French Living: Lyme Disease. Fifteen Days Since Diagnosis

Tomorrow is the last day of the course of antibiotic injections against the Lyme bacteria, and apart from the area just below my waistband becoming increasingly bruised and painful it has been a fairly easy process.  There was the one comedy evening when a power cut rendered the electric gates into the Cabinet Infirmier resolutely closed against us and the nurse.  Good job we had light in the back of the car, I take the drugs with me, the nurse had her needles with her and there weren't too many passers by!



I have been given 1g of ceftriaxone twice daily and the side effects have not been too bad, bruised behind aside.  The worst was a nasty dose of diarrhoea for two days, but without any of the normal pain, panic and discomfort associated with an upset stomach.  To put it bluntly, just liquid shit.  Probably my fault, as I was given probiotics to help replace the bacteria in my gut which was also being killed off by the antibiotics.  Even in my befuddled state, I could work out that a ten day course of probiotics and a fourteen day course of antibiotics did not compute.  I guess I chose to skip the probiotics on the same day that the last of the stomach bacteria turned up their toes and died.  Still, a few bacterial yogurts and a return to the sachets put everything back together.  And I stopped eating half a dozen prunes a day too, as the normal constipation associated with lots of codeine consumption just didn't seem to be an issue!

The only other noticeable side effect has been a slightly unpleasant taste of tinfoil or metal in the mouth for an hour or so after the jabs, but as food continued to taste normal, I was not concerned.

In terms of wellness, I suddenly began to feel well again after about day ten.  I don't think I'd realised just how under the weather I had become, fatigued, disinterested and listless, since late November.  I should have known, as my usual voracious consumption of reading material largely petered out.  My normal two or three books a week had dwindled to little more than one or two in the last month, and even than I've relied on short stories (hurrah for the Drabble) or rereading old favourites which haven't required too much concentration.

Now it is nice to be feeling positive again.  Except the pain, particularly in my right shoulder, instead of decreasing with treatment has actually increased.  I read that this is due to the dying bacteria releasing toxins into the body resulting in a new response from my body's immune system and causing yet more inflammation in already sore tissue.  So my new-found wellness has been tempered with a need to take even more pain relief and the consequent fuzzy head and mild drunkenness that codeine gives me.

I have started walking again; the right knee is pretty normal and is being re-introduced to going up and down steps.  The left is less good, an odd shape and pretty inflexible.  My right ankle and foot, which had been so painful back in November and early December is now pain free, but again still has some swelling.  Somehow, I don't see it fitting back into my very expensive ski boots, which were custom heat treated to fit an entirely different shaped ankle.

The steroids should knock out the last of the inflammation, although too much reading about Lyme on-line has left me slightly nervous of this approach.  If the bacteria has not entirely been killed off, I may, apparently, be leaving my body open for them to regroup and multiply as the steroids suppress the immune response.  Fortunately, I'm in an area where treating Lyme is commonplace (sadly) so I trust the doctors.  If it all comes back to bite me in a few months, I'll think again.

So far, I have been impressed with the speed and efficiency of the system, here.  I first saw the GP on 16th December, had the blood taken at the lab on the 17th (you just turn up with the request from the Doctor, no need to make an appointment, although I did have to wait almost ten minutes!), picked up the results late on the 23rd and saw the GP again on the 24th.  I started the antibiotic course on 27th, and it certainly would have been sooner if it hadn't been Christmas.

The good news is that I finish the jabs on Thursday night and don't start the steroid phase until Sunday morning.  So, on Saturday, I'm going to have my second drink of the year, the first being a glass of Champagne at midnight on New Year's Eve.