What does your pain feel like?

[kelbel3078]

I am still in limbo, not sure if I lyme dz or MS.  My joints don't hurt.  That's one reason why I am skeptical.  My pain is all over.  Mainly on my left side.  It's like my bones hurt.  Or nerve pain, muscle spasms things like that.  Does anyone out there with Lyme feel that way too?  Just curious.

[JackieCalifornia]

I have had very little major joint involvement, but have had overall aches and pains as others describe above.  Early on my knees were sore, but so was the whole rest of me, esp lower back.  Currently I getting lower arm and leg shooting pains and burning pains in my shoulders/back.  It can change from day to day and month to month, which is one reason diagnosis is so difficult -- drs figure if we can't tell them consistently what the symptoms are, then maybe it's nothing after all.

Doctors always ask about knee pain, because in the early days of figuring out Lyme, a rheumatologist focussed on knees and joints, and so that's become a hallmark to non-LLMDs.

[wonko]

I too have a lot of nerve pain at times.  I also get pains that "shoot" down my arms/legs, and burning sensations in my skin.  At times, I had mostly left sided facial pain and stabbing ear pain (not recently, I can thankfully say).  My lower back often hurts a lot.  I get eye pain a lot, worse with movement.  I also get stomach aches/abdominal pain.  In the past I had bad shin pain, associated with a Lyme co-infection that I have.  I have morning stiffness and typically wake up with burning joints in my hands, feet, into my legs and sometimes back.  I do have joint pain, but only developed that late and after a steroid treatment.  

I read in your journal that your hands are stiff?  My hands were stiff too for a long time before I developed joint pain.  It started in my thumbs and radiated out on both hands.

Lyme presents differently in different people.  It is systemic, so it can affect just about any part of the body, but it doesn't have to.  I had mostly neuro symptoms for more than a year before obvious joint involvement, while others initially get arthritis and may never develop neuro symptoms.  Also, co-infections can complicate the presentation and cause even more variation from person to person.

[patsy10]

I have pain all over.  It's mostly muscles, tendon's, nerve pain.  But I do have joint pain and stiffness as well.

[margypops]

Headache,, foot aches, pain can pop up anywhere its really weird, thats why you go years not knowing, especially when they come up negative, my eyes are the worst at presant, dry sore round the edges , redrimmed I look like something from a horror movie...dry skin , broken nails, itchy scalp, sorry I have to chuckle at myself as it seems that it is a catalogue of someone falling apart no wonder my family look at me as if I am nuts ...Actually the symptoms I have just mentioned mean I am having a good week , its mind over matter nowadays for me...