Symptoms: Page Three

Stuff of the Mind


Brain Fog

Everyone with Lyme, protomyxzoa or just a slight cold complains of brain fog.  Thoughts don't quite form right, or quickly enough, or they stay just out of reach.  During the awake state there is an overall heaviness like gravity has increased.  Sluggish not-up-to-it feelings.  While limited oxygen will hinder thought— after all, you are breathing for several billion, I believe the brain fog is due largely to pollutants in the blood.  We are feeding the entire population(s) of organisms with no sewage service.  It is the livers job to clean up the mess, but in the meantime our thoughts are left to wallow in the muck.

Drinking plenty of water is key to washing your system.  Lemon juice is said to be good for cleansing.  Squeeze a fresh lemon into your drinking water for extra scrubbing power.  Lemons are not only high in vitamin C but contain B12, B3, magnesium and potassium.  Help your liver out.  Lemon juice, not lemonade.

A word of caution, lemon juice is hard on tooth enamel so not too much.  Some suggest drinking through a straw.


Uncertainty

I know my own name, but the certainty of it is sometimes vague causing me to second guess myself.  My certainty of your name would be even harder to maintain.  Spelling is hardest.  Right or wrong, there can be a strong uncertainty to even the simplest words.

The brain uses several different areas for storage of information pertaining to any single idea.  Names, for instance, have to relate to faces— hundreds of facets for faces; and then the relationship, the history, on and on accessing thousands of points of information just for me to know your name.  If access to one or more of these areas is limited or denied, the certainty of the thought is going to lose intensity.  Large portions of these areas being unreachable would leave me so uncertain of your name that I would avoid it all together.  I relate this to oxygen limitations because they come back.  Even though I forgot it today I might easily know your name tomorrow indicating there is no damage to these areas.  There just isn't always enough juice to boot them up.

While you would think a good cardiovascular workout would help increase oxygen levels, it also increases CO2 which signals a constriction of vessels to decrease oxygen in order to reduce the CO2 levels.  If uncertainty becomes an issue try relaxing, clearing your mind and use slow steady breathing.


Decision Making

I was a few miles from my rural home, sitting in my car at a traffic signal.  There were two possible ways home and I often switched between them, the only difference being scenery.  When the light turned green I had not a clue to which way to go.  It was sudden.  I hadn't forgotten the way home.  I knew both roads would take me there.  But I couldn't pick one or the other.  I sat at the green light puzzled for a minute and out of frustration and on the verge of panic I went straight simply because it was easier than turning.  A few miles later I had no decision to make, there was only one way home.

The intensity of deciding between a right turn now or a right turn later was overwhelming.  I failed to make it and if it hadn't been for feeling foolish for sitting at a green light I might have been there a very long time.  It suggests there is a part of the brain specifically for decision making, and an impedance in this process will make two simple choices too many.  That happened once about ten years ago.  I didn't stay completely indecisive, but today decisions still take a great deal of thought, as though I need to process each criteria separately and at length.  Perhaps this is an issue with speed of thought more so than loss of process, or perhaps there isn't enough memory accessible to hold the criteria for proper comparison.  I've found no remedy.  All I've been able to do is work through it.  Some days I have little or no problem.  Other days I struggle over simple decisions like tee-shirt colors.


Panic

I'm not sure if panic is a symptom of protomyxzoa or if it is a result of unrelated traumas I've endured.  Certainly any psychologist would favor the latter.  I have triggers involving each of my senses, so in the least trauma is an issue.  I've been able to manage my panic through rationalization which further suggests a psychiatric involvement.  But what if these triggers are enhanced by the infection?

Panic is a do or die response that is prompted by external elements processed through the amygdala— a paired organ resting somewhat behind the eyes like a set of testicles.  The amygdala might be thought of as the brain's router, sending impulses to brainsites based on sensory input.  It is the determining organ for emotions like fear, arousal, aggression, and anxiety as well as  happiness and sadness.  Imagine the havoc that could be raised by an inflamed amygdala, the one organ that plays a part in every brain activity.  I'll admit my emotions are irregular.  I become jocular after a car crash.  I over react when angry.  I can become teary at TV commercials.

