Hitting the wall? Or something else?

My body has finally said “ENOUGH!” This message was brought to me by a sharp pain in my chest. Not quite like a heart attack, but more like having your back go out, except the pain is in the ribs/breastbone. This is now a routine signal that my body gives me when I overdo it with the exercise.

I believe what I am experiencing is called “costochondritis”. The careful reader will notice the lack of the phrase “I have been diagnosed with costochondritis by a doctor.”

Several years ago, I did go to the ER during an episode, in the hopes a doctor would be able to tell me to either take an antacid (heartburn), or take an ibuprofen (some kind of muscle/tendon/cartilage problem), or get a quadruple bypass (hope not!).

It turns out that if you go to the ER with chest pain, they aren’t really concerned with diagnosing the cause so much as ruling out the possibility of a heart attack. So after much ado, the result was “we don’t think it’s your heart, avoid overdoing the exercise.” Ugh.

Some time later, I finally had an appointment with my regular doctor. I mentioned the occasional chest pain, the fact that I seemed to sleep a tad more than necessary, and how if I took a few days off from exercise, my pain levels would increase instead of decrease. She looked in my ears and said “This could be Lyme disease, have you ever been bitten by a tick?”

“Only several times a year for most of my adult life. Did I mention I grew up in Connecticut, where Lyme disease was invented?”.

“Let’s do some blood work.”

And so my blood was analyzed in great detail. And my Lyme test came back negative. But it turns out a negative result doesn’t rule out the possibility of chronic or long-term Lyme infection. There were other aspects of the tests that suggested Lyme disease, but of course it can’t be proven one way or the other.

Adventures in medication and supplements followed. Some success was had. But I’m still skeptical about the actual diagnosis. So I’ll say I have Lyme*, with the asterisk, to indicate that it’s only a best guess.

Which brings me back to hitting the wall. After several very energetic days off from work, involving cutting firewood, picking up leaves, and lots and lots of running, I’m exhausted and my chest hurts. Is it Lyme*? Or did I just run into a figurative wall when I reached the limits of how much physical activity my body is currently capable of? Either way, it seems like a good idea to curl up in bed with a book and get a good night’s sleep. A few days rest and I’ll be recovered and back to running and procrastinating on my chores.