Originally Posted by
FBinNY
Sorry to hear about your wife, and hopefully her knees aren't too bad.
However, this is still a problem. Doctors are slow to acknowledge and properly test for and treat Lyme. I know of a few cases here in NYS, that were comparably mismanaged, despite being in areas known for Lyme at the time.
If you suspect a decent possibility of having Lyme, you need to be assertive with your doctor, especially if you travel because your local doctor may not be considering the possibility.
Her PCP assured my wife that it couldn't be Lyme disease with the statement that "there's no Lyme's in our county." After seeing a number of specialists, finally one (IIRC, it was an infectious disease specialist) did a full battery of tests for a myriad of conditions, mentioning that one was Lyme's. Bingo. Putting the whole thing back together in her mind, my wife recalled a "mosquito bite" on her leg that wasn't itchy from the prior August. We were never outside the county that month and likely never more than 10 miles from home. It never developed a noticeable target appearance. She is positive, however, that was it. She was on doxy for many months. Slowly, her symptoms dissipated, her stamina returned, and the brain fog went away. She got back to being able to ride her bike again, but she'll never be a long distance rider (20 or so miles and that's it). We don't see any impact on her heart.
There's a lot of controversy surrounding the treatment of Lyme. My wife switched care to a doc that kept her on the doxy for much longer than her PCP would ever have done. That spirochete is one tough little son-of-b**** to clear out of your system.