Buckle Up and Enjoy The Ride

“Do not be alarmed if the pain spreads into your chest and you experience air hunger”.

air hunger [′er ‚həŋ·gər]: a form of respiratory distress characterized by gasping, labored breathing, or dyspnea.

Early one spring morning I awoke before the birds with an uncomfortable squeeze on my ribcage. Maybe an uncomfortable squeeze is the wrong way to describe it. Scratch that. Early one spring morning I awoke before the birds because I thought someone was sitting on my back. Imagine being incredibly groggy in a dark room staring straight up at the ceiling while trying to figure out why you feel like you are lying face down in your bed with somebody sitting cross-legged across your shoulder blades.  (15 years ago this scenario may have led to a different story, but alas this is not spring break, it is Lyme disease).

During the first few hours I moved around gingerly, but as the rib cage pressure increased and breathing began to hurt, I climbed into my bed and stayed there. A spot on my spine, a bit above my shoulder blades, started to get sore. The soreness grew with intensity over a span of a few hours until it became an unbearable pain that was shooting into the base of my neck. Then my jaw started hurting and a searing pain started radiating out of the sore spot on my spine into my shoulder blades. My skin felt like it was crawling. My spine felt like it was on fire, my shoulder blades felt like they were getting stabbed and my neck and jaw were painfully stiff and achy. I lost feeling in both of my hands and ended up with a splitting headache. Moving and laying still were equally distressing/agonizing so I just tossed and turned and tried to find a comfortable spot to lie in. Between sweating profusely and cursing a lot, I managed to mumble a few things to a concerned friend who stopped by to check on me and make me dinner. This Herx reaction lasted for a day and a half, and the pressure in my ribcage remained for about two and a half months. Yes, I walked around for two and a half months feeling like someone was sitting on my back. On some days it hurt to take deep breaths and my back was visibly inflamed, on other days the pressure was just an annoyance and my back looked normal. 

I just so happened to have an appointment with my doctor a couple of days after this particular experience, and that is when I was informed that if the pain spread to my chest and I experienced air hunger, I shouldn’t be alarmed. I didn’t know what air hunger was until I Googled it later that night. I can promise you, if I wake up one morning with chest pains, gasping for air, I am going to forget that I was told not to be alarmed. So far the chest pain scenario has not happened. The pressure in my ribcage has returned on a couple of occasions, nothing as drastic as the first time. Eight months later, the spot on my spine, which I now refer to as ground zero, is still sore and inflamed. The degree of soreness and inflammation vary from day to day. On the bad days my neck also flares up, which affects my flexibility and by default my parallel parking; but that is another story.

...And now a Herx with a twist... 

Much like a wedge of lime can add a zesty kick to your whiskey, vertigo can do the same to your Herx reactions. 

One afternoon I was walking around my office. Maybe walking is the wrong way to describe it. Scratch that. One afternoon I was stumbling around my office because I couldn’t quite keep my balance. I went to the nurse at work and told her I thought I had an inner ear infection. Before she looked into my ears she asked if I was on any medication. As I was rattling off the list of antibiotics, she put her pen down, stopped writing, looked up at me with alarmed eyes and calmly said, “I think your medication is the culprit, not your ears”. And then she added, “What are you being treated for”? After a long conversation about Lyme disease, she checked my ears and told me that one looked like it may have a little fluid in it, but that she was sure my balance issues were from my medication. A couple of days later I had two extremely concerned friends standing over me while I was sweating bullets in my bed, complaining of spine and neck pain while also lamenting about how nauseous and dizzy I was. This was a first for me; a Herx reaction with a side of vertigo. This particular episode did not involve my ribcage, but did involve the sharp pains in my spine and neck. I was ready to try and sleep it off, but my friends were worried and wanted to make sure it really was vertigo, so they took me to an urgent care center. 

I live in a building with no elevator. I am sure it was quite a sight watching me struggling to stay upright and not vomit as I navigated myself down three flights of stairs while the world was whirling around my head. The spinning and nausea took my mind off of the pain in my neck and spine that I was experiencing during the ride to the urgent care facility. I mentioned to the doctor that  earlier in the week I thought I had an inner ear infection but now I was certain it was vertigo. I got a slow head turn and the wide-eyed look when I started listing my antibiotics. 

I am not sure if everyone reading this has had the pleasure of being “tested” for vertigo. Please keep in mind that in addition to the vertigo induced dizziness and nausea, I also had pulsing pain in my spine and neck from the Herx reaction. The doctor asked me to lay face up on the table with my neck hanging off the edge. She was supporting my neck with her hand and as I was looking at the spinning ceiling, without warning she twisted my aching neck so one of my cheeks was facing the floor, and the other was facing the ceiling. While she quickly turned my head back to the starting position so both eyes were looking up, another doctor, who I had not seen come in, grabbed me and moved me real fast into a seated position. I guess the dazed, pained expression on my face, coupled with the fact that I almost toppled backwards off the table made them declare that I had vertigo. The dizziness and nausea did not take my mind off of the spine and neck pain on the ride home. Somewhere between twisting my head and jerking me up towards the ceiling, the pain had intensified.

I have had two other vertigo infused Herx reactions since this first one that occurred in May. Each time the vertigo comes back it is more intense than the previous time. Lyme disease seems to have a never-ending bad of tricks. I guess I have no choice but to go along for the ride.