Lyme Symptoms in the past

So there is this website that most Lymies know of called: canlyme.com. It lists about 75 symptoms of Lyme Disease. I thought I would share with all of you the symptoms that I have had starting in 1995 when I got my initial tick bite. Some of these didn't start until 2005 when I got a second known tick bite. Yes, this is a long post. So sorry, but this is a long illness. I'm sure there are things I've left out. Also, there are things that I haven't told very many people.

• Tick Bite: I saw the tick bite.
  

• Rash at the site of the bite. I don't know if there was a rash for the first tick bite, but other tick bites, there were rashes including the EM rash that is commonly recognized as the Lyme Rash.

• Rashes on other parts of your body. I had rashes (and sometimes still do) all over my body. Sometimes it was on my legs, arms, trunk, face.
  

• Raised Rash, disappearing and recurring. Yes my rashes would pop up and some of them would be raised. They would disappear as quickly as they came on.
  

• Rash, basically circular, oval and spreading out. I had this as well. These rashes were more after the 2005 tick bite.

• Headaches - mile or severe. My headaches were tremendous. They were so significant that my GP ordered an MRI to check for tumors.
  

• Seizures - about 2 weeks after my tick bite in 1995, I started having seizures. Some were shown on EEGs and some were not. The doctors suggested that they were psychosomatic. I never believed that for a moment. They completely ended a few weeks into Lyme treatment.

• Twitching of facial or other muscles. My legs and arms twitched all the time. Most weren't noticeable to people, but at the peak of my illness my husband could feel them if he were holding my hand.
  

• Tingling of nose, tip of tongue, cheek or facial flushing. For a while, I blushed easily. I also had tingling all over. Nose, tongue, cheek, legs, etc.
  

• Stiff or painful neck. I would wake and my neck would be so stiff that I couldn't turn my head. If I did turn my neck, it would be very painful. Most of the time, it would go away after about 2 hours of being awake. It made for a difficult drive b.c I leave for work about 40 minutes after I wake.
  

• Jaw Pain.
  

• Sore throat, Clearing throat a lot, phlegm, hoarseness, runny nose. I often times would wake with a sore throat and runny nose. It was not uncommon for me to get laryngitis. For no reason, I would wake up without being able to speak. I also would have what I called "clogged throat."
  

• Double or blurry vision. at the beginning of my treatment in 2007, I had extremely blurry vision. Because I do wear glasses, it freaked me out. I sought help and my eye doctor was a little bit Lyme literate. She told me that b.c Lyme affects muscles that my muscles were being affected by the bacteria. She thought that with treatment that the blurriness would improve. She was right.
  

• Increased Floaters. Oh My Word. There was one point where the floaters were so bad that I didn't want to be out in the sun at all b.c they were so distracting. Some looked just like the spiral bacteria too. I was very freaky. Again, they improved significantly with treatment.

• Pain in eyes, or swelling around eyes. I often would have swollen lids around my eyes. I'd wake up and they would be swollen. Sometimes it would happen in the middle of the day. It still happens. I attribute it to allergies, but who knows. It could actually be Lyme.

• Sensitivity to Light. For a while, it hurt to even be inside with the lights on. I would sometimes wear my sunglasses inside. I still have to have complete darkness to sleep. Otherwise I wouldn't get any sleep at all.

• Plugged Ears. Sometimes I have moments where I can't hear. It feels as if I have cotton in my ears.

• Buzzing or ringing in ears. There was a point where it was so bad that I wasn't sure if there wasn't something really buzzing in the room. I would have to ask others if they "heard that noise." Once I answered the telephone because I thought the phone was ringing. It was my ears.
  

• Oversensitivity to noise. I couldn't go in a crowded room b.c it was so loud and it caused the headaches to increase 10 fold.

• Diarrhea. I would get cases of having to wake up in the middle of the night b.c this was so bad. It generally only happened between 1am to 4am.

• Bladder: UTI's were often.

• Upset stomach. I would wake up in the middle of the night and run to the bathroom. It would be coming out of both ends. There would be no rhyme or reason for it.

• Bone, Joint Pain, Swelling. My bones and joints ached all the time. My knees, ankles and knuckles would swell.

• Stiffness of joints, back, neck. It's self explanatory.

• Muscle pain or cramps. Almost every single muscle ached.

• Once I started treatment, I had serious trouble catching my breath. It hurt to take a deep breath and I didn't feel like I was getting enough oxygen. It wasn't the case, but it felt that way.

