Lyme Disease Support Group

The symptoms lists for all the diseases, viruses, co-infections overlap.

Fatigue could be Lyme, just about all co-infections, Candida, EBV.... Other things I'm sure I've never thought of

Joint pain - same.

Muscle pain - same!

Headaches, oh and ear pain, ear rininging, let's not forget itching and fevers. Those are all under those, too.

Just about every symptom could be 2-3 other things that I already know I have.

So when I know I have multiple of these and the symptoms flare up, how do I know what is going on?

Is it the Lyme?

Is it the Bartonella coming back?

Babs?

Is it yeast?

I keep a daily log of everything. Sometimes I think I'm a little neurotic when it comes to writing down every little detail.

I seriously feel almost insane because I sit here trying to find the slight differences in all the pains.....

The fatigue of Babesia tends to be more debilitating. The Bartonella is more agitating than the fatigue of Lyme which is more exhausting.

I'm fatigued. I'm exhausted. But I know I have Lyme, Bart, and Babs.

I also am prone to Candida, which causes exhaustion.

If I have all of these, plus viruses, etc..... And all these symptoms overlap:

How do I know when something is getting better with treatment???

We are treating the Babesia right now. How do I know if the symptoms acting up aren't just cycling Lyme??

They say to stop treatment 4 weeks after Babesia symptoms stop -- How do I know which symptoms I'm waiting for to stop???

I'm just overwhelmed

But seriously --- How do you wade through this massive swamp of bacteria and infections and figure out which one is causing what?

purple

Will read that list. It's the one you posted right?

Nice to know others share in the frustration... Just as I think I have a certain symptom pinpointed to a certain illness (herx-ing symptoms usually)... something changes on me.

Thanks

Well, personally, I think the reason to KNOW what symptoms belong to what condition is to help diagnose and then develop a treatment protocol.

Or, at least I used to think that ...

For so many years doctors have used symptoms to pin down their treatments for me -- but mostly they used the symptoms to compartmentalize what they were treating:

We'll treat your cough, but the knee pain is just aging.

We'll treat your knee pain, but the mental fog is just aging.

We'll treat the depression, but the fatigue is because you need to get exercise.

Aha! Perhaps what is more useful is to look at what disease causes ALL of your symptoms? As Dr. Burrascano has said, it's more useful to think of Lyme disease as the disease that results from the bite of a tick - whether it's Lyme, or Lyme and 1 co-infection, or Lyme and many ...

Makes so much more sense to me thinking about it that way. I could throw money down the drain getting test after test after test that only can provide questionable results. Or, I can let my LLMD use his best judgment and experience based on my history, symptoms, and initial western blot and let him figure out what to treat.

Some of the co-infections can be killed with the abx/naturals used to treat the Lyme. Some need additional meds (babesia).

I understand the desire to want to know and pin down exactly what we have. That provides us more control (or at least makes us think we have more control) over this disease.

However, I learned a while ago that in life, the more I try to control, the more out of control things get. So I am doing my best to just accept where my disease takes me, and just focus on what I do have control over -- compliance with my treatment plan.

My symptoms sometimes change by the hour. I was meticulously documenting them at first. But life is too short. I just kind of sum up each week now.