Ask an Expert: Lyme Disease as A Cause of Pain

Pain Management

Lyme Disease as A Cause of Pain
05/19/2008

Question:

Over the last few years I`ve been having increasing joint pain, going from one area of my body to another, and sometimes in many areas at once. I`ve been checked for various autoimmune diseases, had a few x-rays and MRIs (which normally find slight swelling), including a brain MRI (for MS) that only found a small angioma that I was told I shouldn`t worry about at the moment. I`ve done lots of physical therapy and taken up yoga, but the joint pain just seems to get worse, and has started to radiate out from the areas it`s at, making it hard to do anything.
While I had a history of wrist pain as a child, the rest of it didn`t really pick up until I had a bad injury to my elbow. Therefore I was thinking it might be fibromyalgia, but my doctor doesn`t like to consider things that don`t come with concrete proof (I have a lot of the other symptoms, but those could also be explained away by my PCOS or other problems I have). The specialists I`ve gone to (mostly specialists in joints/bones/etc.) always want to write it off as tendinitis or the like...one even admitted to making up something that sounded good for insurance because he had no idea what was wrong.
Do you have any suggestions as to what it could be or how I should go about being diagnosed with something? Or suggestions on how to manage the pain?

Answer:

Have you been tested for Lyme disease? You may want to speak to your physician about this.

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Response by:

Hammam Akbik, MD, FIPP
Formerly, Assistant Professor of Anesthesia
College of Medicine
University of Cincinnati