I keep posting since I joined yesterday and truely amazed at the number of patients out there with the same symptoms I suffered since 1989. Migrains, brain fog, floaters so bad in right eye that vision became impaired, CFS, Chronic pain that moved to all points of my body and head at different times. I am a registered nurse and knew that something was drastically wrong. So many doctors and multiple MRI's of spine, shoulder, leg, foot. In 1989 my husband removed an engorged tick from back of head. I took it to an Army Lab in Texas to be told that, " one good thing they did not have Lyme Disease in Texas." Within days I was hospitalized with meningitis. When I left the hospital a week later I was so fatigued that I could barely walk to bathroom and back to bed. This went on forever. I went back to the doctors again and again and had tests and more tests. Nothing would show up except abundance of neutrophils. I finally asked for a referal to psch. to check to see if maybe I had depression because of the horrible fatigue that made me stop training for my running and tennis team. After 15 minutes with the doctor, he assured me that I was not depressed, but he felt I had a syndrome or undiagnosed disease. I went on to be tested for Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, anemia, etc. I did have a fast degenerating osteoarthritis from xrays that the doctor compared of shoulder, thumbjoint, and whole spinal series. One doctor told me that two xrays of same cervical spine a year apart looked like a ten year degeneration, and it was ''ODD". I had to stop working as an OB RN because of the fatigue and I felt badly becaused I enjoy my work. I decided that I would make myself go to the gym after a year of this CFS. I went every day of the work week and Nordic Tracked 4 miles Monday-Friday. After these workouts I would shower and then sleep. I was so proud that I did this and nothing short of surgery would keep me from this so I could keep my sanity. From August of 1989 to August of 1999 I had two shoulder surgeries, three foot surgeries (for tumors), Knee drain, abalation of tongue and reduction of nasal turbinates for severe sleep apnea, removal of cystic ovary, three excisional breast biopsies, treatment for dizzy spells that came on with a vengence and would disappear as fast as they came, Chronic kidney infections, malaria symptoms but no malaria. Finally ten years to the month I had a ruptured brain artery which had to be repaired and spent two weeks in ICU. Lucky to still be here. The interesting part of this history is that when I had the brain artery rupture the hospital staff was filling my body with IV antibiotics and after this episode I felt better than I had since 1989. About a month into rehab to learn to walk and talk again, my daughter called from her dental school and said that day they had discussed a patient that had all my symptoms and surgeries except the removal of an ovary because this patient was a man. She said "Mom sit down because I thought they were talking about YOU! The man had finally been diagnosed with Lyme disease. She said I needed to be tested with a Lyme Specialist because this disease imitates so many other conditions. I can't tell you how fast I got those tests ordered. The first was a negative but the Western Blot was high positive. The doctor asked if I had ever noticed a relief of my symptoms and I told him that most times when I was on antibiotics for sinus infections and kidney infections I did notice a slight change for the better. Also that since the two week stay in ICU for the brain repair that I actually felt great compared to how I felt before this disaster happened. To make this short. I was placed on two weeks of IV Rocephin and felt great. The floaters disappeared from my eye, Fatigue was dismissed. We were shortly after this incident sent back to Texas to the same Post where I had been told they do not have Lyme Disease, and about 8 months after my arrival the symptoms came back with a vengence. Saw infectious disease doctor and he said to live with it. "The two weeks of IV therapy I had had 8 months prior would have killed the disease." Now I was depressed. Thank The Heavens Above this tour was only two years and back to Colorado Springs so my husband could retire and I could get help. This time I started having trouble breathing and saw a pulmonary doctor and he was amazed I was breathing at all because my oxygen saturations were in the high 70's. Normal is 92-98%. I had cat scans of lungs and they could not find a thing. I did not have asthma. I told him about my Lyme and he said BINGO. He sent me to a docto that had been diagnosed himself with ALS and wheelchair bound to find out that he had Lyme. He was treated with 6 months of IV therapy by a doctor from Texas (where they don't have Lyme Disease). He ordered new blood tests and mine were sent to the IGeneX Lab in California and we got the answer. I had two types of Lyme and two types of a parasite called Babesia Microti and Babesia WA1 - which was indeed causing malaria. I have traveled a long road to get where I am and am so amazed at the number of people with the symptoms that are described and their doctors never have them properly tested. This disease is in pandemic proportions and we poor folks go from doctor to doctor and never get the right diagnosis or treatment. Because I now have cystic LYME (the spirochette protects itself by forming a cyst around itself and when the time is right the cysts open and more spirochette flow though blood) I am on IV therapy with three different antibiotics and am out of the wheelchair and off the oxygen and feeling I have me back. Please get to a specialist in Lyme. Warmly, pam482@hotmail.com tangye5