Ambulance wreck reactivates Lyme which causes dystonia
I"ve stopped in a few times and not written much, right now I am resting for my poor man's tilt table test so meanwhile you get the scoop. ok so I had Lyme, chronic tertiary neurological Lyme disease to be exact. and I thought I killed it. it's been 8 years since I took my last antibiotic and I was sure the whole time that it was gone, although 8 years of remission is nothing to sneeze at. So we fast forward to February 21st 2015 and I'm still Paramedicing, got a lady on a vent, monitor and IV pumps taking her to the big hospital from the bandaid station.
My partner/driver says Oh shit she's gonna hit us!... and she did, mind you we are on the highway in a box ambulance (the big ones, not a van) and chicky hits us and sends us spinning. Did I mention we were going highway speed? So we spin 3 times and hit the concrete barrier each time. I'm a frickin pinball in the back, I don't remember hitting anything in particular except the cabinets above the patient and at the end I unceremoniously landed on my ass between the cot and bench seat. we have drive cams and I was looking forward to see how my trip around the back of the bus went. well as my luck usually runs, they couldn't retrieve the film so I will never know how my flight went.
For a few weeks, after 9 days off in a row, I found myself getting scared and anxious in the back of the squad. I was working at a location about 30 minutes from my house and all the hospitals which made for a very long ambulance trip and I usually buckled myself in and did what I could from the safety of my seat, I've been doing this for 25 ish years and this was the first time that I was uncomfortable in the back of an ambulance. So one day after I tried to handle it as bet that I could , I asked for a transfer to a station 10 minutes from my house and right in the middle of all the hospitals and stopped doing 911 switching to transport which is a little more laid back. So one day me and girl kid are sitting on the couch watching tv and she looks at me and says what are you on? a new diet pill? I said no , why? She said cause your mouth is moving all funny and youre sticking your tongue out. She was right, I was and had been for a little while now and didn't know why. At night I would put my head on the pillow and within a little while my head was hyperextended and my neck and face were tensed too.
September 2nd Im at work and we are going to a free standing ER (no inpatient beds) and my face jaw and neck add shoulder shrugging and I can't stop it so when I get into the ER I went to my friend the nurse practioner and said Bill, I need your help. they admitted and transferred me to the big hospital and continued giving me 50mgs of Benedryl IV every six hours and a shot in the butt of Cogentin after 3 days I was still spasming but I was under control. I had complained to my GP about the face stuff and he had set me up to see a neuro on the 8th of October. Well I didn't make it . she came and saw me in the hospital and diagnosed me with Dystonia and started me on Cogentin and my Psych saw me and took me off a anti-psychotic that causes dystonia and prescribed me Geodon. make a long story short I started seeing things and couldn't think right and when I went back to work the ights were on but nobody was home. I was sick too and I kept getting from the medical people I saw "Dystonia doesn't make you sick". My cognition was lousy and I got "Dystonia doesn't mess with your cognition" after awhile I switched to Artane from Cogentin due to my cognition.
It's March now and I don't remember most of the last six months. They finally took me off the meds and slowly I got clearer. I have cognition tests set up with a psychologist/neurologist and a follow up with a movement disorders specialist in july. I did manage to get fired from a new job cause I couldn't catch on but just turned around that day and went back to full time on the ambulance. Things weren't going good. I didn't feel well, stopped eating and was put on administrative leave due to my cognition and an episode of hypertension and tachycardia. so I filed for STD that day and have been home trying to get better but something wasn't right. I always felt off and I did some random stuff and wrote some stuff I not only scared me but I didn't remember writing it. I was doing a lot f things I didn't remember. I woke up several mornings in a row with cigarette butts in my bed, the last time it happened I rolled over on a lit one. I got up one morning at 4 am and showered came back to my room and didn't know what to wear because I didn't know where I was going. So I woke up my son, he was parked behind me and doesn't do that if Im going somewhere before he does. I asked him did he know, was I supposed to go somewhere and he said I hadn't said anything about it. so I came back upstairs and sat n my bed and drank pop and smoked till I got tired and I just curled up and went to sleep.
Something was wrong and it wasn't just the Dystonia. I had symptoms that weren't part of it so I was searching for a different disorder that might fill the gaps. Psych took me off artane because of my thinking and slowly I got a little clearer. Friday the 18th of march, it was like I was me again. I took inventory, I hadn't shaved, my nails were very long and only had paint on the ends, my toe nails were disgusting and long and the kicker? My eyes were dry cause I got 30 day contacts in the beginning of January and they were still in. The artane was leaving my body and I started not only spasming but jerking too. I imagine they are going to put me on another med I would think soon. for whatever reason , I couldn't get pain management which from what I was reading everyone elses treatment plan it was standard of care. I was told flexeril was pain medicine and I had that.
