A Diagnosis?

In February 2011 (at least six months later!), I decided I couldn’t deal with this on my own any longer, so I went to my local doctor. My mum came with me and the doctor informed me that I had sinus infection. He prescribed me some antibiotics, and sent me on my way. I’m not a doctor, so I had no reason to think the doctor was wrong. I stuck to the schedule for the antibiotics, but two weeks later, when the medicine was finished, I wasn’t any better. In fact, I was actually worse.

Off I trot to the doctors again. Well, there wasn’t any trotting going on, trust me. I struggled to walk, let alone get a little jog on. This doctor told me I was suffering with stress headaches and that I should reduce my stress and take pain medication. This time, I put my foot down. I knew it wasn’t a stress headache. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it wasn’t that.

I told him something else was going on and I needed answers. I couldn’t carry on the way I was going. He prescribed me pain medication and said he would send me for a blood test. I went for the blood tes, but never heard anything about it, so I assumed they came back clear.

By this point, we were at the end of April/beginning of May 2011. I’d been ill for at least eight months and I was in a dreadful state. I had to stay with my parents because I struggled to move without losing my balance or vomiting. I was worried I would fall at home and seriously hurt myself. No one would know I was hurt until the next day, so I decided it wasn’t safe or smart to stay at home on my own.

Because I was getting nowhere with the doctors, I spoke to my horse’s vet (yes, I speak to him about human illnesses). I trust his opinion about a great many things and I have known him a long time. He was not impressed at all with the way the doctors had let me down and he suggested the possibility that it could be Lyme Disease. He had seen it in a horse once before, but the symptoms were slightly different. Horses don’t have the ability to vomit, so that was different to me already. I told him about the rash, and he wondered if it could be Lyme.

One of the women that had her horses stabled at our place, had been talking to her mother about my illness. Her mother had recently read an article about a woman, local to us, who had similar symptoms. Unfortunately, she had died and her autopsy showed that she had Lyme Disease. The lady got straight on the telephone to me, telling me to get to the hospital to get checked out.

With the information from my vet and this lady, I decided to do some research before heading to the hospital. I was sick of being run in circles, chasing my tail because the doctors weren’t helping me to get any answers. 

Armed with information from many sources, particularly from America, my mum and I headed to the A&E at my local hospital. I got through triage, informing multiple people what I thought was wrong with me, but none of them had even heard of it. One doctor even had to do an internet search to find out what I was talking about. Once I finally got through that part, a tropical disease specialist came to examine me.

She was pretty good to be fair, but she’d never seen a case of Lyme so she needed to consult her superior to know what to do. She did, however, send me for a blood test in the hospital, so they could test specifically for this disease. I had multiple vials of blood taken, but no results were ever processed. I have to add, this happened three or four times. When I called multiple times to find out what had happened, I was informed that my blood work had been lost. To be honest, I didn’t need the results to confirm what I already knew.