This is my story of a supposedly non-serious disease, which almost led me to disability and suicide. It also shows the helplessness of our modern medicine and the negligence of doctors. I am telling my path so that you understand what I faced and what I had to go through. Perhaps many will recognize themselves in this story. You will also be able to understand some of the course of my illness.
My short summary about the state of my health before my illness: I am a guy from Belarus, I am 20 years old, I have been doing sports all my life. I was rarely sick, I didn't have any health problems, I was in great physical shape. I felt like a strong and confident guy, I had dreams and hobbies. I was a very active person, I loved running very much. But at one point, my life changed ...
In 2020, at the height of the coronavirus my tonsils became inflamed, I went to my free polyclinic to my district doctor. He as a regular therapist prescribed me various antibiotics, but it did not help. My throat was constantly sore, inflamed, then chronic tonsillitis appeared. I took a bunch of tests, various smears, nothing was found. The only thing I had was a slightly elevated ASLV. (Streptococcus) Typical bacteria that causes tonsil problems. For 6 months I was treated in different ways, went to different doctors, nothing worked. Finally I decided to go for tonsillectomy because I was in agony. And my friend underwent a similar operation, her throat never bothered her again. However, for me it was a fatal mistake. On the fifth day after the operation my knee joints started to hurt. To all my questions, the doctors could not answer anything. I was discharged from the hospital, my throat began to heal, and the pain in my knees began to increase every day. I could not get to my local rheumatologist because of the height of the pandemic, the polyclinic simply did not work, or there were no doctors. However, I did get there and a young rheumatologist, having heard my complaints, prescribed me bicillin injections (penicillin antibiotic to fight streptococcal infection), referring to the fact that I have high ASLO, after the surgery it increased to 1000 units. Also NSAIDs (painkillers) to relieve pain in my knees.
And that's where the fun part starts. A day after the first injection, everything goes away and I feel fine. The course of bicillin is finished and I again get pain in my knees, in addition to everything I start to have strange sensations in the heart area. It feels like some kind of pulling pain in my chest on the left side, closer to the center. Unfortunately, I could not get to my doctor, because he was no longer working at the polyclinic. This is a common phenomenon for Belarus, at that time we had political persecution, doctors often changed their jobs or went abroad. I went to one very popular medical center in Belarus.
The rheumatologist there, having heard my complaints, assigned me a number of tests.
Biochemistry, rheumatoid factor. ASLO. COE. Everything was normal except ASLO.
He prescribed ointments and NSAIDs.
I started to feel worse, I was in a lot of pain. On my next visit to this doctor, I asked him to prescribe me Bicillin injections. And continued to do them, one injection once a month. The condition during the course of injections became better, but with each new injection I felt that it was working worse and worse. At that time I didn't even know about the existence of chlamydia and thought that I was being killed by Streptococcus, which was eating my joints and my heart. The feeling in the heart area was very unpleasant, I even choked sometimes. My doctor probably thought the same thing. I ended up on bicillin for nine months. Then it just stopped working. Then I decided to change my rheumatologist because there was no result. I went to different doctors and they all gave me the same old, same old, standard regimens. I was even two times at the famous rheumatologist Soroka, (you can search the Internet, a very respected person in rheumatology, doctor of sciences who has many scientific papers, especially in the field of chlamydial arthritis). Each appointment I waited for a month and the consultation then cost me a lot of money as I earned very little. Each appointment lasted about 10 minutes and unfortunately this old fart did not even think about chlamydia. He just prescribed NSAIDs, said it would all go away and so on. Maybe he's too old, or maybe my history is very atypical. But I didn't give a shit, you can't imagine how I felt at the time. I went to doctors and spent more than half of my income on tests. During that time I saw about 12 different doctors, in different facilities. One crazy therapist said that my blood test showed no problems and that I was making it all up. And my condition was getting worse every day.
