Yesterday was HORRIBLE. On Saturday, we went out and did a few things like driving 60 miles to get chocolate bars for me that are sweetened with stevia. One bright spot! I started feeling a little run down by the end of the day but nothing more than normal, or “Lyme normal” anyway.
But Sunday, I woke up feeling really bad. I was sweating (which is weird) so I took my temp and it was 99.7. Very strange for me. Ever since all of this started, I’ve struggled to get my temp to 98! I took some ibuprofen and then just laid around. By the afternoon, the temp was 101.9, my entire body was achy like I had the flu and I just plain felt bad. So I literally laid in bed all day long and just drank a ton of water. I took an epsom salt bath to see if it would help but no luck there.
Sunday morning, I dropped my dose back to 15 drops each. And Sunday night, I only did 10 drops. I figured I either had an infection (or something viral) or this was a major herx. It seemed odd to me that it could be a herx because I had no brain fog (which is generally an intense symptom). It was much more like having the flu – not like the herxes I’ve had in the past.
The other thing that is weird is a rash on my legs. This thing has been there for several weeks but it kind of comes and goes. One day it will be really dark, the next day, kind of light where I can’t really see it. It’s a flat rash that just looks like someone put little dots on my legs with a dark red marker. It doesn’t itch and outside of seeing it, I wouldn’t have any idea it was there. Until Sunday, it had been in a pretty small area – maybe 3 inches by 3 inches. When the fever hit, the rash expanded further on my legs. Weird. I’ve searched everywhere online for causes and can’t really find anything other than blood infections. I can’t find anything Lyme related that looks like this rash. So I’ve been wondering if it’s due to the herbal medications…
So Monday morning, I called my internal medicine doctor’s office and they got me in with the NP at 10:30. When they took my vitals, my blood pressure was high for me (not by normal BP measures) and my heart rate was in the 140s. But no temp – it was 98.5. Go figure, right?
She comes in and says it could be the new med she put me on (which I haven’t talked about) but I told her the rash was there prior to starting it and that wouldn’t explain a fever. Then she said maybe it was my thyroid levels being off which could explain the heart rate but not the fever or the rash. So then we thought maybe it was multiple issues that just SEEMED like it was one rolled together. My son had the same high temp on Saturday afternoon that disappeared by Sunday morning. The only difference was he acted totally normal with it (which is actually a big relief to me!).
I told her I had issues with tachycardia in the past but no one has figured out why. And I just had a full cardiac workup a few months ago and the cardiologist said everything was fine – and that was with a fast heart rate AND an abnormal rhythm.
She decided to run labs and while I was sitting there waiting for my labs to be drawn, she came back in and said she wanted to do an EKG before I left. Then she made sure to tell me how to call the on call doctor after hours. She was kind of freaking me out! So I went back to the room and they did the EKG. A few minutes later, she appeared and said it just showed a fast heart rate but no abnormal rhythms so she felt better about it.
So far, the fever hasn’t returned. I don’t feel great but I feel better than I did yesterday. She said we were going to rely heavily on the labs so now it’s just a waiting game for those to come back from the lab.