I am 39 years old and was diagnosed with Lyme 2 years ago, after the 7 year battle with doctors telling me it was everything from "fatigue" to "you just need a vacation." It wasn't until my husband (an over-the-road truck driver) heard a public information commercial on the radio while driving through Jersey, that related the symptoms of Lyme. He came home telling me every symptom they gave was "me" exactly.
I was first clinically diagnosed, then the antibody tests came back negative and the western blot came back unequivocal. Thankfully I have a wonderful Lyme doctor who suspected the results were false. I just had the culture done and it was positive. In fact, it showed strain variation. I've been on various antibiotics for 2 years now and am now loosing my gall bladder to this disease.
My Lyme doctor requested a hida scan on my gall bladder due to slight tenderness in my upper abdomen. The hida scan showed no blockage, however, the cck challenge part of the test showed bad results. The cck challenge is a hormone that is injected which simulates your eating a fatty meal. This is the hormone that your stomach releases telling your gall bladder that you just ate fat, that it needs to contract and send down bile into your intestine to break down the fat.
Instead of my gall bladder contracting, it expanded. From what I understand, experts suspect that the spirochetes like to congregate in the gall bladder because of the pH, therefore deteriorating the function. Also, because Lyme affects the nervous system as well as the muscle tissue, a Lyme patient may not feel the pain associated with a mal-functioning gall bladder which can ultimately lead to a gangrenous gall bladder without the patient ever knowing it until it is too late.
The general surgeons out there are not aware of this potential problem with Lyme patients and the two surgeons that I went to did not want to take out my gall bladder, because I was not having any symptoms. Needless to say, my Lyme doctor was extremely concerned about this, but due to the "HMO" thing, our hands were tied.
It wasn't until I practically begged the surgeons to contact my Lyme doctor (of which only one did) that they became aware of the potential seriousness of the situation. I am scheduled for surgery tomorrow. The aches and pains are one thing, but when this disease starts claiming your organs, it is quite another. This is a real wake-up call for me.
Karen in Ohio
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