“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”—Sharon Begley.

I was a fan of keeping ants as pets and I had several ant farms over the years, but all these ants were supplied by the ant farm manufacturers, so in the summer of 2006, I decided to hunt for my own ants in upstate New York. I made several hikes, and my hunting was a success. One day in August 2006, as I got up out of bed, I felt the symptom of little hammering on the soles of my feet. As you may recall, I had this symptom along with burning pains on my hands and feet a few months after my gut symptoms began in 1996. This was obviously the same symptom returning. At first, it wasn’t too bad, nowhere near the severity it had been in 1996, but gradually, it started to intensify. By October, I decided to start the diagnostic rigmarole, getting EMGs, MRIs and blood work for Lyme disease. This time, I had the Western Blot type test done, and it came back as positive as it could be for both IgM and IgG antibodies.

I was started on gabapentin and doxycycline. I took the doxy for three weeks after which time, the dysesthesias had not yet abated. (They eventually did after several more weeks.)