Back from Hell · 6:31pm Apr 19th, 2023
2023 started for me, as it did for many people, with a terrible migraine headache on Jan. 1. But this was followed by terrible headaches on Jan. 2, 3, and almost every day from then until the end of March, when I went to the emergency room with a regular migraine, plus a extra-strength bizarro headache that felt like somebody had hit the top of my head with a crowbar and it was about to explode and spray a geyser of brains across the room, plus searing pain in every muscle in my body anytime I used it. I had to use a cane by then to walk, because I was so weak and in so much pain and so damned tired all the time.
The ER did a lot of tests, and gave me some nice IV drugs and some oxycodone, but couldn't find any problem. I went home & scheduled an appointment with my doctor for the next day. When we met, we both agreed that the most-likely causes of my symptoms were either polymyalgia rheumatica (an auto-immune disorder) or Lyme disease.
My immune system tests came back crazy, which indicated either an infection or an auto-immune disorder. Then my Lyme tests all came back positive.
Fucking Lyme, again. Fucking whitetail deer. Fucking neighbors who feed the fucking deer.
By then I had to move into my mom's house, because I was too sick to get out of bed on my own. Every muscle in the entire muscle chain needed for any movement screamed like it was being electrocuted when I tried to move--but every minute of not moving would make the pain worse when I eventually did move. I couldn't even roll over. You'd think that rolling over is just a matter of spinning or something, but that isn't physically possible. When you think you're rolling, you're actually pushing the uppermost side of yourself sideways, one way or another.
I never knew Lyme could be so painful. It was so bad that the migraines, which continued, were barely noticeable, just background noise to the shrieking of Lyme. I got exhausted just lying in bed, and had to eat more than before, because it took so much energy just to keep all those pain-signal neurons firing all day long.
But the antibiotics began to work a week ago, and in only a few days I went from screaming bedridden cripple with migraines, to almost healthy. My past years of weightlifting were (literally) wasted; I dropped from 178 pounds to 160 while my waistline grew 2 inches. But... it's better than Hell.
You know all those books offering all-natural herbal remedies for Lyme? Fuck that. Take the antibiotics. Doctors throw a fit about giving humans even a single pill without having a positive lab test in-hand, but ranchers pump their cattle, pigs, chicken, & turkeys full of the same drugs 7 days a week just to avoid infections. Doctors should stop the ranchers before coming after me.
If you're always tired, get lots of headaches, and have joint or muscle pain, it could be Lyme. If you think you have Lyme, follow the ILADS guidelines, not the IDSA guidelines. If you get tested for Lyme and the tests come back negative, that doesn't mean you don't have Lyme. Unfortunately there's no good way to test for it without extracting a piece of your brain, heart, or cartilage, other than taking 300mg of doxycycline per day (in split doses, not with meals) for several days and seeing if you get better. Doctors absolutely will not let you do that, so you'll have to either go to Mexico, or break into a ranch and eat the pig feed.
If nothing else, glad to hear you’re on the mend. May the ticks leave you be in the future.
Goodness, that indeed sounds like Hell in life! How awful! I'm very glad that you are feeling better. I hope you are completely healthy again before the end of this month. Besides, if it comes the day that you contract Lyme for a third time, now you know how to fight it. Still, stay safe, Bad Horse; if you don't take care of your health, nobody will.
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Beware! Ticks hide in the tail fluff
In all seriousness, I'm sorry to hear you've been through it. Get on the mend, my friend!
This is a very deep cut reference but; The pig feed can't be any worse than the dog biscuits were.
Good luck coming out of this, sorry you had to go through it.
Sorry to hear you went through this, but glad you're one the mend at least.
Blimey, very not fun indeed. Sorry you had to go through all that. Relieved you're getting better.
Follow up to Bad Horse's advice: take the whole fucking course. If you're leaving stuff in the bottle because you got all better and just aren't thinking about the pills anymore, you've hecked up.
