Do you ever wonder if you had Lyme (and co) for longer than when it "started"?

Oh yeah, absolutely. My life altering symptoms had a rather sudden onset in 2009, but I had 2 very specific and strange, inexplicable symptoms that began a few years prior:

1. Unexplained deep, guttorial belching that would occur upon waking in the morning and driving home from work.

2. A deep feeling off dryness and constriction in my face. My face was oily on the surface but felt like a cracked desert below the surface. I also would get squeezing sensations like my face was tightening and stinging. Very uncomfortable and strange.

Once I found out what bartonella and babesia were, I instantly recognized numerous idiosyncrasies that I had experienced since infancy or early childhood.

- aching bone pain in knees, legs, and forearms

- frequent headaches behind the eyes and sinuses

- unexplained stretch marks on legs and buttocks that appeared around age 11

- deep horizontal lines on my abdomen that would turn purple and feel irritated

- livedo reticularis (purple lacy pattern visible under skin that looks like chicken wire)


- painful feet
- cold hands and feet
- night sweats
- air hunger
- tinnitus
- mood swings

after getting ill in 2015 - and finding the PCP absolutely no help and even obstructive i obtained my medical records and found that in 2012 the records showed that my thyroid TSH was already high at around 6 - ( should be more like under 2 - and 4.5 is the limit of normal acc to the PCP) - but they did not flag it of do any more tests until after i got ill in 2015 - then blood tests showed i had thyroid antibodies

so something was triggering that years before i became ill - and yet in that time i had been mountain biking all day n the hills - playing squash for 2hrs - working 16hrs days travelling all around the world - so hardly what you would call ill.

then my partner and i were both bitten by around 12 horse flies each on a picnic in the summer of 2014 - we think that was the start of our decline - and she had radiculitis a few weeks later - then a serious kidney infection - then an ear infection - i was just more tired than usual but still functioning ok - thought i had just been overdoing it at work.

then February of 2015 we both came down with what felt like a flu like thing and were both sick with Lyme / Bart symptoms from that point on - swollen joints, livido reticularis, swelling, bloating, fatigue, light and sound sensitivity, headaches, in fact everything aches!

such an odd sequence of events - why both ill at the same time - even though months after the even - and why some signs showing up years before ......

i guess you could reason that it fits a kind of gradual breakdown of the immune system as more pathogens were picked up - and we know both bart and lyme need not be immediate onset but can be months or years later - but still odd and threw me for years - as two people getting ill at the same time does not fit so well with lyme normally.

RainyCloud, good post again!

When I was a child I had to be bitten by many ticks and other vectors that carried lyme bacteria since I was a tomboy and spent all my free time in the woods, catching frogs and tadpoles in swamps, riding my bike where I explored wooded parks, nature, and the list goes on. I never had any symptoms until I became older and I was in a very stressful situation. That's when the symptoms appeared. Today I still believe that stress and chronic lyme are connected.

That said, I believe when I was young I was extremely healthy (physically and mentally) so my body took care of any lyme bacteria on its own without any help from medication (conventional and herbal).

Just my thoughts,
Denise

Thanks RainyCloud!