I had already had pain in all my joints from my toes to my fingers and toes. Then my eyes started hurting, by that time it had been 1.5 years since the first pain in my knees. My knees hurt the most, I couldn't think about anything but my disease, I didn't understand what was happening to me. The NSAIDs worked worse and worse. So passed a couple more months of my agonizing “life”. Then I started dating a new girl.
Then I got to another young rheumatologist who asked me to take some tests. Biochemistry, Rheumatoid Factor, Anti-immunoglobulins A,M,G. That's when I first heard what chlamydia was and that it could cause arthritis. And that's when I realized when and from whom I'd been infected. It's my own fault for not using protection. I did not know about the existence of chlamydia, all I knew about STIs is AIDS, syphilis and gonorrhea, by the way gonorrhea is easier to cure than chlamydia. I haven't had many girlfriends and I've never encountered anything like that. And my friends, who had a very rich sexual experience, also told me nothing about such things. “All the young ones, dick standing up and sperm pouring out, about to stab someone.” - A little humor in this sad story.
A new girlfriend infected me at the beginning of 2020. That's when I started having problems with my tonsils. Before that I had a fever of 37C for 2 weeks and that was it, no discharge, no itching. Everything was as usual. And a temperature of 37C, even in a pandemic, was not a serious concern. In short, it was the most hidden and asymptomatic infection. And after a month the tonsils began to hurt, which fought the infection and therefore were constantly inflamed, and I cut them out. Although I had sex without a condom, but I took tests comprehensively PCR for all STIs, I did not even read the list. There's chlamydia, toxoplasma, ureaplasma, etc. Everything was always negative.
I ended up with 130 units of Chlamydia trachomatis, IgG. - Chlamydia trachomatis, IgG. and Chlamydia pneumoniae IgG (This is chlamydia, which is airborne. Breathe near a sick person or drink from the same mug and you are infected). I've also had PCR swabs several times and everything was clean. The doctor said I had chlamydia before and it triggered an autoimmune process that is destroying all my connective tissue. As it turned out, I had the marvelous HLA-B27 antigen; carrying this antigen is associated with an increased risk of musculoskeletal diseases, particularly spondyloarthritis. (Later it turned out that my grandfather had Bechterew's disease - ankylosing spondyloarthritis. And I got this antigen from my mom ) Then my lower back started to hurt and I often woke up at night with pain, I could not walk or sit for a long time. I was broken, my emotional state left much to be desired. I was afraid of this disease because there is no cure. It can only be slowed down, but you can still become disabled. I was very depressed. Especially considering what a physically fit and cheerful person I used to be. My mom used to tell me how my grandfather suffered from this disease, how he screamed and that he spent the last years of his life in bed. He became an angry man because of the constant pain and he just wanted to die. His spine was completely fused. He got sick when he was young, too, by the way. But as my mother told me, his illness started from a physical blow to his back and severe hypothermia in the water. However, my doctor said that everything will be fine, it's a different time, there are different medications and you can live with it. And most likely I have reactive arthritis, I should take antibiotics for a month for chlamydia and see - if the pain does not go away, it will be necessary to treat autoimmune disease. For antibodies to chlamydia can remain for life, even if you are overdosed and cured (That's what my doctor said and many doctors agree). I got through the antibiotics, when I drank them my condition was good, the best it had been in months. However, then it all came back and even with more severity, then I was already limping on two legs. If we go by the degree of pain from more to less, the most pain I had was in my knees, my back, my heart, my eyes, and then all the other joints in my body. But most of all my knees, it felt like someone had put nails in my kneecap and I was walking around with them, although blood tests showed no inflammation, just elevated ASLO. Then I cried a lot and thought about suicide. Then an MRI showed inflammation in the sacroiliac joints and I was diagnosed with spondyloarthritis. (Bechterew's disease)
