Nobody Said it was Going to be Easy

TGIF! Wow. What a week. I really hope yours was better than mine. As I have mentioned in some of my previous posts Turbulence of Lyme Symptoms, Fire in the Hole, and Derailed, there is a lot of inconsistency in how Lyme will manifest itself each and every day. There are some things, in my case, that stay pretty constant such as daily headaches, joint pain, and fatigue. But then there are those other issues that crop up from time to time, I guess maybe they are flares?, and it is impossible to prepare. What’s the saying, the devil is in the details?

And so last Sunday, I started having severe nausea. It lasted the entire day. I couldn’t eat, sleep or do anything. I just laid in bed, trying not to move around. The moving made the nausea worse. Indeed, it was a day where I just wished I could get out of my body for even like 10 minutes to get some relief. I chalked it up to eating some jalapeno sausage that morning; I knew I shouldn’t have eaten it but it was delish but soooo not worth it.

Unfortunately, no. The illicit sausage was not the problem. On Monday, when I tried to get up to get myself ready for work, I felt really nauseated. Then, the headache joined in. There was no way I could make it to work, let alone teach all day. Monday and Tuesday were more of the same. In the meantime, I was trying desperately to get into my Lyme doctor (LLMD) but there were no appointments available- for the entire week. Whaa? They were very clear that they could NOT fit me in even if I came in when they opened and waited. When I explained again my symptoms, the front desk told me that a nurse would return my call that afternoon. That was Tuesday. By Wednesday evening, no one had called me. Although I was able to get up and go to work on Wednesday, by that afternoon the nausea was back rearing its ugly head. Now, please do not think that I have an entitlement issue. I realize doctors are extremely busy and overbooked. I realize that there are other patients out there who also need to get in for a visit.

On the flip side though, this is my doctor who is treating me for Lyme disease. I can’t just go “anywhere” to get treatment. Other doctors, and almost all here in the South, are not trained on Lyme nor do they actually believe it exists here in Texas. This is the state of the medical options we have for Lyme here and in way too many other places in the US. In fact, Lyme is endemic to Texas. Check out this research done by Texas A & M University “Lyme Endemic to Texas.” Thus, going to another doctor is really more of a waste of time than anything. The ER was an option if I started having other issues, but mostly it was the severe nausea that was the new thing. All of my other symptoms are dealt with in the daily grind; they ebb and flow. But the nausea. God, it was (is) the worst.

It feels like I need to throw up (sorry TMI!) but I can’t. That kind of nausea. No vomiting though. I tried to stay very hydrated. I tried eating Saltines off and on. Yet, about 30 minutes after eating or drinking tea or Sprite, hello tummy monster! Anyway, I emailed my doctor, and I was able to get in yesterday afternoon. Supposedly, I have a virus. I say supposedly because honestly, I think it is more Lyme related than anything else. But I took what I could get which at this point was to get some sort of relief from this symptom. I was prescribed Tamiflu and anti-nausea meds and told to come back next week if it was still going on. Today was better because of the anti-nausea meds, but I’m still having experiencing the nausea.

This is how the Lyme bacteria works. It is a very stealthy and intelligent. According to Lymedisease.org, “Lyme disease is caused by a spirochete—a corkscrew-shaped bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi. If not treated as soon as infected, then the chances of it reproducing and getting into every system of one’s body is extremely probable. Now granted, not everything can be attributed to Lyme. But for me, most of the time, my symptoms are directly related to Lyme disease.

Again, I hope you all had a much better weekly journey than I did. Take care – B