Chronic Lyme Disease and Inflammation
Discovering Chronic Lyme Disease: After years of chronic health issues with no answers from western medicine, I began down the rabbit hole of researching the symptoms and causes of inflammation. I discovered that I was suffering from intense inflammatory symptoms, but I couldn’t figure out why.
What is Lyme Disease?
Chronic Lyme Disease is a controversial diagnosis among medical professionals. Chronic Lyme Disease is a persistent and difficult-to-treat infection caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected ticks, also called post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS).
Symptoms of Lyme Disease include chronic inflammation and mimic other, more severe, disorders. It’s easy to see how a diagnosis can be hard to reach since, as of writing this, there are no foolproof testing methods for Chronic Lyme Disease. Additionally, there’s ongoing debate in the medical community about the diagnosis and treatment of Chronic Lyme Disease, making diagnosis and treatment difficult, if not impossible with western medicine.
It wasn’t until my late 30’s that I learned to treat my Chronic Lyme Disease symptoms using diet, exercise, and (most importantly) herbs. As of writing this, I’ve been feeling really good thanks to my management practices, but there’s always room for more research and more improvement!
Inflammatory Symptoms:
Basic symptoms of inflammation include:
- Redness
- A swollen joint that may be warm to the touch
- Joint pain
- Joint stiffness, or joints that don’t work as well as they should
- Flu like symptoms, including fever, chills, fatigue, loss of apetitie, headaches, or muscle stiffness.
These symptoms have been a constant fixture of my adult life, and my first hint that my immune system wasn’t responding as it should – I just didn’t know the cause when I first started looking into all of this.
Compare this list to the Chronic Lyme Disease Symptoms Checklist, and you’ll see a lot of similarities.
Chronic Lyme Disease Symptoms Checklist:
- Severe headaches and neck stiffness
- Bell’s palsy – paralysis of one side of the face
- Joint pain and swelling, especially of large joints such as the knee
- Intermittent tendon, muscle, nerve, joint, or bone pain
- Heart arrhythmia or palpitations
- Dizziness or shortness of breath
- Shooting pains, numbness, or tingling in the hands, feet, and/or limbs
- Inflammation of the brain, including brain fog, or spinal cord
- Intermittent fevers, chills, and sweats
- Roving aches and stiffness throughout the body
- Chronic inflammation
- Tremors
- Respiratory infections, sore throats
- Stomach pains and food allergies, such as gluten sensitivity
- Anxiety, paranoia, and/or rage; if left unchecked, neuro changes can lead to hallucinations
- Hearing sensitivity
- Vocal cord damage
- Chemical sensitivities
- Seizures
- Late stage symptoms can include a recurrence of early stage symptoms, including fever, chills, headaches, muscle pain, fatigue, swelling of the lymph nodes, joint pain and swelling, and rash.
*Note: the underlined symptoms are symptoms I’ve experienced with Chronic Lyme Disease.
Chronic Lyme Areas Affected:
Areas affected by Chronic Lyme disease:
- The central nervous system, including cognitive and psychiatric effects
- The reproductive system
- Joints and muscles
- Heart and circulation
- Skin
Personally, I feel every system listed has been affected for me. My CNS symptoms include anxiety and brain fog. I’m prone to muscle pain and spasms. Joint pain, especially in my wrists, hands, and lower back (this could potentially by inflammation of the spinal cord).
I’ve had heart palpitations since I was in my 20’s, and severe cramping to the point of nausea and going into shock with my period. My skin is like paper and tears easily, and I was prone to severe acne from my teens to my 30’s – though I fixed that when I started lowering my inflammation levels.
Putting It All Together:
As you can see, almost every symptom for general inflammation is also a symptom of chronic Lyme. Chronic Lyme is a disease of inflammation – it attacks the body, causing inflammation, and can even tip over into autoimmune territory where the body is fighting itself.
Some days, you’ll wonder why you can’t do better, forgetting how hard life actually is with a chronic ailment (for me, brain inflammation means I constantly forget things; good if I want to re-watch and enjoy movies a second time around, bad for every other part of life!).
This is why we need to give ourselves grace – if you’re struggling with Lyme, you’re not to blame, and you’ve got options. The more you inform yourself on what’s happening to you, the more chance you have to turn this around. I hope these research pages can help you find a way to live your best life! Just keep in mind that treating Lyme disease is treating inflammation – you can’t improve your other symptoms when you’re in an inflammatory spiral.
As with the rest of this site, this is an ongoing process and a labor of love, and subject to my good and bad days. There will be more to come on these pages!
