Surfacing

The Lamictal is helping. Even on the tiny dose I'm on, my mood has lightened and evened out by several degrees. Not perfect, but better. I suppose it could be placebo effect at this point, but I feel like I have my head above water again for the first time in months.

On the other hand...having my head above water allows me to see the extent of the flood, as it were. On Saturday, I went to see the latest Harry Potter movie, walking to the theater and back, about 3/4 mile each way. I enjoyed the movie and the walk, but since then, I have been benched with an increase in symptoms. My neck has been extremely stiff and painful, my shoulder muscles stiff, and my calf muscles cramping into knots. I have taken it very easy, and have had a hot bath or shower every night before bed, but it hasn't helped. I have been waking up itching in the middle of the night, and I'm itchy a lot during the day...a sort of prickly heat that comes and goes. Last night I couldn't stop scratching my ankle, and when I checked, there was a raised rash. (I forgot to mention it, but I was actually waking up itching before I started the Lamictal.) Today I had splintering pain in multiple joints in addition to the neck pain. My right eyelid was twitching all day, and late in the afternoon I got a right-sided migraine. I went to bed and fell asleep briefly. I still have the migraine now...haven't taken anything for it. So far, since I started taking prophylactic B2 and CoQ10 last year, I haven't had a migraine last into a second day. I'm hoping that will be the case this time too. I haven't used my migraine medicine since last year either -- afraid that I won't be able to distinguish migraine from rebound headache if I do.

Nothing new...but that's just it, nothing new. Not better. I want to feel better.

Last night, I had a dream about escaping, in the night, by boat. The boat was a gondola, and I had one long oar. Sometimes I wish that I could really escape, even if only for a little while.

Thanksgiving week

I made the change to Cipro on 11/21. So, now I am on Minocycline, Cipro, and Fluconazole, and off both Azithromycin and Tinidazole.

And today, the day before Thanksgiving, I met for the first time with a new psychiatrist, who started me on a very low dose of Lamictal for the mood swings.

I know the chronology of this post will seem strange, but I started it on Monday and saved it without publishing it.

Calm after the storm

My mind was quiet yesterday. I even felt a feeling of peace, opening out of possibilities. So strange to have such extremes of emotion. I spent the afternoon and evening working on the border of a baby afghan and listening to a recorded book, then slept for almost eleven hours.

I talked with a lot of friends this weekend -- people from my online support group. Two of them pointed out that my mood swings have been happening roughly on a monthly basis, and suggested that they could be linked to my cycle. One of them even found me a local gynecologist, at a hospital I do not hate, who specializes in menopause, perimenopause, and bioidentical hormones. I was able to make an appointment with her for December 2.

I know that there are two other possibilities -- that the mood swings are either linked to my Borrelia infection (Borrelia symptoms flare about every 28 days) or markers of an incipent mental illness. Hard to think about either of those, since in the case of Bb the worsening mood swings would seem to suggest further progression of the infection.

bad day
shivery
stomach pain
waves of nausea & diarrhea
vicious mood swings -- woke up feeling cheerful, then suddenly extremely depressed again, then thoughts of ending my life...then suddenly sort of okay again
I'm scared

Yesterday my symptoms were down -- pretty good mental clarity, didn't need to take a nap, less joint pain. Today my pain is up and my brain is filled with fog. I had planned to go to the grocery store this afternoon, but I can barely move. I need to write an ad to send in to student employment at Hopkins, to see if I can find a new helper.

I seem to have stopped the Lyme herbs. I didn't do it intentionally -- just kept forgetting to order them. I ran out last week.

I think for now I am going to stay off them. I didn't notice any improvement while I was taking them (more than 3 months). Also thinking of cutting out some of the supplements. I had gotten up to around 80 pills a day -- too much.

Still on a short cycle of flares. I had the worst one in a while yesterday -- all joints extremely painful, full-on brain fog, and so exhausted that I conked out on the couch for most of the afternoon. I didn't even get dressed -- just stayed in my pajamas. Rare for me. I think I'm going to try and make a note when I have flares so I can see what the cycle actually is. I think it's somewhere between 4 and 6 days, but I can never remember by the time the next one comes.

Started the double dose of minocycline yesterday with no immediate ill effect. The runs haven't been bad this weekend; I am off the azithromycin on the weekends, so if it gets worse during the week I'll know the culprit.

Also, before I forget, I stopped my cod liver oil two weeks ago, and I stopped my multivitamin yesterday (both contain D) -- both in consideration of starting the Marshall Protocol. My joint pain is way up again.