptoms online and many had difficulty swallowing, fatigue, weight loss, muscle twitches, ect. after 2 years of feeling like this, I went back to the Hallelujah diet thinking that maybe even though I wasn't 'sick this time' that it could help with the anxiety.

It did. I started working as a Registered Nurse for the first time in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. It was an AMAZING experience. I loved it! Then I became pregnant and we moved back to Ohio.

Shortly after our third child was born I began having episodes of tachycardia (racing heart). I tried to chalk it up to anxiety, problem is, it wasn't anxiety.

I just lived with it, until a year later, the most traumatic thing happened to me in my life and my health just started failing. Just days before I became traumatized, an alternative doctor whom my husband and I went to see for a physical for foster parenting told me I had Lyme Disease and Babesia.

I believed it immediately due to all of the health problems I'd had in my life. Then this horrible thing happened to me, and I just threw the diagnosis under the rug, especially since the diagnosis had been with the electrodermal testing. However, my husband did not test postive with this machine and I had not gone to him expecting him to find anything. This doctor seemed pretty surprised himself with the findings!

Finally a year later I had a blood test and saw one of the best LLMD's in the country. He told me that based on my test results, he believed I had Lyme Disease.

The twelve year battle had a name. Lyme Disease. This bacteria had somehow had the capacity to ruin my life to a tremendous extent. It disgusts me and fascinates me both.