I was then prescribed hormones (metipred) and sulfasalazine. I had to take the hormones until the sulfasalazine started working. The hormones were better, but they are serious drugs, I took them for about 2 months together with sulfasalazine. Then I took only sulfasalazine and NSAIDs. The pain went away very slowly, but I was still limping and in pain. But at least I stopped thinking about suicide and somehow came to terms with my disease. Then I began to study a lot of information about my disease, read various studies, forums dedicated to this disease. I was looking for ways to cure it. Time goes on, I have been ill for about 2,5 years, at that time I started dating a new girl. After some time, I found another rheumatologist, MD and went to her for a consultation. Again I took all the same tests and had a new MRI of the sacroiliac joint. And to my surprise it turned out that the inflammation in my lower back area was gone. (I did have less back pain then, but my knees hurt almost the same, I had been taking NSAIDs every day all this time). The doctor said that it looks like I have reactive arthritis, because there is no such thing as spondyloarthritis to return to normal, it does not happen, you can only slow down the process. And I'm back to normal. She again asked about chlamydia, I said that I treated them and I can not have them, as many doctors said. Because all PCR smears were negative, and I took them more than 10 times. She sent me to do a special analysis “Extraction on the culture of cells MsSow Chlamydia” this analysis is done in one place in our country. But before the analysis it was necessary to stop taking sulfasalazine, because it has antimicrobial effect, I did not take the drug for 45 days. And at that time, some unbelievable incident occurs, which should be described in medical textbooks.
My girlfriend is starting to get a stomach ache, agonized for a week until my mssoe cell test came back to me. I was found to have chlamydia, the first exposed test I've had in years. The girl was detected by PCR and ELISA for chlamydia, yet I had those tests negative. So the PCR, which is considered the most accurate test, showed nothing in me all this time. And the interesting fact is that when I stopped taking sulfasalazine I infected my girlfriend with chlamydia. Even though she didn't have any problems before that. (And I assure you she did not cheat on me and I could not get them again) Now think about why sulfasalazine helps with arthritis ? I have a theory and it is that its antibacterial property kept the chlamydia in the cell and prevented it from spreading.
After that, my new doctor sent me to a professor I know who treats chronic chlamydia. He does this unofficially because he treats using his own methods. All current worldwide treatment protocols are not suitable for treating long term chronic chlamydia. His methods are radically different. Before going to him, I had another appointment with different venereologists. All of them said that this MsSow test means nothing, you don't need to treat anything, even though I had all the symptoms of reactive chlamydial arthritis.
My new chlamydia professor explained to me that all doctors are stupid and don't understand how chlamydia works, they rely on the tests that are prescribed in the protocols and give the wrong treatment. That's why a lot of people can't be cured and suffer all their lives. Everyone has different symptoms.
According to statistics, 100 million people fall ill with chlamydia every year in the world, and the number of people infected with chlamydia on the globe by the most conservative estimates reaches one billion. Some have joint pain, others have problems with the genitourinary system, someone can not conceive or give birth to a healthy child. Chlamydia causes a number of different disorders in our body and all people feel it differently. In my case I had pain in all my joints, my heart (turns out chlamydia, mostly in men, damages the myocardium), then my prostate and appendage cysts started hurting. Many people just carry this infection and do not feel anything, infect other people, everyone has different immunity and therefore a different response to infection. Some people start having problems right away, others only get symptoms in old age or when they get sick with other diseases. And with each passing year, chlamydia becomes more and more entrenched in the cells of our body.
In general, chlamydia is a very cunning bacterium, different studies compare it to something between a virus and a bacterium. They are able to hide from antibiotics by building a shell around themselves and antibiotics can not get to them. Just like any bacteria, they adapt to antibiotics and become harder and harder to kill. If a person sick with chlamydia took a lot of antibiotics and not cured he has a high resistance, and kill all chlamydia is very difficult, but it is real. On the vastness of the Internet walks a lot of different methods of fighting chlamydia, many of them are unsubstantiated false schemes that are just aimed at getting your money.
The only way to kill chlamydia is to use antibiotics of certain groups aimed at combating them. If you are anti-pill and think it is evil, please, that's your choice, it's your health. But it brought me back to life.
