CULLMAN — Imagine going for years and years with an undiagnosed disease that causes your joints to swell and ache, constant ear, upper respiratory and bladder infections, migraines, depression and eventually fibromyalgia.

No one knows what the root cause is, so you are only treated for the symptoms, never really getting well from one bout of infections before another takes its place.

Sometimes people think you are a hypochondriac, or that you suffer from some form of mental illness.

This has been 33-year-old Christy Driver’s life up to now. It wasn’t until the spring of 2010 that an astute doctor who was actually treating Christy’s oldest daughter for Aspergers Syndrome, decided to test her for Lyme disease, which is normally transmitted through the bite of an infected tick.

“I don’t actually remember being bitten by the tick that carried the disease, but when I was a child we lived along the Flint River, and there were woods all around our house where we played,” Christy recalls.

“My mother had been bitten by a tick and became very sick, so she was always vigilant about checking us for them, and found several over the years on us,” Christy recalls.

Christy, who worked as a paramedic on an ambulance, attended UAB, earning a certificate in Emergency Medicine. Her husband, Shane Driver, a 1991 graduate of Good Hope, is a paramedic for Air Evac.

The couple, who live in Good Hope, have two children, Erin, 11, and Allison, 7.

After Allison was born, Christy’s symptoms worsened. She received a Rubella booster in 2005, and right away began experiencing almost non-stop migraines. “I think that shot contained just enough to overload my immune system and bring on the symptoms,” she said.

The young mother also suffered from chronic fatigue and joint pain. Some doctors put these symptoms down to the “baby blues”, treating her with pain medication and anti-depressants, which masked the symptoms somewhat, but did nothing to dispel them.

“Over the years I went to seven or eight different doctors, trying to get an answer,” said Christy. “Some called it ‘drug fevers’ and others treated the depression and infections, but nothing really helped. A couple of them even told my husband that I was seeking attention,” she said ironically.

She was on a string of medications a “mile long” and doing her best to be a wife and a mother to two young girls, keeping house, and working up until the point where she realized that she couldn’t remember things and even forgot how to start her car, perhaps due to the prolonged inflammation around her brain.

“I remember being in the Wal-Mart parking lot and I just couldn’t remember what to do to start the car,” she said. “I called Shane crying and told him I couldn’t make the car work.”

Now she never ventures out alone.

Christy had been bedridden for almost two weeks when her daughter’s doctor agreed to see her the first time.

She and Shane traveled to Nashville.

After looking over her list of symptoms and reviewing her previous test results, the doctor looked at her and asked, “Have you ever been tested for Lyme Disease?”

When she answered “no”, he went on to explain to her that they would draw blood for a Western Blot Test, to be sent to the Igenex Lab.

“These are the symptoms,” he said, handing Shane a list of what turned out to be exactly what Christy had been experiencing.

The test came back “highly positive” for Lyme disease.

“When he started reading me the results I knew that this was finally a definitive diagnosis,” said Christy. “I went home and did more research, which just led me to the same conclusion.”

Shane came to the conclusion that, although Christy had been in and out of doctor's offices for constant childhood illnesses, no one had thought to link it to a chronic illness, such as Lyme disease.

“I was just glad to have a diagnosis,” said Shane. “Now I knew that she wasn’t mentally ill.”

“Modern medical doctors don’t consider this a ‘high-risk’ area so they don’t often test for it,” explained Christy. “For years I have had this little parasite inside me, wrecking havoc with my body, and it took that long for someone to recognize what it was.”

Christy’s research and her trips to the doctor have given her a wealth of knowledge in the way Lyme disease works.

“There are three types of antibodies, one starts out as a spirochete, then it goes to a second form, called a L-Formation, and then it goes into a third type called a cystic form,” she said.

She has all three forms, which are constantly changing, making it almost impossible for normal blood work to detect it.

“The best way to describe this process is that at any point it can go into remission, like cancer,” explained Shane, whose medical background allowed him to better understand what was happening to his wife. He and Christy have done hours and hours of research since the diagnosis was made.

“Normally, a person would exhibit flu-like symptoms anywhere from 48 hours to six weeks after being bitten by an infected tick,” he continued. “With Christy, it was undiagnosed for decades, so it has taken over her body. It has been a nightmare….” Shane said forcefully.

“I never had a bullseye rash that I could see,” said Christy. “That is one thing that doctors always look for, but it could have been under my hair and no one would have suspected that it was there.

