A Healthy Dose of Skepticism

The Skeptics were a group of philosophers whose main idea was that we can’t really know anything for certain about the world around us, or about ourselves. Therefore, we can’t really ever know what is right or wrong, either. 

One afternoon in the early 90’s I announced to my parents that I was getting carsick during long rides and was going to have to start riding in the front so I wouldn’t get nauseous. Seeing how up until that moment I had never complained about motion sickness a day in my life, the whole family was skeptical.

There is no shortage of skepticism surrounding Lyme disease and its treatment, as evidenced by information that I have been sharing in this blog. Take a look at this list of symptoms that can be linked to Lyme disease and/or any of the other tick-borne illnesses that are out there: http://www.mnlyme.com/files/Symptoms_References.pdf

During my initial 3.5 hour visit to the LLMD a significant amount of time was spent going through a list of possible Lyme disease symptoms that was even longer than the list referenced above. The symptoms I associated with Lyme disease from my previous experience, and have also discussed in numerous posts up to this point, fit into the vision, mental capability, nervous system and musculoskeletal system areas of that checklist. It was the other symptoms like motion sickness, night sweats, and toe joint pain that caused my skepticism to kick in. According to my doctor they were linked to the Lyme disease and co-infections I had. It all seemed pretty far-fetched to me, since I had been dealing with those issues for many years. Then a funny thing happened. My body started responding positively during the first two months of treatment and my symptoms, the ones I believed were linked to Lyme disease and the ones I did not believe were linked to Lyme disease, began to subside.

Motion Sickness: Looking back it is bizarre that I suddenly developed motion sickness out of nowhere. Even weirder is that it didn’t bother me 100% of the time while in a moving vehicle. In the months leading up to my diagnosis I experienced some of the most severe motion sickness experiences I’ve had to date. During my commute to and from work I would exit the metro dripping with sweat, feeling really nauseous and wishing I had access to a shower at the office. A couple of times I was very disoriented and concerned that I was minutes away from hurling on other passengers; on one occasion I had to get off the metro a stop early and walk home to avoid such a scenario. A couple of weeks into my treatment the motion sickness all but subsided. After I experienced my first Herx reaction, and the roller coaster of symptom flare-ups began, it has been a mixed bag for me with the motion sickness. Sometimes I am fine, and other times I end up feeling really ill on the metro.

Night Sweats: I can’t remember exactly when I started experiencing night sweats, it’s been an issue for over twenty years, but I remember the first time I woke up not feeling damp and sweaty. It was about three weeks into my treatment. I was amazed because I woke up feeling cold and wanting to turn the heat up and that is the opposite of my usual morning scenario. It was glorious while it lasted, but much like the motion sickness it now comes and goes with the fluctuation of my symptoms. 

Toe Joint Pain: I blamed it on my shoes. I blamed it on all of the running I used to do. I blamed it on tendonitis. Why would I think to associate intermittent pain in my big toe joint with Lyme disease? Are you guys detecting a pattern here?

The list goes on and on regarding the fluctuation of my symptoms that I was skeptical to even link to Lyme disease because they had been a part of my life for so long and are common issues for other people. One of the most frustrating things about my on-going battle is looking back at some of the random stuff that I experienced throughout the years and realizing that it was not really random at all. The symptoms manifest themselves differently in each Lyme patient, they ebb and flow in severity over time when left untreated, and what can be a marker of Lyme disease in one person, can literally just be toe joint pain from wearing flip-flops in another.

The point of me sharing the checklist with you was not to make everyone paranoid about possibly having Lyme disease, no doubt most of you can check off a few symptoms on that list. My point was to show how it can be misdiagnosed or go so long without being diagnosed because a lot of the symptoms of tick-borne infections can be associated with other illnesses, ailments and every day wear and tear.