Inflammation of the amygdala could also effect cognition, memory, recall, and motor function.  Again, the blood-brain barrier comes into play and leaves us without an effective treatment other than doing what we can to improve the body's immune system.


Paresthesia

Pins and needles.  You sit at length with your foot propped on your knee only to find you've limited circulation and it's gone numb.  You move and blood rushes to replenish oxygen and suddenly you feel an almost painful tingling as the nerves reactivate.  Some call it falling asleep but clinically it is called paresthesia.

I spent several years with a nearly global sensation of pins and needles all over my body.  Not the intense painful kind, but a constant and annoying sensation of prickling.  Doctors failed to explain this sensation medically so naturally they diagnosed it as the one condition that needs neither medical nor scientific explanation; psychosomatic.

Inflammation within the capillaries that feed oxygen to the skin is a completely practical explanation, at least on an isolated scale.  Global sensations would more likely suggest a brain involvement.  Consider that, although we touch and feel through nerve endings, without the brain there is no way to process it.  When that cup is too hot, nerves— clinically the somatosensory system, send impulses to the brain where it registers as heat and pain.  Is the pain in your hand, or is it in your brain?

An inflammation where the paresthesia sensation is processed could result in a constant global tingling sensation as long as the inflammation was active.  To this day I retain a small amount of global tingling, quite lessened from the disturbing sensation of a decade ago but still it is there.

There is little to do beyond ponder which of the two possible sources might be causing it.  On the one hand, low oxygen levels at the dermis would account for the sensation but logically that should result in a bluing of the epidermis.  My blood oxygen level is routinely low but not so low as to need an oxygen tank, so I doubt the problem is completely within the skin.

On the other hand, I am certain of the inflammation beneath the blood-brain barrier.  It could singlehandedly explain the sensation.


Sleep Vibrations

I've encountered a hundred or so individuals posting on the web that have accurately described what I call sleep vibrations.  It is like waking up while riding a jackhammer.  It lasts five or ten minutes as it slowly subsides.  Doctors have suggested it is just a psychological sensation of vibration.  I've not found anyone to take it seriously.  In reality it is a physical reaction that is detectable by others touching me as a mild but rapid vibration throughout my body. My wife has said hugging me during an attack is like hugging a vibrating pillow.

The vibration would have to be caused by a rapid pulsing of the muscles— about 180 thumps per minute.  It is separate from pulse rate, which is near 60bpm, during.  It is at it's worst when I am awakened from a dream.  For that I've wondered if it could be related to the REM sleep mechanism.  There is a condition called synesthesia where stimulation of one sensory pathway involuntarily crosses over to a second pathway.  Most common is text appearing in colors, but there are other types of short circuits too.  The problem with the REM theory is that the sleep vibrations are ten times faster than Rapid Eye Movement.  The vibrations only occur when I wake up.  The quicker I awake the more I vibrate and the longer it takes to go away.  I did a sleep study hoping to get physical evidence of the vibrations but the clinics equipment was designed to record kicking limbs, not rapid pulsing.  It was a waste of time.  To date, the infection being responsible for REM-musculoskeletal synesthesia, while not technically a crossing of senses,  is my best assumption.



Processing the Abstract

I encounter great difficulty with things not of a physical nature.  While I am capable of having my own abstract thoughts, trying to interpret those of others is nearly impossible.  I need things to be straight forward.  The new formats of social networks like Facebook, Google+, and even here on Blogger seem so convoluted and off the wall that I accomplish little of nothing.  I muddle through the long arduous links searching for what used to simply be called PREVIEW and POST but now has so many screens, conditions, pop-ups and virtualisms that all I can manage is to hit cancel on everything that doesn't give me a specific view of what is about to happen.  Don't expect me to friend you or follow you...I simply do not understand the process.  It is too abstract and I've never seen results for what I've managed to do.  Cause and effect are physical; I do it, I see it, I understand it, but without that I'm lost.

