After going to multiple emergency rooms and other ENTs, Allergists, MDs complaining of sciatica, head pressure, headaches, throaty mucus/phlegm, food allergies, dizziness, and fatigue. My mother decided to take me to a recommend doctor, Dr. Nannapaneni. By the time I reached her office I had developed arthritic burning pains in my wrists. I've been dealing with all the symptoms for about a year, but I knew with this new symptom, something seriously was wrong.
Just like most people when they can't get a correct diagnosis from a doctor, they try searching the web for one. My symptoms matched up with Candida, which I thought I might have, but know now it's kind of hard to get, Candida albicans is found in people with lower immune systems like cancer. At the time I was so confused what I had, I'm 28 and workout daily, I shouldn't be coming down with the symptoms.
Well anyways, I walked into Dr. Nannapaneni's office with a positive attitude, she was kind and professional in the… first session. So then she asked "what's going on with me?" I explained to her all my symptoms and thought it might be Candida. I talked about my serious food allergies and how I can't tolerate sugar, gluten, and dairy. And that I've been on a strict vegetable and meat diet. She said well okay, I'm going to do some bloodwork on you and we'll go on from there.
Well a week passed and I went back in to see her. She asked if I had drank, I explained to her once a month or so, but I haven't in the past 8 months because of my symptoms and how sick I felt. Well she looked at me like I was lying and said "no!!! you do drink, don't you?" I said no, I became straight forward as I could be and said I've tried to be healthy all my life and love to workout, I'm somewhat of a amateur bodybuilder. Then she smirked and said "bodybuilder, WOW!!!" With total sarcasm! I wasn't happy with way she was jokingly treating me when I was dealing with all these symptoms. Well, what Dr. Nannapaneni was getting it was my pancreas came back partially inflamed.
After telling her multiple times that I don't drink, we moved on to the next symptoms. I explained how I have burning arthritic pains in my wrist and I can't work anymore on the computer, which prevents me from doing my job. Then Dr. Nannapaneni said "well have you tried Dragon Naturally Speaking?" I said yes, I'm using it right now. She noted that down and pretty much dismissed the symptom and moved on to another. She then talked about how my cholesterol was through the roof. I explained to her why that is, because I can't tolerate any food other than meat and vegetables. She said she wants to get me on a cholesterol pill, I explained her I don't take pharmaceuticals drugs like that. Meanwhile I kept explaining to her I want to find out what problem is causing all my symptoms. She told me "you're not leaving this office until you get on a cholesterol med, you could have a heart attack right now."
She then started in how she wants to take my thyroid out because my thyroid glands are not properly functioning. I told her that's impossible, I workout every day. I kept explaining to her that something else is going on, causing all these problems. I then asked her about all the mucus and phlegm in back of my throat, she just remarked "oh that's just GERD." She put me on Omeprazole for that symptom. I took that drug back to my house, took it for a few days and then threw it out. I came to the realization, she's just give me a drug for each symptom, just trying to mask my symptoms and not trying to get to the root of the problem.
I was just so disappointed in how Dr. Nannapaneni treated me and didn't want to listen to what I had to say. I think some doctors are becoming desensitized these days, dealing with patients daily and not wanting to listen to what we have to say. It's like they just depend on bloodwork and that's it.
Well three months later, I got a diagnosis of Lyme disease through a Lyme literate doctor and a positive test through Igenex labs. That's after a false negative through the standard Elisa test for Lyme and dealing with another ignorant doctor, this time an infectious disease doctor that didn't want to treat me. The ID doctor just said I had Parvovirus and with time, the virus will pass. Parvo is a coinfection of Lyme, which the ID doctor didn't know. If I had listened to Dr. Nannapaneni and the ID doctor, I don't know where I'd be right now. Remind you she wanted to take my thyroid out at 28 years old, that's being in tip top shape and not being overweight at all.
At 30 I'm still dealing with Lyme disease, treating through a LLMD. Slowly getting better, but currently disabled because of doctors not educated about the disease. I used to be able to bench press 315 pounds, now I have a hard time lifting a glass of water or fork to feed myself. I like to fish a lot and my guess is I got bit in either Stony Creek or Kent Lake. Rural areas with woods and tics are only a few miles from the city, why these doctors aren't even testing for Lyme disease is beyond me. It's scary!!! Many people are walking around with it and they don't even know it. Doctors are just throwing out autoimmune diagnosis like candy: MS, Lupus, Parkinsons and Alzheimers. Truth be told a lot of these people have Lyme.
Please don't get fooled by the "rare" statement many doctors like to throw out. Lyme is not rare in Michigan, I haven't talked to some of my family members for a few years. After my family members learned of my disease, my uncle came forward and told me how he had been gotten bit by a tick and got the bulls eye rash, which advocates an infection of a Borrelia Burgdorferi infection. Right now my aunt is suffering from fibromyalgia, arthritic pains throughout her whole body and she believes she has Lyme and is about to get tes
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