ENDO SUPPORT FORUM : Not doing well.....

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Not doing well.....

Posted by MN~Sue on 5/29/2007, 2:01 pm

Hi Friends,
Sorry I haven't been able to be at the forum…..With clearing out the main level of our house and doing some of the demo before the contractors started and moving to the basement and then the remodel going on, I then got very sick this past week.
I went to the doc Friday and he feels it is what Terry and I suspected, a tick borne disease. I was bit by 2 deer ticks on May 17th. Then this past Thursday I woke up and first noticed a stiff neck and soon after getting up I started aching all over and had a terrible headache and then the fever kicked in and the chills started. I was just frozen having to be in the basement with the remodel going on and plus they had opened up the basement bedroom to tie into the rafters for the addition on the living room, so only have plastic sealing the upper portion of that wall off from the cold and no furnace running with the remodel going on. I moved to the twin size bed in the rec room, but it is still too cold in the basement with our north side walkout. I sure wish we had been able to find a gas fireplace to replace the woodstove back to our split rock fireplace down here to have a separate heat source in the basement. Pretty nuts, we have a gorgeous split rock fireplace (shell!) but no 'guts' for it.
The worst part was that on Thurs and Friday they spent the entire time pounding - 16 hours of pounding, pounding - on the floor above my head. Unbelievable timing with me being so sick. Our sub floor has to be removed and replaced with plywood to install the hard wood floor over. Unfortunately, the removal of the sub floor requires that they hammer away on every single nail holding it down, using some sort of wedge to dislodge every nail because the flooring would only shred to pieces if pried up before removing the nails. Then they were letting the loosened pieces and the plywood they were putting in slam to the floor and then screwing that down with a screw gun, I believe. I thought my head was going to split open, it hurt so badly.
Terry took me to the doc on Friday and the only logical reason for my symptoms is the tick, as I have no stomach problem, or cold, or sore throat, or earache, or any other symptoms to point to any other cause, just the symptoms that correlate with a tick borne illness, in light of the fact I have 2 known bites within about a week of these symptoms occurring. I haven’t (as yet, anyway) developed the ‘bull’s-eye rash’ that can occur with Lyme (statistics I’ve read vary, one is that less then half do get the rash), but as the doc pointed out, there are other tick borne diseases that I could have contracted besides Lyme (such as ehrlichiosis and babesiosis, that don’t produce the bull’s-eye rash).
The doc started me on doxycyline, 100 mg, 2 times a day for 10 days (I’m not comfortable with that short of a treatment period, however, from all I have read on the subject – so should discuss that with him). I am to go back to see him in 2 weeks. He drew blood to run two tests, but he said he doesn't expect anything to show up this soon and will run more tests in 2 weeks.
My fever had broke at noon on Friday, right before I went for my appt and was actually below normal and I had started sweating then. The doc said that was the body's natural response, when we have a fever we have the chills and when the fever comes down we sweat. I thought I was okay going to Cub with Terry to get my Rx and a few groceries, following my appt. We were only there about a half hour, but by the time I got home I was feeling awful again and my fever was back up to 102.
The doxycyline appears to be helping, as I am much improved from the way I felt on Friday, especially, but I still feel pretty rough. It comes in waves. The fact that the antibiotic seems to be having some effect is probably another sign that this may be a tick borne illness, as a virus would not respond to antibiotics. I know these dang tick diseases can be very difficult to eradicate....just going to take this one day and one step at a time, as best as I can in this living situation with the remodel.
I would be grateful for your prayers, friends ~ Thank You!
Love,
Sue
PS I ended up writing this in a word document over a few times at the computer, the past 2 days, as I just am not feeling well enough to do much at all at a time. Hopefully, it will paste into this forum format okay (sometimes it can get weird characters when I have done this in the past)