“According to recent research, there is even reason to believe that the disease can be transmitted from the moment of conception if the antibodies are active at that precise time,” Christy said. Since her own mother was bitten by a tick before she was born, she is concerned that she might possibly have been born with Lyme Disease. These fears are compounded by the fact that her mother has exhibited some of the symptoms for years.

“Only about 10 percent of cases result in the bullseye rash,” she continued. “I’m really not a normal case because mine when undiagnosed for so long. Normally, a person would get sick and be treated with antibiotics in the first few days, or weeks, when it can be successfully cured. With mine, the treatments are ongoing and they really don’t know the prognosis at this point.”

In August of 2010, Christy had to quit her job because of her condition. She has gone from taking oral medications to having an intravenous tube called a PICC line inserted into a vein, delivering constant antibiotics to combat her worsening symptoms.

After about six months the PICC line became so inflamed that it had to be removed. Now she is waiting for a Hickman port to be implanted, but meanwhile she is taking large oral doses of the antibiotic Amoxicillin.

The Drivers now require help running the household and caring for their children. “My memory is not functioning at full capacity,” said Christy. “At one point I was writing notes to myself about even the simplest tasks.”

Shane described her behavior this way, “She could not process the simplest information, like ‘put the mail in the mailbox’ or other easy instructions. We were headed for divorce, financial ruin, or maybe having her committed to somewhere that she could get help.”

“This thing is so hard to diagnose,” he said. “If you google it, the information will tell you that there is low incidence of Lyme Disease in this area, but that’s because it’s misdiagnosed so often.”

The Drivers’ research has turned up information linking Lyme disease with both autism and Alzheimers disease. “I think there are a lot of people who are misdiagnosed with those conditions who are really suffering from Lyme Disease,” said Christy.

Another reason for possible misdiagnosis is that officially this disease doesn’t exist in this area. “It’s hard to get funding for something that doesn’t exist,” said Shane, with more than a little sarcasm.

There are few treatment options in cases like Christy’s. Most patients are treated with massive doses of antibiotics. One thing that seems to relieve Christy’s joint pain somewhat is being in a swimming pool. However, she won’t be able to get in the pool for a while because of her Hickman port, which can’t get wet until the site is healed.

Another controversial treatment, which claims to have has some success in causing various cancers to go into remission, called a Rife machine, works on the assumption that the antibodies can literally be shaken out of remission so that they can be attacked by the medication.

“When these antibodies develop a bio-film around themselves the medications just bounce off of them,” described Shane.

Because they can lie dormant in the cells of the body, they can “hide” from a normal blood test and if the antibody is not active, it can’t be killed. The Rife machine works on the hypothesis that if the antibodies are shaken into an active stage, they can then be zapped by the antibiotics.

The Rife machine is so new that the costs are prohibitive and insurance doesn’t cover it, of course, so there is a fund set up for the purchase of the machine in hopes that it will be the answer.

"Awareness needs to be made in this area since so few know anything about Lyme Disease," said Christy. "If this article helps anyone find some answers to their health problems, then that will be more than I can ever ask for."



Lyme Disease; Most Common Chronic Neurologic Signs and  Symptoms



Memory Loss 81%

Fatigue 74%

Headache 48%

Sensory loss 44%

Spinal or radicular pain 41%

Depression 37%

Sleep disturbances 30%

Distal Paresthesis 26%

Irritability 26%

Difficulty in finding words  19%

Fibromyalgia 15%

Hearing loss 15%



RF Kaplan and AC Steere Chronic neurologic manifestations of Lyme disease New England Journal of Medicine 1990  323121} 1438



Fast Facts;

Lyme Disease; Adult Symptoms



Lyme is the fastest growing vector-borne disease

85% do not recall the tick bite

Less than 70% of people develop a rash

Lab tests may be negative in the first 4-6 weeks



Early symptoms:

Flu-like symptoms (fever, chills, sweats, muscles aches, fatigue, nausea and joint pain)

Rash (10% have EM rash)

Bell's Palsey



Later Symptoms:

Headache

Stiff neck

Light or sound sensitivity

Cognitive impairment

Sleep Disturbance

Depression, anxiety, or mood swings

Arthritis

Fatigue

Abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea

Chest pain, palpitations

Shortness of breath

Tingling, burning or shooting pains

 

Sidebar

If you would like to learn more about Lyme Disease, visit www.underourskin.com to view an informative documentary about the disease.

If you would like to donate to the Driver family to help defray the costs of medications and treatments, visit www.gofundme.com/Christy