Question:
I have a few comments and questions I need to make which I hope will not anger
anyone. I am simply trying to explore my own condition, of which I am
confused.
I first started with symptoms about 10 years ago. Aside from the ordinary
symptoms (headache, lightheadness, sinusitis) my most notable ones (which
caused me to go to the doctor) were what I call "numbness and tingling" in my
fingers and toes. Over time I developed most of the common Lyme symptoms.
From the very beginning, doctors diagnosed me with:
Anxiety, GAD, depression, bi-polar disorder, somatization disorder and
possibly others.
I felt that I had chronic mono and then chronic Epstein-Barr and then Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome. When they changed the name to CFIDS (or whatever), I gave
up. From that point, I accepted the doctor's psychiatric diagnosis' and gave
up on a "physical" cause. Besides my shrink tells me constantly that my
"psych" problems are physical.
My question is "How do all of these things fit in together"? Could I have
Lyme disease? Does CFIDS(CFS, CEB, CM) really exist? What about
fibromylagia? Could most of us who think we have Lyme, CFIDS or fibromylagia
actually be suffering from a "mental" condition? Or, do the shrinks and
mainstream docs simply have it all wrong?
I simply do not know what to think or where to go from here.
Answer:
I wondered the same thing at one point as you but when I started taking
antibiotics and noticed improvement that was enough to convince me of what I
had. I don't think there is any way antibiotics could help depression. It
wasn't a quick cure either. So it wasn't mental. It took several months on
Doxycycline before I could look back and see that there was improvement. After
being on 16 months of Doxycycline I now feel 90% better where before I really
thought by now I would be in a nursing home or worse.
