hard to concentrate

[gorbybelle]

Hi everyone

I am wondering if anyone can understand what I will try to explain ! : when I try to concentrate on someone telling me something - I actually feel 'worse', could it be something to do with extreme sensory over-load reaction?

It's almost like I can't- 'not concentrate' -on anything but how I am feeling - this is wierd - maybe it is anxiety?

[gorbybelle]

thankyou - for your understanding and very informative/encouraging reply's - [I don't care if I have said it before] - but I am so glad I found this 'family'  x

[JackieCalifornia]

Well said!  Encouraging to all of us.  Thank you.

[Jena906]

my first antibiotic in dec 2008 was doxy 200mg twice daily.  Still on now with ceftin added in April.  Yes 2 days into it I was hit, then about the same time the next month I thought  I was going to die it was so bad.  Between how we feel as lyme victims then the battle with the antibiotics, It took reading alot on lyme and my husband ( who went with me for my appointments) to say it gets hard before it gets better.  What ever you do don't stop, Hang in there and you will be glad you did.  Now that I look back on the inital start, It was like child labor to me.  But the end result is all worth it.  After your x-ray, please start your doxy and hang in there, It will get better. For me the herx were only a few days at a time about once a month, then it turns around to feeling a bit more energy and you have dreams again of what you want in life, not the trying to make it day by day.  I think you are on the right track.

[gorbybelle]

I can relate to 'talking' on the phone wiping you out - I get that sort of thing - sometimes a very short phone call can leave me feeling ill - depressed - wierd.

I am not too bad today - don't know if that is because I have stopped abx. for time being.

[wonko]

Cognitive problems do wreak havoc and can cause a lot of anxiety.  I recall, pre-diagnosis, feeling very afraid that I had some sort of early onset dementia or other serious, irreversible brain problem.  It can be a chicken/egg sort of thing, but it sounds to me like the anxiety is stemming from the cog fog, and not the other way around.  

I can relate to the odd circumstance of thinking actually making it worse.  It sounds very odd, but I've had the same problem where the more I try to focus and concentrate through the brain fog, the denser it seems to get!  

I also often suffer from increased heat/pressure in my head when I speak.  Any conversation lasting more than just a moment and my face starts to get more red and hot, my eyes hurt, and I start to feel a build up of pressure in my skull.  If I talk on the phone, add to this that the heat/weight of the phone makes my hand tingle/burn/hurt.  If I make a long call to friends/family, it wipes me out and I need to rest/recuperate.  I know how nutty this sounds, it's just one of many examples of a bizarre way in which this illness affects me.  I had these issues before treatment, and continue to have them to varying extents into treatment.  

I don't know the underlying mechanism leading to brain fog, but I've read that SPECT scans of Lyme patients are often abnormal.  I haven't heard of the scans being used diagnostically, but they can visualize blood flow and brain function, and Lyme brains often show a decrease.

Here is a link if you'd like to read more about it:

http://underourskin.com/blog/?p=137

Keeping anxiety in check is always a good move, but Lyme can also cause organic changes in your body/brain.  The good news is that often these changes are reversible with treatment.

[JackieCalifornia]

I haven't been on doxy, so not sure how it usually/often/can affect someone.  I felt so lousy when I started on my meds that I couldn't really tell the difference between a Herx and the daily misery, but I was sure scared when I took the first dose, and the second.  I think everyone is probably a bit different this way.  

Anxiety is natural and even normal when you're ill, and if you add on top of it being ill with a disease that has as much controversy surrounding it as Lyme does, it only makes things worse for the poor patient.

Call your doctor's office with side effects you are concerned about:  it's the doc's job to be there.  I have wigged out sometimes and really needed to hear that I was doing everything right, or that nothing was going really wrong, and afterward I felt a little foolish perhaps, but there was no path from freaked out to foolish without calling the dr's office.

You take care; see if someone else here can speak to doxy side effects.

[gorbybelle]

that is an excellent discription - but is it the 'bugs' or is it 'depression' - I guess it is both

since the swelling has occured in the side of my neck my anxiety level has gone sky high - have to have chest x-ray & blood test

I started 'doxy' as well- now I don't know if I am having 'herx' or just causing worsening of symptoms through anxiety - I could hardly put one foot in front the other on sunday [2 day's after starting abx.]

I know this is foolish but I have stopped abx. because I thought I would not have the energy to go and get x-ray done - so now I am thinking if I get x-ray done tomorrow morning [wednesday] I will start abx. afterward

can the abx. have affected me this quickly

[JackieCalifornia]

When the Lyme bugs are running strong in me, I am very scattered and have great difficult concentrating.  It varies from day to day, and sometimes even when I can force myself to concentrate, I can't work up any energy to do so.  It feels to me like different levels of anxiety -- everything from the freaked-out 'sky is falling' anxiety all the way down to simply not having the ability or will to string two thoughts together or get up out the chair.  

I feel sunken into my own thoughts and surroundings will little interest or will to reach out into the world beyond just me and where I am sitting.  That may be like you feeling absorbed in only how you are feeling.  It's a very inward thing, and difficult to described and to cope with, esp for people used to being well engaged in the world outside oneself.

Sometimes if I get up and run around and do something like laundry or take a walk, it gets my attention span back into operation and I can then get something done -- almost like letting off steam, but I don't have enough energy to have a head of steam, if you know what I mean.