Lyme quesitons

[EAMom]

Hi!

I have 2 questions...

 

1) can lyme "come out" with a respiratory infection. In other words, can someone have assymptomatic lyme, and then it becomes symptomatic when that person gets another infection (like a flu/mono etc)? (and then sticking around for months, but getting worse again with each infection)

 

2) can lyme be episodic? Can a person have LYme symptoms (fatigue, pain, headaches, hair loss, brain fog) that improves (maybe temporarily?) without treatment?

 

thanks! just wondering (for a friend, not my child)

Edited July 13, 2012 by EAMom

[NancyD]

I can only speak to our personal situation. Before starting treatment my DD's lyme symptoms seemed to come out and get worse any time she had another infection (yeast, bacterial, or viral). For me, stress is what made my symptoms come out and get worse. I definitely think it was episodic before starting treatment.

 

Nancy

 

 

Hi!

I have 2 questions...

 

1) can lyme "come out" with a respiratory infection. In other words, can someone have assymptomatic lyme, and then it becomes symptomatic when that person gets another infection (like a flu/mono etc)? (and then sticking around for months, but getting worse again with each infection)

 

2) can lyme be episodic? Can a person have LYme symptoms (fatigue, pain, headaches, hair loss, brain fog) that improves (maybe temporarily?) without treatment?

 

thanks! just wondering (for a friend, not my child)

[KaraM]

I have no idea how long I have had Lyme...but I think it must have been/is episodic. I was just diagnosed in January, but at a minimum, I think I've had it since my dd got sick with OCD/PANDAS (so about three years ago). I've had such a variety of symptoms over the years (since college in the late 80s), many of which would stick around for a couple of weeks, others, months, and yet others, years...but then go away. Some would return later, others not.

 

Of course, I'm not positive if any of those symptoms were the result of Lyme/coinfections, but I have nothing else to really attribute them to.

 

Kara

[MichaelTampa]

I could see #1 happening pretty easily. I had my lyme symptoms go from being nothing so severe to being very severe over a very short time due to a traumatic event. Anything that compromises the immune system could cause that result, and an infection like what you mention is going to make that possible.

 

I would think #2 would be pretty rare. Perhaps a minor temprary improvement, there are always ebbs and flows and so on, but having significant symptoms just go away temporarily doesn't make sense.

[momcap]

 

I would think #2 would be pretty rare. Perhaps a minor temprary improvement, there are always ebbs and flows and so on, but having significant symptoms just go away temporarily doesn't make sense.

 

This actually happened to me. I was VERY sick as a teenager - elevated markers for JRA, constant debilitating pain, severe depression, anxiety, chronic cough, visual disturbances, raynaud's, horrible brain fog - felt like I was a zombie. My parents took me to many doctors and found nothing conclusive. After a few years the worst symptoms simply resolved. I don't know why.

 

Then in university I got really sick and felt just like this again, but with additional symptoms like bleeding gums and very swollen glands. I was diagnosed with mono. I got 10 days of amoxicillin and after many months I recovered.

 

Then, when I was pregnant with my first child (PANDAS DS) I got sick again. I felt the same as the previous two times, but this time I had the WORST brain fog, to the point that I couldn't drive, use a bank machine, or basically function at all outside of my home. Very scary. I didn't know ANYTHING about lyme. I chalked it all up to pregnancy, and was not treated for anything.

 

I got (re-?)infected in August 2010. It felt exactly like "mono" yet again, but I had a bite with a red circular rash and classic symptoms of acute lyme (high fever, BRUTAL headache, swollen knee, etc). I made 3 trips to the E.R., thought I was dying. Nobody knew about lyme, and I was told all 3 times it was viral. After 6 months I recovered. I have no lyme symptoms right now. But a main stream I.D. doc told me that I certainly have lyme disease (I'm CDC positive), and it has gone latent. He said latent does not equal gone, and it will likely resurface as heart problems and/or dementia in my later years. Yikes! So I took the 3 weeks of doxy he offered me as a "cure". I didn't have lyme symptoms before I took the doxy, and I didn't have lyme symptoms after I took it. So who knows???

Edited July 13, 2012 by momcap

[SSS]

I would agree,

Yes and Yes.

Lyme does cycle every 28 days, the co-infections more rapidly.

I think any time the immune system takes a 'hit', whether it be added mental stress or another physical ailment coming into play,

it can bring it forward.

[EAMom]

thanks everyone for their reponses! interesting stuff!

[MichaelTampa]

 

I would think #2 would be pretty rare. Perhaps a minor temprary improvement, there are always ebbs and flows and so on, but having significant symptoms just go away temporarily doesn't make sense.

 

This actually happened to me. I was VERY sick as a teenager - elevated markers for JRA, constant debilitating pain, severe depression, anxiety, chronic cough, visual disturbances, raynaud's, horrible brain fog - felt like I was a zombie. My parents took me to many doctors and found nothing conclusive. After a few years the worst symptoms simply resolved. I don't know why.