Edit and publish, I get that.



Cognition Buzz

Like a hand buzzer in my head...

Colors get bright.  I see things going on.  I understand I am someplace.  I retain an acute sense of self.  I stand without falling, and once I had an attack while driving a long, straight interstate without mishap where  I recall thinking, "No, not now," so I can communicate my thoughts to myself, but beyond that there is nothing.  Everything else is completely foreign.  Listening to someone talk is worse than Greek.  Greek has recognizable patterns.  What I hear is like someone pretending to speak Greek that doesn't know how.  I do not think I could actively respond to the simplest external stimulus.  I'd watch a truck run me down.

There was I time I thought it was a form of epilepsy.  Doctors seemed uninterested, or simply oblivious.  With the many times I've explained these attacks I've never been offered explanations or testing.

They last seconds, a minute, minutes.  There is no time so I don't know.  My only clue to duration is no one present has ever been more than mildly concerned; "buzz buzz buzz...buzz buzz buzz...Are you okay?"

The attacks have been occurring since my teenage years, several a week for over a decade, but for the past twenty or so years they occur only once or twice per year.

Knowing my body is host to a variety of invading forces gives some explanation but I cannot vaguely understand what is being effected.


Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

I've had a few doctors suggest this but they have never handed out an actual diagnosis.  I believe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a name given to a condition that has little understanding.  I think CFS is in a category with brain fog whereas pollutants from organisms effect systems both in the brain and in the body.  Does having CFS mean you have mirob infections?  I don't know, but having microbe infections certainly can make it seem like you have CFS.

Drink lemon water to help wash the dirt out, and eat a diet designed to boost immunity. You have to beat the bugs to get over it.  Get exercise to oxygenate the blood, but not too much or you could reverse the benefit with CO2 buildup.  Mall walking would be great...use the stairs.


Spasms and Twitches

I remember thinking a twitch was a spasm until I had a real spasm.  Twitches are rapid repeating contractions which can be intense but usually minor.  A spasm is a muscle or group of muscles that contract on their own and stay contracted, limiting movement for the duration.

The cause of twitching and spasms could be local or it could be a rogue signal from the brain.  Somewhere along the control wiring is a malfunctioning nerve; e.g. for a twitching toe the cause might reside anywhere along the length of the body.  My twitches come and go in the course of about an hour or less.  It's hard to say.  While I know when they've occurred for a long time, I'm never aware of the precise time they stop.

Swimmers toe is a spasm, a painful cramp that lasts minutes or less. But that isn't what I'm talking about. The spasms I get can last months.  They can be annoyingly tight or they can be a vise grip clamped hard enough and long enough to have had me diagnosed with Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia— a genetic condition (but I was labeled as 'spontaneous') where a certain protein goes missing and axons (nerve bundles) can't flush impurities and they become clogged.  Muscles tighten, usually the legs but, as in my case, sometimes the arms,  what they call complicated.  So my diagnosis was Complicated Spontaneous Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia.  It took me a year just to learn how to say it.  It is crippling and for those unfortunate people to actually have it, it is painfully life long.  It's one of those diseases you never hear about.  I hadn't.  Mine went away.

HSP is caused when the proteins responsible for cleaning axons of the Upper Motor Neurons aren't produced.  The nerves get dirty and cease to function.  In my case it was more likely an infection of the same axons causing a similar congestion.  It lasted about 2 years.

