So how exactly did I get diagnosed with Lyme disease, and what did I do? Well, like I said in the last article, I was bitten by a tick in 2011, which resulted in swollen lymph nodes 2 months later. I never saw the connection. I spent the next 3 years with migrating pains in my knees, low back, neck, and especially my left shoulder. And I got sick, severely sick, A LOT! Like, I had to go to Urgent Care twice a month to get prednisone and antibiotics, just so I could breathe. So when people say they’ve suffered with an illness, I can definitely relate! However, I must admit, I was a little in denial about how bad I really was. I mean, how could I have something terrible wrong with me? I didn’t get sick right after the tick bit me, and it wasn’t a deer tick, it was a dog tick that bit me. Those didn’t carry Lyme disease did they? All the doctors did not even approach the Lyme disease diagnosis with me, so how could they all be wrong?
Well, in 2014, after being sick for like the 10th time that winter, I went to the MD (actually, I saw a Certified Nurse Practitioner, which was actually a blessing, she was very open with me), with my wife, who also mentioned that in addition to being sick all of the time, I had migrating joint pains. So she says “why don’t we run a Lyme panel, and autoimmune panel on you?” I figured, why not? I knew that lab tests were notoriously inaccurate, but what the heck?
A couple of days later, I got back my test results. Guess what? I came back for autoimmune disease, and an “equivocal” Lyme test. What did that mean? In the words of the CRNP “even though we’re not sure if you have it, or what’s wrong, we’re going to treat you for Lyme disease. Do us a favor, when you find out how to treat Lyme disease, let us know, because we don’t know much about it”. Then a strange thing happened. I was scared, but at the same time, I knew that this was my challenge to find and eradicate Lyme disease in my own body (and help many others in the process). I took the antibiotics (two of them, for a month), just so that I could see if they would cure Lyme disease. They did not in my case. In fact, they made it worse. So at the end of treating Lyme disease medically, this is what I did.
1. I admitted that I had Lyme disease.
2. I became 100% determined to beat Lyme disease, mostly by myself, with a little help from my teachers.
3. I promised myself that I would do whatever it takes to beat Lyme disease once and for all, even if it meant that I had to give up things, or change the way I lived.
4. I put myself in charge of eradicating this disease.
5. I took it as a personal mission to help as many people with Lyme disease as possible.
This is the mind set you need to beat Lyme disease. It was necessary for me to confront the problem, and take responsibility for its defeat. Without that, I would have been relying on others, who didn’t have my problem.
Next week I’ll go into all of the symptoms I had associated with my Lyme’s disease.