 

Then in university I got really sick and felt just like this again, but with additional symptoms like bleeding gums and very swollen glands. I was diagnosed with mono. I got 10 days of amoxicillin and after many months I recovered.

 

Then, when I was pregnant with my first child (PANDAS DS) I got sick again. I felt the same as the previous two times, but this time I had the WORST brain fog, to the point that I couldn't drive, use a bank machine, or basically function at all outside of my home. Very scary. I didn't know ANYTHING about lyme. I chalked it all up to pregnancy, and was not treated for anything.

 

I got (re-?)infected in August 2010. It felt exactly like "mono" yet again, but I had a bite with a red circular rash and classic symptoms of acute lyme (high fever, BRUTAL headache, swollen knee, etc). I made 3 trips to the E.R., thought I was dying. Nobody knew about lyme, and I was told all 3 times it was viral. After 6 months I recovered. I have no lyme symptoms right now. But a main stream I.D. doc told me that I certainly have lyme disease (I'm CDC positive), and it has gone latent. He said latent does not equal gone, and it will likely resurface as heart problems and/or dementia in my later years. Yikes! So I took the 3 weeks of doxy he offered me as a "cure". I didn't have lyme symptoms before I took the doxy, and I didn't have lyme symptoms after I took it. So who knows???

 

 

Wow, how interesting! I wonder if the pregnancy and teenager situations both have significant hormones as part of the reason.

[Hopeny]

Lyme symptoms wax and wane, even on the same day. For my DD, I theorize that a strep infection pushed her symptoms to the brink, which fortunately led to bloodwork and finally a diagnosis. Dr. Tom Moorcraft referred to Lyme on his website as the great instigator, once you have it it seems everything else gets out of whack.

[momcap]

 

 

Wow, how interesting! I wonder if the pregnancy and teenager situations both have significant hormones as part of the reason.

 

For sure. I don't know how hormones play into it, but I've often thought they must be a factor. With the pregnancy I felt better literally right away after DS8 was born. The next day I woke up with a clear head. So weird. My subsequent 2 pregnancies were normal, so that throws my hormone-involvement-theory for a loop. More questions than answers, that's for sure!

[JuliaFaith]

Great questions! In my son's case, lyme was only one of many things going on so difficult to say for sure. He would get sick for 2 weeks with an illness, than be somewhat better for 1 week, then sick for 2 weeks, then somewhat better for 1 week, until he did not not get better (~6 months). He started with stomache aches one summer, then caught two flu's that fall/winter and then just came getting whatever illness was going around. It seems each illness just stayed in his body, at a different level, and never left completely.

 

momcap - read recently on one of betterhealthguys.com conference notes that hormones can be a big factor in healing. My son is still on desmopressin and has been on adrenal/thyroid meds and possible others I do not remember.

[KaraM]

EA Mom,

 

Thanks for the other post with the interesting article. Since it was you that posted the "interesting article," I assume you saw the discussion about how LD can be episodic, that it can wax and wane. But I just wanted to point it out in this thread in case someone hadn't read the article.

Also, in the recent post questionning the possibility of transmission through breasfeeding, someone added information from Dr. Jones that also mentions how LD symptoms can wax and wane.

 

(Those were both reassuring to me in some ways, since I am starting to believe more and more that I may have had this since my teens/college years...but that some times it was dormant, or at least much less active, than other times.)

 

Kara

 

Hi!

I have 2 questions...

 

1) can lyme "come out" with a respiratory infection. In other words, can someone have assymptomatic lyme, and then it becomes symptomatic when that person gets another infection (like a flu/mono etc)? (and then sticking around for months, but getting worse again with each infection)

 

2) can lyme be episodic? Can a person have LYme symptoms (fatigue, pain, headaches, hair loss, brain fog) that improves (maybe temporarily?) without treatment?

 

thanks! just wondering (for a friend, not my child)

[EAMom]

EA Mom,

 

Thanks for the other post with the interesting article. Since it was you that posted the "interesting article," I assume you saw the discussion about how LD can be episodic, that it can wax and wane. But I just wanted to point it out in this thread in case someone hadn't read the article.

Also, in the recent post questionning the possibility of transmission through breasfeeding, someone added information from Dr. Jones that also mentions how LD symptoms can wax and wane.

 

(Those were both reassuring to me in some ways, since I am starting to believe more and more that I may have had this since my teens/college years...but that some times it was dormant, or at least much less active, than other times.)

 

Kara

 

Hi!

I have 2 questions...

 

1) can lyme "come out" with a respiratory infection. In other words, can someone have assymptomatic lyme, and then it becomes symptomatic when that person gets another infection (like a flu/mono etc)? (and then sticking around for months, but getting worse again with each infection)

 

2) can lyme be episodic? Can a person have LYme symptoms (fatigue, pain, headaches, hair loss, brain fog) that improves (maybe temporarily?) without treatment?

 

thanks! just wondering (for a friend, not my child)

 

Yup! saw that in the article. Thanks! It definitely confirmed what everyone has been saying here.