A second theory is related to the 'death grip' where the brain dies before the muscles can be told to relax.  Like a hydraulic piston that needs a valve opened to release pressure, muscles need to be told to relax.  If the signal to relax is not interpreted due to failure to send (brain) or failure to receive (local muscle) it could result in continued stiffness.  Certainly Borrelia (Lyme Disease) can block a nerve signal; being a spirochete it can drill through and destroy nerves.  Likely p-myxzoa can block nerves also, though I've yet to understand the responsible mechanism.  Perhaps colonizing along a nerve might suffocate or destroy the nerve much like kudzu invading a forest.


Insatiable Deep Itching

Itching comes from an irritation against nerves in the skin, thus itching is only skin deep.  I often get an itch that feels deep into the muscle.  If the deep layers of skin are vastly irritated— perhaps by p-myxzoa, then I imagine there might be an illusion of a much deeper itch.  More likely it is a false itch having nothing to do with an actual irritation.  An infection of the receptors employed to process itching might create a sensation of itching nearly anywhere.  Regardless of its origin, it is insatiable.  Scratching hard and long does no good.  I recall duration to be less than a day.


*Updates*  Symptoms not previously listed


Eyesight

I have minor cataracts and floaters.  I have no way to know if these are caused by infection.  They can result in double vision and poor focus.

More significant is improper vergence or tracking.  Tracking in binocular vision is the act of both eyes pointing to the same object.  Generally, improper tracking is corrected through optical wedges.  I was tested over the course of several visits and was found to have variable vergence.  For that, my eyes could not be corrected with wedges.  I can effectively force proper tracking through effort, strain and concentration but it is tiring and as yet it hasn't helped to correct the condition.

With the condition being variable, it strongly suggests it is due to inflammation of the brain's visual control center.

To test your tracking, have someone block one of your eyes with a card while you focus on a distant object.  With a second card, they need to quickly block the open eye while unblocking the other.  The idea is to quickly switch eyes.  If you have to shift your eye to look at the same object it indicates your eyes are not properly tracking.  Another example- if trying to watch a 3D movie through electronic 3D glasses seems more than just a little difficult your tracking might be off.

My focus is also variably poor.  Most often when one eye is focused the other is not.  Being variable has made getting proper glasses impossible.  I have four pair with different prescriptions.  I wear the pair that works the best at the time.  Often I have to close one eye in order to focus the other.

Bifocals are useful sometimes but usually result in one eye improved and the other worsened.  Mostly my close work is best accomplished without glasses and I just tolerate the blurry vision.

An oddity to my vision is I generally wake up with crystal clear vision, lasting only a few minutes.  This could indicate dry eyes, or it could mean p-myxzoa retreats to richer oxygen when brain functions sleep.  If that is the case, antibiotics might be most effective when taken just before bedtime, allowing them to effect concentrated gatherings of the organism.


Slurred Speech and Facial Droop

Before I began having motion impermanent I went through a long period of facial droop and slurred speech.   Doctors never suggested causes.  I was left to imagine I'd had a stroke, though MRI revealed nothing.  Bell's Palsy is another cause of facial droop.   The muscles of the face cannot get signals from the brain due to swelling of the facial nerve.  With the muscles impaired slurred speech  is pretty much a given.

Facial droop is listed as a symptom of Lyme disease.  I knew nothing of Lyme back then, and I had tested negative five times over two decades.   Only since I've tested positive for protomyxzoa and spent time investigating did I learn that Lyme tests are more unreliable than reliable.

I have found no suggestion of p-myxzoa causing facial droop, but since it is apparent the organism can affect nerves it must also be accepted that it might cause facial droop.   Or I could have undetected Lyme disease.


Weak Neck

There were times when holding my head up was akin to wearing an anvil for a hat.  While I was neither tired nor overworked and the rest of me felt fine, trying to keep my head up left me with a burning exhaustion in my neck muscles.  I could not keep my head from falling to my shoulder.  I would struggle to pull it up only to have it fall again.  This was not a constant condition but occurred dozens of times over months with attacks lasting from minutes to hours.

