Have been diagnosed with borreliosis (lyme disease)

[Kirsten]

A couple of months ago, must have been June or July, I was bitten by a tick, found it between my toes. The toe was itching and swollen, but I did not see any red circles around that area, so I didn't pay much attention to it. However, every couple of weeks, the toe started itching and swelling again, so I showed it to my doctor last week. She said from what I've described, she wouldn't believe it was anything serious, but checked my blood to be on the safe side... well, and as it turned out, I'm positive for lyme disease now.

Since I've been tested negative for it in the past, I think I got infected by that particular tick bite earlier this summer, so I'm still an early state. My doctor is positive that the disease can be treated with antibiotics. So far, so good.

But now I'm feeling ill, without being able to tell what's really wrong, I have some stomach problems, and I'm feeling absolutely tired and exhausted. Went home from work earlier yesterday because I couldn't keep my eyes open, and called in sick today; will be on sick leave for the rest of the week... First I thought it was Hashimoto-related (the autoimmune disease of the thyroid gland I'm dealing with), but now I read that during the first weeks after a borrelia infection, you'll develop flu-like symptoms every couple of weeks, and gastro-intestinal problems... Thinking back, I dealt with these things all summer, more or less. I thought it was stress, or Hashimoto, but now I wonder if these were the first symptoms of the lyme disease.

Now that I know what's going on, I can feel some pain in my joints, arms and legs, and tonight I notice a weird feeling, some kind of numbness in one of my toes (not the one that has been bitten, but on the other foot). And it's not the kind of numbness that you have from a herniated disc (dealt with that in the past, and it felt different), it's more like an odd feeling that something is wrapped around my toe. So I figure it's the virus making its way through my body, it's kind of eerie. I really hope the antibiotics will kick in, and prevent this disease from becoming chronical.

Kirsten