My Lyme Disease and later Tinnitus

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I picked up a tummy infection whilst travelling in 2013. I was battling with symptoms of PTSD at the time ( and continue to ).

Tummy infection was really severe.....vomiting, bleeding from backside...etc

Was hospitalised and put on HEAVY doses of IV antibiotics for 4 days .

Antibiotics killed off the infection but also killed off all the good tummy flora

....and hence started my battles with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

All the while, the PTSD was aggravating the Irritable Bowel and viceversa.

Finally started seeing some improvement with the IBS after 2 years but then had the misfortune of being bitten by a tick on the west coast of South Africa.

The tick was on my back for 6 days before i eventually went to the doc and told him that the itchy " thing " on my back would just not stop being itchy.

He told me " you have a tick and it's dug itself deep into your back. He took a scalpel and removed it , then put it under the microscope and said " Just watch yourself over the next few days because it is one of the type of ticks that can cause some problems "

A few days later my neck and shoulders began swelling up, i was really battling to sleep, i  started having heart arythmias and tachycardia, inflamation of muscles in general and arthritic joint pains  and really itchy skin rashes all over my body.

After a few months of going from one specialist to another to another, i kept on being told " Lyme Disease does not exist in South Africa . In fact when i went to an infectious disease specialist by the name of Dr Van Der Plas at Vincent Palotti Hospital in Cape Town, she even shouted at me and told me " DO NOT ARGUE WITH ME, LYME DISEASE DOES NOT, I REPEAT, DOES NOT EXIST IN SOUTH AFRICA "

I felt demoralised after that appointment as not only was she one of the rudest doctors i have come across in my life , but being told that what i believed i was battling with did not exist added even more to my confusion.

After trying multiple other doctors without luck i eventually went online to the forums. This is where i discovered that my symptoms were an exact match for Lyme disease and where i was told to ignore foolish know it all doctors like the one i saw at Vincent Palotti.

I eventually managed to hear about Dr Cecile Jadin up in Johannesburg and began antibiotic Treatment with her 9 months ago. She puts you on different antibiotics each months for 7 days of the month. It has helped with the Lyme Disease in a number of ways, but it far from gone. I know this because the tachycardias sometimes happen out of the blue.

An unfortunate recent addition to my woes has been Tinnitus.......high pitch ringing in the ears 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  It drives me insane sometimes and the doctors can do absolutely nothing to take the noise away.......hard to believe in todays day and age.....but true. You just have to learn to live with it.

I try my best to be strong. The pTSD is ongoing and has been one of my biggest concerns as it underlies everything else.

I live near Hermanus in the Western Cape and am contactable at :  [email protected]  or on 074 381 1111