• Chest pain or Rib soreness. My ribs hurt constantly. It sometimes felt as if I had broken them.

• Night Sweats, unexplained chills. The nights I would wake up running to the bathroom, I would be in a cold sweat. I'd be freezing cold and burning up all at the same time. No Fever, but my clothes would be covered with sweat.

• Heart: Sometimes my heart would race or feel like it would skip a beat or two.
  

• Tremors, unexplained shaking: My hands would shake sometimes so hard that I couldn't hold a cup a water without spilling. This was the hardest symptom to "hide."

• Fatigue, Weakness. I felt completely exhausted. Sometimes so bad that I would fall asleep at stop lights.

• Numbness, tingling, pinpricks in body. Sometimes it was so bad that I couldn't feel something that was vibrating. You know those bouncy seats that vibrate? Well I couldn't tell if it vibrating by touching it. I had to listen for the noise. Imagine my shock when I felt it for the first time with my hand. I often felt as if my body was asleep. You know that annoying sensation when you sit in one place too long. Yeah ... I felt like that a lot.

• Poor Balance, Dizziness, Difficulty walking. I often fell. It was embarrassing. Sometimes my dizziness was so bad that I crawled.

• Increased motion sickness. Well I've had this since I was a kid, so I'm not sure whether it was increased or not, but motion sickness during treatment was horrible.
  

• Lightheadedness. I often felt faint when I stood up.
  

• Mood swings: I went through a phase where my mood would dip with the blink of an eye. I was frustrated a lot of the time.

• Unusual depression. Not a pretty topic, but I spent a lot of years depressed. Because of this, I was on antidepressants for a few years. Of course, my doctor thought that my depression was causing my symptoms. Turns out my symptoms were causing my depression. :O

• Disorientation, I got lost all the time. I got lost going home from work, a place I worked at for a number of years.

• Over-emotional reactions. I would cry at the drop of a hat. No reason. It was insane

• Too much sleep. there was a time in which I could sleep 12 to 15 hours, wake for an hour or two and then go back to sleep easily for another 8 hours.

• Difficult falling asleep: in the same breath, some nights were very difficult to fall asleep.

• Narcolepsy. While never officially diagnosed, I did fall asleep quite easily - not always in the bed. In fact, once I fell asleep while talking to the nurse at the front desk of a medical office.

• Panic attacks. Back in 2001, I had serious panic attacks. So much so that I took medication for them. Because I was terrified of addiction, I rarely took them ... but dealt with the anxiety through breathing techniques.

• Memory Loss: Sometimes I would forget days at a time. I think I still have lost memory from the past. Once a friend came to visit me from Virginia. A few weeks later, I mentioned I hadn't seen him in a year. I honestly didn't remember his entire visit. I still don't.

• Confusion: My words get jumbled sometimes.

• Difficulty reading: This was the most troubling problem. I loved to read. I mean, I used to get in trouble in elementary school for reading! So when I brought home a book from the library and struggled to read a page, I cried.

• Going to the wrong place. I once drove to my old place of employment. FOUR YEARS after I quit. I didn't realize I was in the wrong place until I got into the class and the kids didn't know who I was.

• Slow, Stammering speech. Sometimes I would get told "just spit it out already." What those people didn't know was that I was speaking as fast as my brain would let me. It was so frustrating and I couldn't explain that Lyme was causing my brain/speech to be so slow.

• Forgetting how to perform simple tasks. I once forgot how to use the washing machine.

• Phantom smells. Sometimes I would smell foods that hadn't been cooked. Most of the time I smelled Popcorn.

• Unexplained weight loss. I lost quite a bit of weight. I think I got down in the 70's. No reason for it. It took a while for me to get back into the 90's. Now I'm in the triple digits. No one jumped bigger than my doctor when we tipped the scales. :)

• Swollen lymph nodes. Occasionally my lymph nodes in my neck would swell.

• Unexplained "fever" My temp stayed way too low. 96.8 would have been high for me.

• Continual infections: I almost always had some sort of sinus infection.

• Symptoms seem to change, come and go. One day I'd have pain, the next day it would be cognitive problems. I'd make a doctor's appointment for one problem and when I'd arrive that one would be gone and another one would be in its place.

• Pain migrates: Sometimes my right knee would hurt and other times my left elbow. It moved around quite often.

• Flu like symptoms. I don't remember having the "flu" after my 95 tickbite, but I did get it after my 2005 tickbite.

• Allergies Chemical sensitivities, I can not tolerate "smells" of any kind. Makes me sick to my stomach.