So, ok, update
Well, the last 72 hours have been interesting indeed.
On Friday, as I got up, I was feeling more than poorly. I had building muscle pain, especially in my upper body (my forearms hurt this bad, really?). My neck was locking up, as was my upper back, and more joints were joining the party. I was becoming concerned, as the steroids seemed no longer to be helping.
That's when I got a call from the doctor. It turns out that, after all, I had Lyme Disease, and a nice toasty case of it. The steroids I had been put on had been suppressing my immune system nicely, so I wasn't fighting it very well. This was actually a relief to hear, as I now had a name and a treatment plan. He told me to stop the steroids at once, and prescribed tetracycline for me. Great! I went and picked it up. Then, I went home, and we got in the car to drive upstate.
This was a horrific error.
Every. Single. Bump in the road tore at my locked up muscles like a knife. After a half hour of this I was starting to really suffer, but kept it quiet and just tried to get through it. By an hour in this was impossible, and I was openly writhing in my seat. By the time we got up there I rated it in the top 10 worst experiences of my life. Crippled, I hobbled into the house unable to carry even the bag with my laptop, and collapsed onto the couch. Then the fever, uncontrollable shaking, and mild disorientation set in. Hubby now being in a total panic, he wanted to take me to the emergency room. I said no, not yet, but be prepared to call an ambulance.
I took my second dose of antibiotics, and went to bed. I also took a tranquilizer to force me to sleep.
I woke up Saturday astonishingly ill and largely unable to move. As it turns out, I was having what is called a Herxheimer Reaction. See, when your body is loaded with nasty bacteria (as mine was), and you start a powerful antibiotic they all start to die at once. This releases all their nasty little poisons and guts into your blood in a flood, and you get to spend the following hours being a profoundly ill puppy. However, after sleeping the day away, I began to improve. Sunday was much better; this morning the pain was back, so I didn't go into work (and still fatigue plagues me enough that eating tires me). But I'll go back to work tomorrow and I think we ought to be on an improvement trend from here on out.
Damn. Three weeks of being miserably ill. But I see the end of the road now, and am much relieved.
Memo to all of you: if you live in an area where it is present, FORCE your doctors to do the blood test for Lyme (I did, but it took me a couple weeks to do so). The earlier you nail it the better. You do NOT want to go through all this, trust me.
On Friday, as I got up, I was feeling more than poorly. I had building muscle pain, especially in my upper body (my forearms hurt this bad, really?). My neck was locking up, as was my upper back, and more joints were joining the party. I was becoming concerned, as the steroids seemed no longer to be helping.
That's when I got a call from the doctor. It turns out that, after all, I had Lyme Disease, and a nice toasty case of it. The steroids I had been put on had been suppressing my immune system nicely, so I wasn't fighting it very well. This was actually a relief to hear, as I now had a name and a treatment plan. He told me to stop the steroids at once, and prescribed tetracycline for me. Great! I went and picked it up. Then, I went home, and we got in the car to drive upstate.
This was a horrific error.
Every. Single. Bump in the road tore at my locked up muscles like a knife. After a half hour of this I was starting to really suffer, but kept it quiet and just tried to get through it. By an hour in this was impossible, and I was openly writhing in my seat. By the time we got up there I rated it in the top 10 worst experiences of my life. Crippled, I hobbled into the house unable to carry even the bag with my laptop, and collapsed onto the couch. Then the fever, uncontrollable shaking, and mild disorientation set in. Hubby now being in a total panic, he wanted to take me to the emergency room. I said no, not yet, but be prepared to call an ambulance.
I took my second dose of antibiotics, and went to bed. I also took a tranquilizer to force me to sleep.
I woke up Saturday astonishingly ill and largely unable to move. As it turns out, I was having what is called a Herxheimer Reaction. See, when your body is loaded with nasty bacteria (as mine was), and you start a powerful antibiotic they all start to die at once. This releases all their nasty little poisons and guts into your blood in a flood, and you get to spend the following hours being a profoundly ill puppy. However, after sleeping the day away, I began to improve. Sunday was much better; this morning the pain was back, so I didn't go into work (and still fatigue plagues me enough that eating tires me). But I'll go back to work tomorrow and I think we ought to be on an improvement trend from here on out.
Damn. Three weeks of being miserably ill. But I see the end of the road now, and am much relieved.
Memo to all of you: if you live in an area where it is present, FORCE your doctors to do the blood test for Lyme (I did, but it took me a couple weeks to do so). The earlier you nail it the better. You do NOT want to go through all this, trust me.