Saturday night actually Friday night late night I was looking at my results for tests that had been done (btw I also was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and have got it under control now) I still didn't feel good. I was so constipated I was buying multi packs of enemas and laxatives which 'm still taking and not eating, I've lost 20 pounds. so I was talking to a new friend, Amber, and she was newly diagnosed Lyme they thought for years she had dystonia. so she's telling me I should get checked for Lyme to see if it had reactivated and that's what was adding to poor cognition an other stuff and it dawned on me that when I was in the hospitalist had done a good history in which I mentioned Lyme so she added an ELISA to my blood tests. I sat down and read it for the first time...I had my Lyme back, I was out of remission. I'm talking to lymies and looking for a LLMD again. It's time to go to war against Lyme again but I have to be careful fighting it because Dystonia meds aren't always good for Lyme and the other way around too. So I have to get on the ball and get me better so I can go back to work asap. that's it for now, I'm done writing....later
My partner/driver says Oh shit she's gonna hit us!... and she did, mind you we are on the highway in a box ambulance (the big ones, not a van) and chicky hits us and sends us spinning. Did I mention we were going highway speed? So we spin 3 times and hit the concrete barrier each time. I'm a frickin pinball in the back, I don't remember hitting anything in particular except the cabinets above the patient and at the end I unceremoniously landed on my ass between the cot and bench seat. we have drive cams and I was looking forward to see how my trip around the back of the bus went. well as my luck usually runs, they couldn't retrieve the film so I will never know how my flight went.
For a few weeks, after 9 days off in a row, I found myself getting scared and anxious in the back of the squad. I was working at a location about 30 minutes from my house and all the hospitals which made for a very long ambulance trip and I usually buckled myself in and did what I could from the safety of my seat, I've been doing this for 25 ish years and this was the first time that I was uncomfortable in the back of an ambulance. So one day after I tried to handle it as bet that I could , I asked for a transfer to a station 10 minutes from my house and right in the middle of all the hospitals and stopped doing 911 switching to transport which is a little more laid back. So one day me and girl kid are sitting on the couch watching tv and she looks at me and says what are you on? a new diet pill? I said no , why? She said cause your mouth is moving all funny and youre sticking your tongue out. She was right, I was and had been for a little while now and didn't know why. At night I would put my head on the pillow and within a little while my head was hyperextended and my neck and face were tensed too.
September 2nd Im at work and we are going to a free standing ER (no inpatient beds) and my face jaw and neck add shoulder shrugging and I can't stop it so when I get into the ER I went to my friend the nurse practioner and said Bill, I need your help. they admitted and transferred me to the big hospital and continued giving me 50mgs of Benedryl IV every six hours and a shot in the butt of Cogentin after 3 days I was still spasming but I was under control. I had complained to my GP about the face stuff and he had set me up to see a neuro on the 8th of October. Well I didn't make it . she came and saw me in the hospital and diagnosed me with Dystonia and started me on Cogentin and my Psych saw me and took me off a anti-psychotic that causes dystonia and prescribed me Geodon. make a long story short I started seeing things and couldn't think right and when I went back to work the ights were on but nobody was home. I was sick too and I kept getting from the medical people I saw "Dystonia doesn't make you sick". My cognition was lousy and I got "Dystonia doesn't mess with your cognition" after awhile I switched to Artane from Cogentin due to my cognition.
It's March now and I don't remember most of the last six months. They finally took me off the meds and slowly I got clearer. I have cognition tests set up with a psychologist/neurologist and a follow up with a movement disorders specialist in july. I did manage to get fired from a new job cause I couldn't catch on but just turned around that day and went back to full time on the ambulance. Things weren't going good. I didn't feel well, stopped eating and was put on administrative leave due to my cognition and an episode of hypertension and tachycardia. so I filed for STD that day and have been home trying to get better but something wasn't right. I always felt off and I did some random stuff and wrote some stuff I not only scared me but I didn't remember writing it. I was doing a lot f things I didn't remember. I woke up several mornings in a row with cigarette butts in my bed, the last time it happened I rolled over on a lit one. I got up one morning at 4 am and showered came back to my room and didn't know what to wear because I didn't know where I was going. So I woke up my son, he was parked behind me and doesn't do that if Im going somewhere before he does. I asked him did he know, was I supposed to go somewhere and he said I hadn't said anything about it. so I came back upstairs and sat n my bed and drank pop and smoked till I got tired and I just curled up and went to sleep.
Something was wrong and it wasn't just the Dystonia. I had symptoms that weren't part of it so I was searching for a different disorder that might fill the gaps. Psych took me off artane because of my thinking and slowly I got a little clearer. Friday the 18th of march, it was like I was me again. I took inventory, I hadn't shaved, my nails were very long and only had paint on the ends, my toe nails were disgusting and long and the kicker? My eyes were dry cause I got 30 day contacts in the beginning of January and they were still in. The artane was leaving my body and I started not only spasming but jerking too. I imagine they are going to put me on another med I would think soon. for whatever reason , I couldn't get pain management which from what I was reading everyone elses treatment plan it was standard of care. I was told flexeril was pain medicine and I had that.
Saturday night actually Friday night late night I was looking at my results for tests that had been done (btw I also was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and have got it under control now) I still didn't feel good. I was so constipated I was buying multi packs of enemas and laxatives which 'm still taking and not eating, I've lost 20 pounds. so I was talking to a new friend, Amber, and she was newly diagnosed Lyme they thought for years she had dystonia. so she's telling me I should get checked for Lyme to see if it had reactivated and that's what was adding to poor cognition an other stuff and it dawned on me that when I was in the hospitalist had done a good history in which I mentioned Lyme so she added an ELISA to my blood tests. I sat down and read it for the first time...I had my Lyme back, I was out of remission. I'm talking to lymies and looking for a LLMD again. It's time to go to war against Lyme again but I have to be careful fighting it because Dystonia meds aren't always good for Lyme and the other way around too. So I have to get on the ball and get me better so I can go back to work asap. that's it for now, I'm done writing....later
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