{"id":25320,"date":"2025-04-04T09:01:16","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T09:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25320"},"modified":"2025-04-04T09:40:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T09:40:44","slug":"she-didnt-have-lyme-was-her-fatigue-a-symptom-of-another-tick-borne-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25320","title":{"rendered":"She Didn\u2019t Have Lyme. Was Her Fatigue a Symptom of Another Tick-Borne Illness?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The patient ignored her symptoms until she almost collapsed in a parking lot.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYour blood count is dangerously low,\u201d the doctor said over the phone. \u201cI\u2019m sending an ambulance to take you to the hospital because you certainly cannot drive.\u201d Her voice was calm but determined. The woman on the other end of the line was quiet for a moment, then said: \u201cOK, I\u2019ll go, but I don\u2019t need an ambulance. I have a friend who can take me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 73-year-old woman called her closest neighbor, who lived a half a mile down the road in the rural village Salisbury, Conn. They talked every day, and she had described how tired she felt lately. Her friend encouraged her to call her doctor, even offered several times to take her to the emergency room at nearby Sharon Hospital. The woman always declined \u2014 I think I\u2019m feeling better, she would say. But now even she had to acknowledge that she did not look or feel like the person she\u2019d been \u2014 someone who, until she retired two years earlier, taught science to rowdy middle schoolers. Finally, she said when her friend answered the phone, she was ready to go to the E.R.<\/p>\n

The woman wasn\u2019t sure when she started to feel bad; a month ago, maybe two. \u201cAt my age,\u201d she told me recently, \u201cyou can\u2019t expect to feel good every day.\u201d But a couple of weeks before the call from her doctor, something happened to make her wonder if her symptoms were about more than just getting older. It was early on a morning in June, and she had come to the veterinarian\u2019s office to pick up a medication for her elderly dog. On the way back to her car, she ran into a friend, and as they stood chatting casually about dogs and children, the woman suddenly turned pale. She swayed dangerously. Her friend grabbed her and, throwing an arm around her shoulder, helped her back into the building.<\/p>\n

A veterinary assistant rushed out to help. The woman sat slumped in a chair, her face drained of color, her eyes strangely unfocused. Her blood pressure was abnormally low. As she slowly came back to herself, her first response was embarrassment. She didn\u2019t like being the center of attention, and there she was, surrounded by worried faces. \u201cI\u2019m all right, really I am,\u201d she said over and over. But she knew, and they knew, it wasn\u2019t true. She sipped the water she was given, and color seeped back into her face. When she felt well enough to stand, her friend offered to drive her home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The woman saw her doctor the following week. Dr. Kristie Schmidt had been her physician for nearly two decades and had seen her through heart attacks and an alphabet of other heart conditions. Right away she noted that although the woman was her usual pleasant self, she moved a little more slowly, more carefully, than she did a few months earlier. And she was pale. She had been tired, the patient told her, and she was feeling unsteady on her feet. She noticed that she felt out of breath just walking with her dogs. There had been several nights recently when she awakened covered in so much sweat that she had to change her pajamas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo illustration by Ina Jang<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The patient ignored her symptoms until she almost collapsed in a parking lot.\u201cYour blood count is dangerously low,\u201d the doctor said over the phone. \u201cI\u2019m sending an ambulance to take you to the hospital because you certainly cannot drive.\u201d Her voice was calm but determined. The woman on the other end of the line was quiet for a moment, then said: \u201cOK, I\u2019ll go, but I don\u2019t need an ambulance. I have a friend who can take me.\u201dThe 73-year-old woman called her closest neighbor, who lived a half a mile down the road in the rural village Salisbury, Conn. They talked every day, and she had described how tired she felt lately. Her friend encouraged her to call her doctor, even offered several times to take her to the emergency room at nearby Sharon Hospital. The woman always declined \u2014 I think I\u2019m feeling better, she would say. But now even she had to acknowledge that she did not look or feel like the person she\u2019d been \u2014 someone who, until she retired two years earlier, taught science to rowdy middle schoolers. Finally, she said when her friend answered the phone, she was ready to go to the E.R.The woman wasn\u2019t sure when she started to feel bad; a month ago, maybe two. \u201cAt my age,\u201d she told me recently, \u201cyou can\u2019t expect to feel good every day.\u201d But a couple of weeks before the call from her doctor, something happened to make her wonder if her symptoms were about more than just getting older. It was early on a morning in June, and she had come to the veterinarian\u2019s office to pick up a medication for her elderly dog. On the way back to her car, she ran into a friend, and as they stood chatting casually about dogs and children, the woman suddenly turned pale. She swayed dangerously. Her friend grabbed her and, throwing an arm around her shoulder, helped her back into the building.A veterinary assistant rushed out to help. The woman sat slumped in a chair, her face drained of color, her eyes strangely unfocused. Her blood pressure was abnormally low. As she slowly came back to herself, her first response was embarrassment. She didn\u2019t like being the center of attention, and there she was, surrounded by worried faces. \u201cI\u2019m all right, really I am,\u201d she said over and over. But she knew, and they knew, it wasn\u2019t true. She sipped the water she was given, and color seeped back into her face. When she felt well enough to stand, her friend offered to drive her home.The woman saw her doctor the following week. Dr. Kristie Schmidt had been her physician for nearly two decades and had seen her through heart attacks and an alphabet of other heart conditions. Right away she noted that although the woman was her usual pleasant self, she moved a little more slowly, more carefully, than she did a few months earlier. And she was pale. She had been tired, the patient told her, and she was feeling unsteady on her feet. She noticed that she felt out of breath just walking with her dogs. There had been several nights recently when she awakened covered in so much sweat that she had to change her pajamas.Photo illustration by Ina JangWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25322,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25320"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25323,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25320\/revisions\/25323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}