Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Gastrointestinal Lyme?

 I have terrible gut pains and  intense fluey aches and it followed on from the relapse I was already having after that day trip to Noosaville to see the new doctor.  I am having trouble stopping myself from feeling very sorry for myself and I cried when Jan called in yesterday.  It is all too much.  She was nice enough to do the dishes for me.  I have no idea if it is just everything hitting me at once or whether I caught something at the doctors.  But I have had it all before so many darn times for so many darn decades.  It is just strange that now that the gut and muscular-skeletel stuff with joints has kicked in that the upright racing heart stuff has eased off and if I wasn't sick as in ill, I would probably be able to go for a walk.  It is all so inconsistent and cyclic and disabling.  The worst part is that I can't get enough pain relief with what I've got in the house.  I guess that is not a new story either.  My body feels like a ball of pain extending three feet out from me in some sort of aura-like way.  My neck glands bulge out four feet in my imagination - but you can actually feel it, that is the funny thing - pain that goes beyond your self. 

I don't know what to think about a low-starch diet now that I have got all these gut problems back.  I am thinking today that I may as well forget it and it doesn't matter what I eat I will always have problems.  Nah, it probably has helped and this is just a stupid manifestation of my autonomic nervous system or the life cycle of some bug.  I've also been trying to blame coconut products but today I am just as bad after not having any oil yesterday.  After all the intense spasms are over, then the constant pain that remains is bad enough on its own and I have had this for three days so far.  The intense mornings.  The only good thing about it is that at times like this I can take opiates or Tramadol and not have to worry about causing a back up from slowing down intestinal motility.  I am also taking paracetamol and I have not had Colofac in the house for years and it has never been offered to me since moving to the Coast here.  It's annoying that pain relief has gone out of fashion.

Anyway I was reading that Lyme can cause gastrointestinal problems and they simply call it Gastrointestinal Lyme as apposed to neurological Lyme I guess, although if you read the article it suggests a neurological mechanism is possible. Anyway here is an excerpt:
Gastrointestinal Lyme disease may cause gut paralysis and a wide range of diverse GI symptoms with the underlying etiology likewise missed by physicians. Borrelia burgdorferi, the microbial agent often behind unexplained GI symptoms—along with numerous other pathogens also contained in tick saliva—influences health and vitality of the gastrointestinal tract from oral cavity to anus. Disruptions caused by GI borreliosis (Lyme) may include, amongst many others, distortions of taste, failure of other neural functions that supply the entire GI tract—paralysis or partial paralysis of the tongue, gag reflex, esophagus, stomach and nearby organs, small and/or large intestines ("ileus"), bowel pseudo-obstruction, intestinal spasms, excitability of gut muscles, inflammation of lumen lining tissues, spirochetal hepatitis, possibly cholecystitis, dysbiosis, jejunal or ileal incompetence with resultant small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), megacolon, encopresis and rectal muscle cramping (proctalgia fugax).

In cerebral hypothalamic and pituitary centers, usual sites of borrelial disruptions of the brain's normal hormonal cascades, there are strong influences on human attitudes, ideation, and behavior relating to gastronomic issues. Newly discovered Lyme endangered cerebral hormones and renegade cytokines regulate brain-gut interactions thus initiating behavioral tendencies such as anorexia or a failure of satiety with resultant obesity.

Ticks and other vectors of Lyme disease attract their own infections from many microbes, some known and some unknown (viruses, amoebas, bacteria, and possibly parasitic filaria), which they then also can pass on to humans. The GI tract is especially vulnerable to machinations of such co-infections as bartonellosis, mycoplasmosis, human anaplasmosis (HA), and human monocytic ehrlichiosis (HME). Syndromes exactly similar to Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Crohn's Disease, and cholecystitis, for example, may not have readily suggested a borrelial etiology to the diagnostician but Lyme increasingly is known to be a potential contributor to each.

All known Lyme-gut syndromes are treated by combining several effective antimicrobials (including use of azole medications with specific antibiotics) with agents that boost gut lining repairs and overall immunity enhancement. Azole medications are borreliacidal (against the anti-Bb spirochetal cyst form) medications such as metronidazole (Flagyl). Needed GI healing agents may include gut stimulants or relaxants, Ph agents, bile salts, nutriceuticals, immunity-enhancers, neurotoxin absorbents, and sterilizers of gut-specific microbes.
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I hope S is having a better day than I am for his birthday.  Caught him online but not real time.  I see you posted too Zena.  Thanks.

My online Big W aah bra's arrived and are too small and I am not well enough to deal with it.

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