Hi everyone. I just joined the forum after being tentatively but positively diagnosed with Lyme (I don’t know how to put it, the Lyme associated bacterias were all found in my system but doctor says it’s still not a hundred percent) a few days ago. I’m fifteen years old and was probably bitten when I was around 7. I never had a rash, but I had flu like symptoms which were misdiagnosed as mononucleosis. After that, the Lyme was supposedly dormant in my system until a few years ago. I began experiencing anxiety and heart palpitations in 7th grade which got increasingly worse throughout 8th and 9th and I was understandably diagnosed with anxiety. In 8th grade I started having hyperacusis and more specifically misophonia which gradually worsened throughout the year and by September of 9th grade, it was so bad I had to drop out of school entirely. Lyme wasn’t even a consideration until the misophonia became so bad that I was going to a different doctor every month and doing a bunch of tests for different things, but they actually thought I had PANDAS originally. Later, after another test, it came back mostly positive for Lyme, and at this point, I’m fairly convinced I have Lyme disease.
The weird thing is, I haven’t had any of the most common symptoms associated with Lyme, but I’ve had a few of the rarer ones. I never had a rash, never experienced joint pain, never had noticeable fatigue or brain fog. I’ve noticed some short term memory loss but rarely enough that it doesn’t interfere with my life. The biggest and worst symptom for me is the misophonia. At first it was just slight annoyance at my little brother for whistling, singing, yelling, etc… Then it was my dad chewing loudly, then my whole family chewing, then anyone and everyone chewing anything food or gum related and now, I can’t hold a conversation with anyone that I’m familiar with for even thirty seconds. Like I said, I dropped out of school, and I haven’t seen my friends for nearly a year, I haven’t had a conversation with anyone in my family other than texting my mom in a year, and I spend literally all my time in my bedroom wearing earbuds. I eat all my meals alone in my room. Every single noise anyone makes angers me to the point of tears and I’m honestly ready to give up. Not only because of the misophonia, but also because I just found out I have Lyme and I have to try to deal with that too and I’m completely overwhelmed. I’m really really lonely and I feel like I’m going to either explode or kill myself if something doesn’t change soon.
I don’t know if anyone is even interested in reading my long list of complaints, but I’m interested to know how many other people experience severe misophonia as a symptom of Lyme and how common it is.
The hypochondria in me is also kind of freaking out about the effects, both long and short term, of Lyme disease, so I was hoping someone’s would be able to answer some of my questions to get it out of the way.
-I’ve had Lyme for 8 years now and am just starting treatment, what’s the chance of being cured completely and how long might it take?
-What is the chance of Lyme resulting in death? That might sound ridiculous but it actually terrifies me.