My Lyme Story
From the Beginning:
I had always been a healthy kid; I had never had any serious illnesses. I lived a happy, normal life with endless amounts of energy and a passion for hiking, art and music. My illness presented itself in February 2018, my sophomore year at Berklee College of Music. My first symptom was minor GI issues. Nothing too serious and it would only last for a few days at a time so I did what most college students would have and ignored it. Then, in May 2018 I started experiencing extreme pelvic nerve pain. I saw a handful of doctors for that who were absolutely clueless as to what was causing this issue. I underwent many tests, and nothing showed up. I was diagnosed with “vulvodynia,” which I find to be an umbrella term for when doctors can’t figure out the issue.
Over the summer of 2018, I had traveled a lot. I went to Italy, Paris and Israel. In a way, I’m glad I was able to travel so much before my illness really got ahold of me. It was almost exactly a week after I returned home from traveling that my health problems became a huge issue. I was experiencing severe GI symptoms. The pain was so bad that I ended up in the ER. They took a CT scan and saw that my appendix was slightly dilated. It was extremely busy that night, so they put me on a stretcher in the hallway of the ER. This was my first serious trip to the ER since I was a kid. There I had to decide whether or not to have surgery. This was one of the scariest nights of my life. I was alone and I had never had surgery before. I opted to do a course of antibiotics instead of surgery, which ended up being the right decision, because after 3 days of being in the hospital, the doctor told me that it wasn’t appendicitis. They didn’t know what was wrong.
My stomach issues never went away, they only continued to get worse. I saw a handful of Gastroenterologists to try and get to the bottom of it. One of them told me I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome (yet another umbrella term), wrote me a prescription for Valium and told me to see a therapist. The other conducted a series of incredibly uncomfortable tests (I wont go into detail) and told me that I had pelvic floor dysfunction. I saw another GI in Seattle who also told me that it was Irritable Bowel Syndrome. After being traumatized and let down by the western medicine, I switched focus and started seeing a naturopathic doctor. She was the first doctor to tell me that it wasn’t in my head. When I saw her, I was only focused on my digestive issues; I had pushed aside the nerve pain because I didn’t think there was any correlation (silly me). She thought my GI issues were related to parasites, so I was put on a 4 week treatment of antiparasitics which made me a lot sicker. After finishing the protocol, my GI symptoms got worse and an onset of a few other random symptoms began to appear. I started experiencing 10 minute fevers, light headedness, fatigue, and heart races. My immune system was on overload. During this time I was also experiencing horrible brain fog and memory loss, which hindered my ability to get the most out of my appointments.
After taking matters into my own hands, lots of research and pooling together a list of every single symptom I have had, I discovered a not so uncommon illness, but one often overlooked and hard to diagnose. Lyme Disease. I immediately found the best naturopathic Lyme doctor I could in Seattle and in my first appointment she told me that my theory was most likely correct. After many blood tests, I tested positive for Lyme and 4 co infections. Bartonella (which is what is causing my GI issues), Babesia, Rocky Mountain Spotted fever (the most rare/deadly tick born illness) and Mycoplasma pneumonia. Finally, an answer to why I was experiencing all of these horrible symptoms.
At this point, my main priority is my health. I have so much more to give and am so excited to live this life to the fullest with Lyme as a distant memory. I know I will get there someday. Meanwhile I will be at home in Seattle, baking, making art, and getting through each day one minute at a time.
