That's the weird thing, I have no fatigue, no fever, no neck/head pain, just the knees.
Sequence went: MRI's, knee drainings with hydrocortisone injections, arthoscopic knee surgery to shave down sinova, more MRI's, prednisone to see if it was rheumatoid arthritis, more MRI's, - Docs tell me the only thing left is Lyme's. Structurally my knees are perfect with no signs of wear and tear on the joints. Problem is in the sinova only. Was in the right knee for 10 months and now just started in the left knee!
How long did it take on the treatments before you were considered cured?
It's been 6 years worth of treatment. Problem is that you don't really know if you're cured or not after you've had it for a long time. If the symptoms don't return after a lengthy period of time, that's when you know.
The long-term treatment is a pretty hot topic in the medical field, with a lot of accomplished doctors saying that long-term treatments are ineffective. My experience, anecdotally of course, has indicated differently.
In high school, I was repeatedly checked for mono and knee damage. Every time coming up negative. At the time it was: "you're 15, being tired isn't abnormal, and you're playing so many sports that of course your knees will hurt." In college, it got worse - there were times I couldn't walk up the stairs due to knee pain, yet there were no physical abnormalities. The diagnosis, of course, remained the same: "quit staying up late, and stop the sports [lacrosse, skiing, biking], and you'll be fine."
In law school, I had significant difficulty remembering what I had read the night before, in addition to all of the other symptoms. In the summer of my second year, after my
entire immediately family was diagnosed clinically and through blood work, we thought it would be a good idea for bloodwork to be done on me. 'Lo und behold, it came back positive. We went over the history of my symptoms, and the doc figured, as best he could, that I picked it up the summer after 9th grade. I was 24 when I was diagnosed.
Immediately started a pretty intensive treatment (not IV, which is the option of last resort). Within roughly 90 days, every symptom was gone - no memory problems, no knee pain, no fatigue. I've since had a few flare-ups of those same problems, which indicates that it's either not gone or a new case - but short doses of antibiotics have taken care of it. As I understand it, this is where part of the debate over treatment comes in - there are several studies showing that long-term treatments do nothing about the long-term symptoms. As I said, my personal experience indicates differently - each one is less severe than the predecessor.
In retrospect, I could bleeping kick myself. Knee pain and fatigue - why in the heck did the possibility of Lyme Disease, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, a veritable tick heaven, never occur to me? I mean, seriously, did I have my head in a bucket of sand? One of those things that happens. But I still tell people I'd have gone to Harvard Law rather than Wake Forest.
FYI, there are some really good resources out there. ILADS is one; there are a few others. But, be careful what you trust on the interweb - there is a lot of information that is absolute crap.
Best of luck.
