Fibromyalgia or Lyme Disease?

I tried to connect all of the dots, to figure out what I really had because I wasn’t getting a diagnosis. I went all the way back to a bite I had, it was circular and it was really bright. Since Lyme Disease is the great imitator, I always thought it could have been it, especially since I frequently ran trails in many wooded areas near my home. I asked my doctor for a test and she declined. I even asked her twice, because I thought that’s what I had. I had swollen lymph nodes, abnormal periods, insomnia and severe neck pain (which are all early symptoms). In my late stages of getting ill, I got rid of some symptoms, like heel pain, and this weird sounding buzz around my head that I carried for two years.

Now, I just have this headache and my head is very, very tender at all times, just like the rest of my body. To point out, my late stage symptoms were memory loss (could have been ‘fibro fog’), confusion, congitive problems, word retreival problems, stuttering, severe circulation problems in my arms and legs ( I wore arm braces to bed so my circulation wouldn’t get cut off), and my muscle weakness, spread everywhere, slowly, it truly was a horrible expereince. Once I got on anitbiotics (1.5 years into it), for a bladder infection and felt EVERYTHING going away. It was truly amazing, but this was before IT spread into every muslce of my body, including brain, fingers and toes. If I were to have gotten antibiotics earlier, or if my doctor would have referred me to an infectious disease specialist earlier, I could have saved my body/mind, which is damaged to some degree now.

I am specially worried about my cognitive functioning, as I have to still write down tons of notes to get things done. I mix up my words often, have a mild speech problem and continued bone pain (in my entire body) which is severely painful. I’ve just been diagnosed clinically so for with Lyme Disease but did come up positive for all of the coinfections viruses. The blood tests for Lyme Disease are tricky. Many tests don’t come out positive. The specialty lab that does the Lyme Disease tests is called Igenex, and is located in Palo Alto, CA. I’m waiting for a lab result from them.

My Western Blot came out negative once, then when I did it again, one band came out positive. According to CDC you need 5 bands to be positive, but that’s probably for insurance reasons. I’m going to have my blood checked from a speciality lab since my reaction to antibiotics was so great.