It's terrible how bad you were feeling and I'm glad that you're feeling better.
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No, you give bacteria focus, make them stronger
Oof. Sorry to hear all of this, dude. Glad to hear you're on the mend.
Fuck deer, indeed.
Deer are utterly stupid. Now they're also malicious.
shit, dude D: sorry you had to go through that, glad you're doing better!
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fr tho, I'm glad to hear that you are feeling better.
Good to know you’re on the mend.
Ouch!
Glad to hear you're feeling better, and I hope you're back to 100% soon.
Deer deserve a lot more culling and a lot less "Oh, they're so cute out at our feeder."
Damn, dude. I'm glad you figured it out.
Muscle comes back waaaay quicker than it goes away, you'll get better fast.
As I person who lives in Connecticut (where the town of Lyme is located): Yes, this, all of it.
Wear long sleeves and pants of you go near grass. Check in all your armpits and private bits after a day outside, for ticks. Use insect repellent copiously. They even make clothing with the stuff built-in now.
And if you get it the doxycycline will be a bitch on your intestines, but it beats Lyme by a mile. My mother’s had it. Friend of the family has it, and has never really been the same.
That sucks, glad it's improving!
I'm sorry to hear that you've been seriously ill with Lyme. Now I recall that whitetails are host to brainworm, which is bad news for moose, sheep and llamas. My parasitology class was way back last century ago, but I had an inkling that you can't quite blame whitetail deer for the spirochete that causes lyme (Borrelia burgdorferi). It's the Hantavirus fairies, the whitefooted mice, that are the reservoirs for the Lyme spirochete. yerf.metafur.org/vernursu/fairygodmouse.jpg see: https://yerf.metafur.org/vernursu?page=2 Deer, like people, aren't reservoirs for the spirochete, they're just more blood for the ticks. See https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/lyme-disease-children Ticks cannot acquire B. Burgdorferi from deer. See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-020-0400-5 Since you hadn't detected the tick when it was latched on to you, it was probably a nymph, the stage at which it's dining on mouse blood and getting up to 93% of the mouse population infected with B burgdorferi. See https://www.jstor.org/stable/30075970 . Perhaps you have a particularly high population of Peromyscus mice in your area?
FYI, I fed your first paragraph to ChatGPT-4 and asked what kind of sickness might cause those symptoms. It gave me a list, starting with some viral or bacterial infection, followed by Lyme disease. (Transcript below.) It's worth trying next time you have severe symptoms. If you don't have a subscription I can ask on your behalf. (Email, PM, and SMS all reach me faster than blog posts.)
Welcome back to the land of the living.
Ah. That reminds me of when I overexerted my back. If I stressed those muscles at all, like if I bent over more than a few degrees to any side, my entire core and back would forcibly lock up for several minutes with some very intense pain. For several days, it took me around half an hour to work up the resolve to just deal with the pain for long enough to get out of bed. It was a good time to learn exactly which movements required using my back and which ones did not. Mundane fun fact (fundane fact?): it's possible to put on socks without crouching or bending over, but only if you put them on behind you.
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I didn't know that. You appear to be right. In related news, Lyme disease isn't widespread in the south because the nymphs prefer lizards to rodents, and lizards aren't as good hosts for Lyme spirochetes. (https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001066)
But the increase in deer increases the tick population, so I can still blame the deer, too.
Oof, hope you recover. Lyme's serious.
Well, sure, that would be great, no one's arguing that point. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen some (ineffective) doctor lobbying against that.
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That's cool about the lizards vs Lyme reservoir! Thanks! And yes, the deer are helping prop up the tick population. I don't know if eliminating the deer would eliminate the ticks... but perhaps putting tick collars on all the deer would. Like that's going to happen.
No money in killing off Lyme disease. Lots of money to be made treating it.
Glad you're past the worst and hope you'll never have to deal with this again.
...Yikes. I'm glad you're doing better; sorry about that, though.