Is this herding?

LOL! - nope, herxing is no fun at all!! I just got done with a 3 week herx as I got started on my Lyme treatment herbs! Herxing is most often seen at the beginning of a treatment, medication changes or stress levels increasing. Of course they can happen with any kind of change for those that have high toxin loads.

And one more oddity - herxing happens for many around the time of a full moon each month. There are many suspected reasons why, but the fact remains that up to three days before (& three days after) a full moon can be hard on some of us.

Herxing is an increase in symptoms you already have or new symptoms that come on because of the increased die off of bacteria that release toxins when they die. All these toxins are what make our symptoms increase (& sometimes brings on new symptoms), so detoxing in the only way to lower a herx reaction - even though it's also the exact same time we want to not do anything because we generally feel poorly!

So just when you would like to crawl back into bed, or your nice comfy chair and hide, is when you need to be doing the most to detox, although you do want to be careful too. Using hot water in the shower, detox soak, or even foot soak for some can lead to killing more bacteria, which creates even more toxins or you can mobilize too many toxins with exercise so that the herx becomes even worse.

So the thing to do is to go slow and steady. Use foot soaks if you don't tolerate the full body detox well, being sure to use only luke warm water, and to stay in the water only a short time - usually 10 minutes is enough.

If you exercise, be sure not to make it strenuous or enough to make you work hard. Walking is a good exercise when you are herxing if you are up to it - many aren't.
So do plenty of 'gentle detoxing'.

Epsom salt foot soaks, drinking plenty of lemon water, dry skin brushing, and resting are all good ones to use. You can also use activated charcoal, or other binders at this time. They can be very useful in helping to get a herx under control.

Remember that another term for herxing is a healing crisis - the body is actually in crisis mode as it tries to deal with all the toxins and still battle the infection(s). Don't be hard on yourself if you aren't up to doing a lot of things, especially while you are herxing!

Try drinking ginger tea or peppermint tea for the indigestion. It could be from too much acid or too little acid in your stomach.

The squeezing rib feeling could be mild muscle cramping/spasms or it could be costochondritis. Costochondritis is an inflammation of a rib or the cartilage connecting a rib and is a symptom of Lyme.

Be sure you get enough rest - remember you are fighting a very complex infection and the body will need a lot of energy to fight this. Many LLMD's require their patients to nap daily!! So rest as much as you can when you can. If you work outside the home still, a 20 minute 'cat nap' or 'power nap' can be very helpful still! They are even helpful if you can't lay down for a longer nap! I deal with insomnia (although it's much better now), and to lie perfectly still for just 20 minutes and not allowing my mind to race over things could rejuvenated me quite a bit!

Ohhh!! I'm so very sorry!! I know that feeling all too well! yes, that rib out of place feeling is horrible!! I do hope that it slows down soon!! Try using some heat on the area just in case it's muscular.

I thought I was having a heart attack one time due to a muscle spasm that pulled a rib out of place. Scared the beejeebers out of me and my daughter that was up visiting - fortunately hubby has dealt with it before so he knew what was going on!

And feel better soon!

You can make a rice sock that heats in your microwave if you are interested:www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Heating-Pad/
Although I've never used two socks, but maybe it's better???