Is is always common for people with lyme to "see" lyme symptoms in others

[drsdonthelp]

Since my quest for finding my answer, I have done sooo much research. With the help of everyone here, and getting to a LLMD, the information I have gathered has given me the knowledge to put together "puzzle pieces".

I often find myself analyizing people's complaints and always in the back of my mind, I think, "hmm, maybe it's Lyme". Anyone else do this?

I will give a for instance, and you guys tell me what you would think... My neice, she is 16 yrs. old, since she was a little girl, she has had many different dx's due to a number of things that have caused her to be ill over the years. We live in an area that is very high risk for ticks.. Some of her symptoms are FATIGUE, (always napping) Rage, irritability, been dx'd as bi-polar, ADD, depression and anxiety. She has mitral valve prolapse, abnormal ANA's, and has been dx'd as having PCOS. When she was 5, she was Dx'd with Mono.

She sometimes has said she doesn't want to live anymore, because she is so depressed and always sick to her stomach, and no one understands her. She has a hard time communicating to others in the family because she becomes so enraged and often has "lashed out at family, also punching holes in the walls, and throwing objects", she says she "looses all control, and feels like she blacks out", she will then take a nap after, and feel somewhat better. I have seen a hand tremor in one of her hands, she is vit. D deficient, she used to be in dance and gymnastics but lost interest as well as physical complaints of her "knees" hurting her, always thinking it was from "jarring her knees when doing routines"

My neice is a beautiful girl, but she is also very insecure and depressed all of the time. She never feels well, and if she does, it never lasts long. She does come to me for advice and someone to talk to when she is fighting with her mom (my sister) or her boyfriend. She has watched me go through H e l l with all that I have battled with, between my eye disease, graves disease and now my new found dx of Lyme disease.  We seem to have a connection and I worry about her constantly. Am I crazy to think she could have Lyme and some co infections such as "Bartonella" since she has so much Rage? Am I over analyzing or do I have good reason to think this way?, My neice and her friends like to do the "man hunt game" in the summer, its like "hide and seek", and they play it at night, in the woods.

Ok, I think I am done, if I remember more, I will add after,
Thanks for any responses!
Pam

[drsdonthelp]

LOL<,,, thanks!!! I love the Ding Ding Ding! Cause that's how I am!! I think sometimes I am getting too obsessive compulsive with things. I know that OCD is a problem with people with lyme, and I have it big time. When it kicks in, it's bad!!

My obsession is with learning as much as I can about this disease, about bartonella, about babesia. When my son (8) turns on the computer and he sees BARTONELLA on the screen, he's like, mom, AGAIN! Now, he knows about Bartonella, LOL, I can't help it. I try to walk away from it, but then, something like this "tourettes like symptoms" in Leroy NY, I am at it again, searching and searching for answers and updates. Now, mind you, I have really bad visual problems, Double vision is really bad, and I have optic nerve damage in my right eye, plus nystagmus, sooo, I am forcing myself sometimes even when I just can't...... I have become OBSESSED WITH IT!!!

I THINK THESE GIRLS AND NOW A BOY ALL HAVE LYME PLUS COINFECTIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:) Pam :)

[JackieCalifornia]

Great post, had to laugh -- yeah, it's hard NOT to see Lyme everywhere.

I've even thought about tracking down an old friend I haven't spoken to for maybe 20 years who went out camping for a week to clear his head and shortly after he came back, he showed ... Bell's Palsy!!!  I've heard through the grapevine that he's not doing so well over the years, and it just makes you wonder, huh.

[GlitchyMomma]

This has started happening to me too, and yesterday I could have written your exact post.  Mine was going to be titled, STOP me PLEASE!  

I have been engrossed in learning anything and everything about Lyme since I got a CDC positive Western Blot on Jan 4. Even with the brain fog, and short term memory deficits, I consider myself pretty well versed now on the symptoms that lead me and most others to be misdiagnosed for many years.

Yesterday at work, I heard someone tell one of our top Directors "hope you are feeling better".  I went to see him later that afternoon, and the guy has BELLS PALSY! It began after a tooth ache problem, the abx made it worse, added a headache, and slowly over a few days his whole side of face became paralyzed!

Ding, ding, ding!  They gave him a short round of antibiotics, antivirals, and prednisone (NOooooooo!).  Of course the thought of it possibly being caused by a tick bite is just brushed right off.  Guess what?! I have no knowledge of ever being bit by a tick either!

Yesterday on facebook, on of my friends (an acquaintance) posted that she's been diagnosed with lyme, but please no comments, and she may have gotten it in Costa Rica, although her symptoms predate that trip, so who knows she said.  Ding, ding, ding!  I'm right here in the same city! I didn't go to Costa Rica and I'm CDC positive too!

My mom is 63 and has had multiple, multiple UTI's with fever over the years, no valid explanation.  She has recently learned one of her ears has hearing loss, AND she DEFINITELY has pulled ticks off of her from working at our ranch/farm/property over the years.  Ding, ding, ding!

My mom thinks maybe I got mine when I lived in TX a few years back.  Right, when I walked from my front door, to my car, into a parking garage downtown every day, that's where I must have gotten bit.  NOT at our family property we've had since 1982!!!  DENIAL?!?!?

[drsdonthelp]

blamom, Thanks, I sometimes I wish we could change the world, its crazy out there! LOL,

I have been watching the story about the teenage girls in Le Roy, NY and their "tourettes like" symptoms and once again, Lyme popped into my head..

Pam

[blamom]

I too see Lyme in many that I have encountered, If they are feeling ill I usually suggest they get tested for Lyme.  Some listen some don't....Can't change the world, just say what I know and they can do with the information what they want.

[drsdonthelp]

Thanks guys,,, and I really have been trying to be cautious about what I say and how I say it, but I think I can make some eyebrows go up with the light bulb above the heads, I am a straight shooter, and I don't talk out of my a## which makes people realize that what I am saying could be a possibility and worth checking into... I hope my information that I have been sending through my facebook, and emails, is getting the word out, without shoving it down everyone's throat!! LOL ya know what I mean....!?

If I think someone doesn't want to hear it, I let it go, and switch the conversation to something else, but when they start to ask questions, I indirectly get my point across the best way I can.. I just notice so much more with peoples complaints and It makes me want to become a dr... LOL LOL (Not smart enough for that! )

Hope everyone has a terrific day!!
Pam

[nutrinut_bob]

When one takes into consideration the contagious nature of the disease, and just how many Lyme infected people are walking around misdiagnosed, you're seeing things that in many cases are really there.  As an example, I see things in my father, who supposedly has ALS/Alzheimers, that says the underlying cause of his condition was untreated Lyme.  My LLMD also feels that Alzheimers is Lyme related.

[JackieCalifornia]

Yeah, I think it's common to see in others what we ourselves have been diagnosed with, esp. if it was a hard-to-find diagnosis.

I wouldn't assume your niece has Lyme+, but if you can gently educate her parents to the possibility ("Gosh, I learned something really interesting in this article I was reading after my last dr's appointment!") and let them draw the conclusions, maybe that could work.

I got the "you see Lyme everywhere" speech from someone in my family, but ha ha, I turned out to be right about someone we were talking about.  

If only mainstream medicine hadn't done such a good job of painting us all as a bunch of head cases and our docs as a bunch of quacks, life would be simpler.  I grimly wait for the day when these snotty docs finally can't refuse to see the light anymore.  

But yeah, I'd give it a try with your sister, in an indirect kind of way, so she can draw her own conclusions.  Might produce less resistance from her.