Dear Erin,

Where are you located? PM me and I can send you the name of the nearest Lyme doc! An EM rash is diagnostic of Lyme disease, it is the actual spirochetes moving through the skin. It cannot be caused by anything else. If someone HAS an EM rash, they HAVE Lyme disease.

It is really awful the way doctors think of lyme- they truly don't tend to know much about TBDs and think they do. I am sorry you didn't get treated for it. If you have symptoms at all, you can get way better with longterm abx therapy. We have had people leave wheelchairs, the longest was in 4 years pre-Lyme treatment (he was diagnsoed Juvie ALS).

Seriously, PM me where you live and I will go on lymenet.org to the Seeking Doctors column for you-!!! I was deathly ill & am symptom-free. It is nice to to be impaired.

Best wishes,
Sarah

p.s. Did you look at the maps? They amaze me!!!

I'm in Nebraska. There are no doctors here who are apparently Lyme knowledgable. (weird, you'd think a metropolitan area that's got a population of over a million people would have at least one doctor who knows something about Lyme)

I've seen an infectious disease doctor (who was a putz who could barely speak english. When I asked to talk to another doctor, he brought in another barely-speaking-English doctor who spoke even less english)

And, yes, I know...the ID doctors are all mostly un-informed about Lyme. (which would be why I think they're putz's)

Even tho my Western Blots have had several Lyme specific bacteria show up on them, they dont want to have anything to do with me. I dont have a very good opinion of a lot of doctors because they refuse to even help me investigate (except for my regular doctor, who at least humours me by letting his vampires draw my blood for blood tests)

Yup- they can be awful- we had one guy in our group, Jim H. with MS Lyme who has an EM rash, positiev ELISA, positive Wb AND a positive LP (which is rare, most Lymies test neg on LP~!)

and he still couldn't get treated for Lyme by establishment doctors. They follow the IDSA guidelines because of the insurance companies- But he went to our LLMD and got 100%!!!

I know there is a doctor in Kansas- I will look for one closer for you-
Best wishes,
Sarah

Aw, Gret, what a stinky deal. Sorry I've been absent, I have a lot on my mind. DM notified me about this and I just feel awful about it. What the heck is this freakin' disease?

Greta, that just sucks, plain and simple.

I've got a bother too, I stay as far away as possible from him, and try to keep him out of my business. I love him but he drives me nuts and is bad for my sanity.

P.S. I'm on the pickling treatment right now!

I have three brothers. Wanna trade? I have 2 will gladly trade off. Shoot I forgot, I have 5 brothers! One I will keep, the others...well...

Pickling works! We were working on that in Boston weren't we! LOL!

Greta, bees on their way! You can hear them coming!

*going to market for pickles*


Kosher???

Greta, I also have a problem brother- he is an argumentative lawyer brother! We avoid each other, he has to win every verbal exchange, even hello!

Erin, there is not a single LLMD in Nebraska, you are however in the territory of one of the best LLMDs there is- the estimable Dr. Charles Crist of Missouri!
I am terrrible at geography. I have no clue how far that is- Dr Charles Crist in Springfield, MO!! The very best in the Midwest. I have read his work. He is a smart, great doc. He is one of the Top Ten LLMDs.


Dr Crist- website!!!
http://www.drcharlescrist.com

Best wishes,
Sarah

Yeah, I already looked up Dr. C in MO. I dont have the money to travel down there and see him. I suppose I could probably email or snail mail him my MS records and the WB's that I had done for Lyme and see what he says.

If I am ever successful in proving that this is Lyme and not MS, I'm not so keen on taking antibiotics for months or years. I had a LOT of antibiotics last year for a bunch of UTI's, a MRSA infection, 2 cases of bronchitis, and then one round of oral prednisone for severe vertigo. After all of that, I ended up with a raging yeast infection and bacterial vaginosis that doesnt seem to want to leave me. (well, the BV isnt bugging me, but the raging YI keeps coming back...sorry guys, if that's TMI)

I also just found out that I'm sensitive to antibiotics like levaquin and cipro. Apparently those abx's have a tendency to cause tendon ruptures. My left ankle that I ruptured the achilles tendon to in 2001 (working at WalMart, squatted down to pick up some trash and my tendon went POP! Customers 2 aisles away heard it) and my left shoulder that I've get chronic tendonitis in at least twice a year is killing me.

If this did turn out to be Lyme, I would hope they've got some abx's that dont make you susceptible to yeast infections and hopefully they wont make my tendons all rupture.

I would so much rather be back to the mostly healthy that I was before all this stuff started.