Around 2005 I started to have lots of intestinal pain.  Now, my gastrointestinal system has never worked easily or normally.  So that’s probably why that area started to hurt first.  

I wasn’t doing well, but tried to work around it and work through it.  Around 2006 I started going to doctors, and I don’t go to doctors unless I really need to.  I went about 12 years without seeing any doctor at all at one point, before the Lyme Disease.

At first the doctors thought it was Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).  I tried some treatments for IBS but most of them just increased the pain.  I considered exploratory surgery to see what was wrong in my abdomen.  I did a ten day fast at one point and that actually helped quite a bit to relieve the pain.

But the pain came back.  I had a colonoscopy done and an endoscopy, and the results were normal.  My joints started to hurt a lot.  One doctor did an “Upper GI Series” where you drink nasty stuff and then they take X-rays.  He thought I had an ulcer (but I didn’t) and I did unnecessary treatment for that.

My legs started getting really weak and I couldn’t stand very well.  Extreme fatigue set in and I needed several naps every day to get through.  These symptoms came on gradually over many months and years.

I went to a neurologist, an endocrinologist, and a rheumatic specialist.  I had a massive case of Candida on top of everything else and went to a specialist for that, which did help some.

Major Fatigue

All this time I continued to work in my own business.  I just dragged myself to my computer between naps to do more work.  Then depression and memory loss started also and I was a real basket case.

One doctor thought I had gall bladder disease and recommended I have my gall bladder taken out.  We did that but it was a mistake and only made digestion more difficult than it already was!

Finally one Naturopathic Doctor (in late 2008) asked me, “Have you ever been tested for Lyme Disease?”  I knew little about it and said no.  We did a Western Blot test and it came back positive!

This diagnosis was later confirmed by a low score on the CD57 blood test.  I’ll provide more info on the CD57 test in another post.

It took three years to get diagnosed and I hope this site will help some people to get the proper tests and treatment early on.  Once you know what is going on, then you can make some progress.