I found one cause of this to be a broken neck.  A case of a young boy having aged a decade with an undetected broken neck until one day he went paralyzed was reported to have lived with the same problem.  My having been in a number of severe car crashes left me wondering about this with considerable concern.  It was nearest to the time of  the facial droop.  The facial nerve is supposed to have some relation to the neck muscles so I assume it was due to the same impediment.


Lichenoid Keratosis

A biopsy identified this skin disease.  Lichenoid simply refers to the hard crusty feel of the skin— it is likened to lichen.  Keratosis relates to Keratin   Keratin is the chemical that builds fingernails and hair as well as the skin.  My body rejects keratin creating a few very small mosquito bite-like sores that are always in the same place, sometimes irritated, sometimes open and sometimes only dark spots.  I've had some for over a decade, coming and going like a restless volcano.

Health professionals have suggested lichenoid keratosis is related to sunshine, proteins and sweat.  I cannot confirm or oppose.  I've not noticed a pattern there.   I have reason to believe it is related to the hypothyroidism.  When the keratosis is at its worst I have brittle hair and nails as well as chills, all of which increase when I've neglected my thyroid medication.  Neither cause seems conclusive.

This might be significant to some people since it is suggested that the hypothyroidism is connected to p-myxzoa.


Recumbent Discomfort

I don't know if there is a name for this.  I have a difficult time lying flat. It feels like I'm in a bowel.  Oddly when I raise the head of my bed a few degrees it goes away and I feel like I'm lying flat.  I believe it is often associated with an illness suffered by athletes of contact sports— something called mild cognitive impairment (MCI); said to be a forerunner to Alzheimer's.

I can't associate the recumbent discomfort directly with an infection.  I've been in a number of car crashes which might contribute to the sensation.  No one has been able to say how many impacts one might suffer before developing MCI.  In any case, I mention it because I believe p-myxzoa can colonize injured areas and thereby complicate the pathology.

Symptom Recap

This is a long list.  I've done it in this manner in hopes that anyone entering a particular symptom might locate this blog.  So many people are suffering without a clue to what is going on inside of them.  It is frightening to not know why your body and mind are failing.  Many more are misdiagnosed.  My hope is to educate but also to help relieve some stress.   Stress only complicates illness.  While all of these are uncomfortable, I've lived with them for decades or longer.  There is nothing urgent...nothing life threatening so far as I know.  The best thing for anyone to do is to relax and focus and try to understand their body and what is affecting it.  There are things we can do to get by.  Ultimately we do get by.

Some of my symptoms might be due to undiagnosed illness, but for the most part they suggest a relationship to protomyxzoa rheumatica, or Lyme disease, or toxoplasmosis, or celiac disease, or hypothyroidism, or all the above.  I personally believe I wouldn't have any of these if I hadn't lived with this infection my entire life.

This list and its descriptions are here to offer some direction.  Having any of these symptoms does not conclude that you  are dealing with an infection, but if you suspect,  you might do well to have your doctor contact Fry Labs in Scottsdale, AZ.

Personal Note:

I've not updated this blog in a month.  I'd like to update weekly: it takes, on average, three days for me to compose one of these posts.  Due to illness and lack of energy, and still having to endure life in general, I've been working on this one for more than two weeks.

About a month ago I started a new diet geared entirely toward supporting the immune system.  Change was slow but then I began to have some really good days.  And then, like a whiplash, I fell into more intense illness.  Up again, down again.  The changes in me are much more rapid and intense than anything I've ever experienced on antibiotics.  A good many of my long ago symptoms have reared up and the pain I've been in reminds me of how bad this disease can actually get.

P-myxzoa is angry.

I have a good hope for this diet and while the bad days are really bad, the good days are better than I've seen in a long time.  I need to continue to explore the benefits of this diet before I can responsibly pass it along, but I think I've found the beginning of a cure...and without antibiotics.  Time will tell.  Hopefully I'll feel confident about it soon and then I'll post my insights.

JJ