Dear Lyme Warrior…Help! Anxiety and Chronic Symptoms

by Jennifer Crystal

Every few months, Jennifer Crystal devotes a column to answering your questions. Below she answers some that she’s recently received. Do you have a question for Jennifer? If so, email her at lymewarriorjennifercrystal@gmail.com.

How can I keep anxiety under control while waiting for test results?

Waiting is one of the hardest parts of being sick. You are waiting for results, waiting for medication to work, waiting to get your life back on track. Despite the label “patient,” it can be very hard to practice patience when you have a complex illness such as Lyme.

The important thing to remember with tick-borne illness is that testing is faulty and cannot be fully relied upon as the sole indicator of whether you have Lyme disease. Specialized testing can help support clinical diagnosis, but that’s a judgment call made by your doctor, who needs to take your symptoms and full medical history into account. Tests for inflammatory and immune markers can help your doctor make an accurate assessment. If you are seeing a good Lyme Literate Medical Doctor (LLMD) and feel comfortable with their diagnosis, don’t hang too much on test results.

It’s also critical to face the fact that tick-borne illness can physiologically cause anxiety. The Lyme bacteria can get into your brain and cause symptoms of anxiety on top of the natural worries you may already be having about how your illness is affecting you. Be sure to tell your doctor if you are experiencing psychological symptoms (including depression, confusion, an inability to concentrate) that may affect your treatment plan. I also highly recommend talking to a therapist who understands chronic illness. Doing so really helped me manage my own anxiety.

How can I help someone who has severe anxiety about treatment, and is resisting it?

As hard as it is for Lyme patients to deal with anxiety, it can be just as hard for caregivers to watch their loved ones become fearful and, at times, irrational. Lyme can cause inflammation in the brain, which can lead to all sorts of out-of-character behavior. Patients who were once calm and cheerful may become nervous, obsessive, angry, and confused. They may not be able to make sense of treatment options and may feel overwhelmed by all the conflicting information being thrown at them from health care professionals and the internet.

It’s important for Lyme patients to know that they are not alone. First and foremost, reassure your loved one that you are on their team. Validate their feelings and concerns rather than arguing against them. For example, instead of saying, “You just need to do x,” tell someone, “I hear your fears about treatment. I have fears, too.”

Then, demonstrate that you understand the risks and benefits of treatment options by showing insight into their suffering. In order to do this, read books and articles about the lived experience of tick-borne disease. This way the patient will know your advice is coming from a well-informed place. Offer to accompany the patient to one or more doctor’s appointments, so that you can help them make sense of what’s being said.

Finally, you may need to be direct with the patient, though in a loving way. If someone had said to me, “I think the illness is affecting your ability to make this decision, and I want to help you because I want you to get well,” that would have really reassured me. You might even bring up the patient’s anxiety when you’re together at the appointment, to get the doctor’s advice—just make sure you ask the patient about whether he or she is alright with this. You could also offer to go to therapy appointments with them to talk about both of your concerns and the best methods for communication.

Do all Lyme symptoms go away if you kill off the bacteria, or do some symptoms remain?

The answer to this question is different for every patient. It depends on how quickly you’re diagnosed, how well you respond to treatment, whether you are also battling co-infections, and whether the bacteria has crossed into the central nervous system. Many patients who are diagnosed immediately after a tick bite and take a standard course of antibiotics get fully well. Some 20%, though, develop Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS) which means symptoms persist after treatment. Still others enjoy remission with periods of flare-up.

All it takes is one dormant Lyme bacterium (spirochete) to start replicating for the infection to return. This is more likely in long-term, complex cases like my own, which took eight years to diagnose. I have Lyme plus two tick-borne co-infections. My Ehrlichia seems to have gone away completely, while Lyme and babesia still flare-up. It’s babesia that still gives me the most trouble. However, all of my symptoms are greatly decreased and are far more manageable than they once were.

Since no two cases of tick-borne illness are alike, the fact that some of my symptoms have persisted doesn’t mean that yours will. Here is what I can tell you for sure: under the care of a good LLMD, you may not be cured, but your life can get much, much better.