NEUROLOGIST
I go to see a neurologist because of the horrible nerve pain in my shoulders, neck and head. He is nice enough and listens as I try to give him my history, but about half way through he checks out. I know it's overwhelming for a doctor to hear my history because it's long and detailed, but never a good sign. Despite having spent the last three years DETOXING my body from whatever tick borne illnesses I was dealing with, the antibiotics used to rid my body of said tick borne illnesses, heavy metals, viral infections etc, his recommendation for the headaches is botox injections. Um, yeah, no thanks. He does suggest an MRI, which I get, and I am happy that it is normal.
LOW INTENSITY LIGHT THERAPY
I'm doing low intensity light therapy now. My doctor recommended it to help heal the cells in the muscles of my shoulder and neck. Within two sessions the severe pain I was dealing with is going away. One thing that has drastically changed is that when I used to turn my head from side to side it would creak and crack. I also lost the ability to tip my head back because of the muscle pain. After a few sessions my neck doesn't hurt like that anymore and I can do yoga poses that involve moving my neck around without pain.
MONTHLY FLARES
Despite getting stronger on a daily basis, I am still having monthly flares. I'm on progesterone and estrogen so we are not sure still if it's hormone influenced or lyme flaring in a four week cycle. I am going to get tested at Advanced Laboratory Systems (ALS), which does a direct culture for the spirochetes, as opposed to testing the antibodies that one makes to the spirochetes (all of the other tests). From the ALS site it says that it is best to draw blood for this test when one is symptomatic, so I have to wait until my next flare to do so.
MAMMOGRAM
I had my first mammogram during all of this and unfortunately there were microcalcifications. From Wikipedia - "Microcalcifications are tiny specks of mineral deposits (calcium), that can be scattered throughout the mammary gland, or occur in clusters." Now they want to do a biopsy. I wonder how many other women fighting tick borne illnesses have had this happen and if the chronic inflammation from the bacterial infection contributed to these calcifications? Menopause can also apparently bring these on, and because of this illness I have been kicked into early menopause. None of the doctors I've asked has an answer as to what really causes these. This seems to be a theme in my journey. :(
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