Saturday, May 30, 2009

Life Is Good Intravenously

Okay, I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would end up with a central PICC line getting IV Claforan but I am, and I do, and I am happy to report that I am at last feeling like my old self. I wake up with enthusiasm for life. I have energy to do things. My night sweats are almost completely gone. I am experiencing some flare up of dental sensitivities and shoulder pain and when treatments began I had numbness and leg pains, but nothing too bad.

Getting the intravenous line was interesting. I could not go to the local community hospital as they had recently revoked hospital privileges for a physician referring patients for PICC lines to treat chronic Lyme. This is the same hospital who's infectious disease director had informed me that he did not believe in chronic Lyme.

So I went to another hospital 5 miles away. Fortunately this hospital was Lyme friendly. The staff were understanding and accustomed to seeing Lyme patients for PICC lines. It was so nice to be treated like a normal patient, to have people interested in my symptoms and what treatments I had been doing. It was amazing to feel "cared for."

One of my hospital nurses mentioned that she had had Lyme, but had been "treated." When I asked her if she was all better she mentioned that since her infection she had suffered from anxiety and trigeminal neuralgia that was not improving. When she saw that I was being treated for trigeminal neuralgia from Bartonella she took information to get tested again.

The visiting nurses report to me that approximately 1/2 of their IV patients are Lyme patients.

1 comment:

  1. So happy for you Phuli! That is great news. It just amazes me that there are still Dr.'s here in the tri-state region that still don't recognize chronic Lyme and won't even acknowledge the co-infections.

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