Well, after my horrible visit to a doctor the other day, I went to an internal medicine doc at UPenn just for a regular checkup, mainly because I need a new GP. I almost canceled the appointment, but I had been on the waiting list for 3 months and this doctor had come highly recommended as a GP, so I kept it. The doctor was REALLY nice and spent about an hour with me. We didn't talk a whole lot about lyme (since I think my issues now may be from secondary problems), but when I asked her what she thought about it, she said she knew all about the controversy and basically she thought that there just wasn't enough information out there, that it CAN cause long-term problems, but nobody really knows for sure what it does to the body or how it lives. When I told her all about my cyclical heart palpitations and nightsweats, she immediately thought it could be hormone related. I also told her about my thyroid diagnosis (low T4) and questions about whether or not I was on the right dose of Synthroid, and she seemed to know a lot about that too. So she decided to run a bunch of tests: TSH, Free T3 and Free T4 (which I was impressed by, since I didn't ask about them!), some kind of cortisol test (which she said is a preliminary test to check hormone levels??), cholesterol, CBC...I think that's it. She also did an EKG, which came out ABNORMAL. She said this could be an indication of mitral valve prolapse or of something else, so she ordered an echocardiogram, which I have scheduled for about 3 weeks from now.
Does this all sound good? Those of you with hormone issues, does it sound like she ran the right test? I'm thinking I'll wait for the results, see what she says, and if she doesn't come up with anything maybe I'll check out Dr. Magaziner in New Jersey.
Lyme and co-infections since approximately 2002. Diagnosed in 2005. Treated for two years solid. Diagnosed with Lymphomatoid Papulosis in October 2007. Currently back on abx.
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