If you read my previous 2018 post from a year ago, things are exactly the same for my sons~ They are feeling great, working hard and playing hard! In fact, Colby just graduated from high school and started his first day of work yesterday as a welder~ at age 17! He loves to weld, and is excited about having his first full time job.
I continue to be about the same as I was about a year ago. I have had two major setbacks that are not Lyme-related. One is that last summer my mare foundered and was put on Phenalbutazone (Bute) for pain. This is a medication that used to be used in humans, but was banned in most places because of the-to put it mildly- "side effects". Those being aplastic anemia. Look that up.... it will kill you. The vets don't like to give it to horses for very long because it can cause serious or perhaps fatal liver problems.
I was chopping up her huge Bute pills twice a day and mixing them with applesauce to put into her grain. I used my hands and fingers to get all the Bute 'dust" from the cutting board into the applesauce, and then again got it all over my fingers when wiping/scraping out the Bute/ac mix to get into her grain.
Over the couple months I did this, symptoms began to appear that I was baffled by. The Bute was getting into my system through my skin and causing major damage. It came to a head when I saw that the whites of my eyes were yellow one day and realized I had jaundice. This is from the rapid breakdown of red blood cells and the liver cannot handle the load. I had many, many other symptoms, but I won't list them all. Every symptom I had matched with another woman who died of Bute toxicity 2 weeks later. I was scared to death. I went to my doctor and the ER, took liver detox pills and slowly started to recover. That is the very abbreviated version.
Then in October we got a new cat. I love him...... I call him Officer Diesel because he's on patrol, getting rid of all the rats and mice that infest my barn! And he has a big, low purr like a Diesel engine :) The poo from the rodents posed a major health risk to me and since getting Officer Diesel, I have seen nary a mouse turd :)
However, Officer Diesel gets a little twitterpated when I pet him and gives love bites and swipes at my hand if I take it away. He also didn't take kindly to my attempt to shove a worm pill down his throat... and I had been scratched a few times.
Long story short, I know I developed Bartonella. Which is something I now believe that I have never had before. MY LLND suspected I may have had it, but never tested. However, the symptoms I experienced with this illness were nothing I had with Lyme. Namely~ very swollen lymph nodes in my neck the the point that I woke up one morning and my breathing was cut off by about 50%. I PANICKED. I have NEVER had something like this happen before. Along with that, severe headache and exhaustion. I happened to have some Azithromycin on hand, so I took a Z pack and my symptoms went away.
Still, a week later at a routine doctor visit, she felt my lymph nodes and one under my jaw was stilll pretty sore.
Then my symptoms came back and I took some other antibiotics I had on hand: Bactrim, and they went away again. I did this a couple more times: symptoms starting up, I took abx. But my symptoms kept coming back and I did not want to be on antibiotics again for a prolonged period of time, which is often what is needed for Bartonella.
So, finally, I decided to pull out our Lym-N. (Yes, I have a stash of it!). I started nebulizing and my symptoms went away. I wanted to do a full 60 day treatment, but with the weather so nice and it staying light so late, I have been too busy to be very consistent with it at all. However, the erratic nebulizing pattern I'm doing is keeping it at bay. If I could just do it every day for 60 days, I think I could be rid of it for good.
Bartonella is very nasty stuff folks! If you think you have it, don't mess around. It is a lot like Lyme and can be VERY difficult to get rid of, often taking months of treatment.
Other than that, I am feeling (post Lyme) as good as I ever have!
Here's to a great rest of the year for 2019!