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Hey everyone! I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme in May of 2008, after 3 years of battling doctors and being misdiagnosed several times. I, like many Lyme patients, was left all on my own to figure out what I had and seek out a doctor that would treat it. I had the picture perfect bulls eye rash 3 years ago, was put on antibiotics before being given a blood test, and then the blood test was taken after about a week of antibiotics. My initial test came back positive, but the confirming test came back negative, even though several bands were present. My doctor decided I never had Lyme Disease, stopped my treatment and I want on with life. 3 months later I started to get very sick. After being told I had everything from fibromyalgia to lupus, I started to question the doctors I was seeing on the possibility of Lyme and it was very quickly rejected by all of them with 'you never had Lyme Disease' and 'even if you did, you were on antibiotics'....I started researching Lyme more on my own and as symptoms continued to show, I became more certain that I needed to get a doctor to at least take my Lyme claim seriously and examine the possibility. After demanding an echocardiogram in February of this year, to the reluctance of my doctor, it did reveal heart problems associated with Lyme. Even in light of proving to my doctor that I knew what was going on with my body more than he did, he still insisted it was nothing and they'd do another echo in 3 years. I immediately decided to seek out a Lyme certified doctor to at least hear from him whether or not I had it. Turns out I had a highly advanced form of chronic Lyme made worse by my previous' doctors treamtent of steroids. I'm at a point now where I'm starting to recover, but it's had a devastating affect on my life. I got married about 2 months before I got very sick, but haven't been able to work for the last 3 years. My husband doesn't make enough to support us both, but we're doing everything we can to turn up extra money each month to get by. Treatment is expensive and insurance covers nothing because my doctor is both out of network and integrated medicine. We're left wondering if the only way to stay afloat is to try to recover lost wages from my doctor, t we're not sure how successful that would be given the controversy surrounding the illness. I have all the notes from my charts for the last 3 years and even through my persistance was not only told I didn't have it, but it was made worse by the medications they gave me out of ignorance. Had it been treated properly from the beginning, it wouldn't have been nearly as devastating or expensive. I'm wondering if anyone out there has pursued legal action and what you've found out. I've heard rumblings of class action lawsuits being not too far in the future, but that's all I've been able to find out. Any input or advice is welcome! |
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