I have a question (warning may trigger some anxiety)

Um yea, anyway, can lyme kill? I'm really scared about this as I am not on official treatment yet nor will I be anytime soon since I am broke and will be for a while and won't be able to get proper treatment for a while so I'm just working with what I have. But yea I hear mixed stories where people say lyme won't kill, and then I hear depressing negative comments such as lyme will kill. I mean don't get me wrong I know anything can kill you, but can lyme do it that fast? I'm young and want to live and I am scared that lyme will kill me eventually due to hearing all the depressing comments that it can, maybe I'm just hoping that I hear of some hope that it won't and I will be okay along with others but I am so scared about this because I feel so horrible and it feels like it's 10x worse than lyme, any insight?

I have been having symptoms for exactly 6 months now. I know for a FACT that I was bitten in mid March, then exactly a month later emotional and neuro symptoms came on fast and rough. I am not sure if I was even bitten before march of 2014 cause my symptoms feel like late stage lyme when they shouldn't be this crazy only after 6 months. So I'm thinking if March was the only time I got bit, or if I was bitten way before that, because my symptoms definitely feel like I'm going to deteriorate soon but I have to be honest I don't think one bite in March would bring on crazy symptoms this fast after only 6 months as I've heard of people living with moderate symptoms for years before they got real bad mentally and emotionally, so confused.

Thanks Achievinggrace, that's exactly what I needed to hear, you gave me hope for the day and I need that, thank you! hopefully we can all beat this someday

My doc says that due to the IGG antibodies that showed up after testing for Lyme with the typical bull’s eye rash 2-1/2 years ago, that I probably had dealt with Chronic Lyme for around the past 15 years, and the new bite was stirring up and exascerbating, complicating, and worsening the condition.
I had told him about the fact that at age 14 I had to stop playing baseball due to shoulder and elbow pain, I had atypical bipolar disorder at age 15 that disappeared and I no longer needed meds for at age 20,
I had my gallbladder removed at age 23, I had severe fatigue issues throughout the years from time to time, I had a bleeding ulcer at age 25,
I had heart arrhythmia and murmur diagnosed at age 26, I had serious joint pains from time to time, as well as scoliosis of the neck due to deteriorated cartilage between the vertebrae at age 28,
and then at age 31 was given the clinical diagnosis of Lyme with a horrible EM (bull’s eye rash). That probably saved my life. At that time, I had no idea what Lyme Disease was.
Most people's bodies and immune systems are strong enough to sustain living with untreated or undiagnosed chronic lyme for many years, but if you are doing nothing to improve your overall health,
it will eventually take its toll enough to cause more serious implications, such as ALS, MS, Parkinson's, heart disease,
early onset Alzheimers or other serious health conditions that could be fatal. So it would not typically be stated as the actual cause of death,
but ignoring it for many years could put you at risk of dying of something else that has arisen due to your body's immune system being compromised from the overload of toxins and inflammation it produces, as well as a compromised GI system,
and your body's weakened state from the infection using up all the nutrients you consume before your own body's cells can use them for energy, which is a major contributing factor to lyme fatigue.
So your best bet on a limited income is to find out what inexpensive herbal and nutrional remedies ( i.e. garlic for lyme, cumin for babesia, tumeric for detoxification) can help you remain healthy by keeping the infections at bay and helping your body to detoxify, as well as eating and living healthy.
Reading Dr. Burrascano's Guidelines is a good place to start. Another major issue people with lyme deal with is an overgrowth in Candida, or problems with good bacteria being outnumbered in their gut by bad bacteria and fungi,
which can lead to a lot of the same overall health and sense of well-being issues as lyme and co-infections such as fatigue and joint pains.
Eventually your body’s immune system will not be able to keep up with the overgrowth of infection in so many of its systems and not be able to ward off health issues that arise, which could lead to serious disability or death.
I read a scholarly article about AIDS recently that stated that a healthy biodome, or GI system, is one of the best ways to prevent your body reaching a state that is too immune compromised to protect itself anymore.
Chronic Lyme is also like AIDS, in that once it has compromised your immune system and body processes enough, you are in danger of serious health conditions that could be fatal, yet the cause of death would not be stated as LYME/AIDS, it would be something like pneumonia or heart attack.
A good place to start is to making sure you are eating a lot of live foods, such as vegetables and fruits that don’t contain too much sugar. You should stay away from wheat products and gluten, and all refined sugars.
In our age of information technology at our fingertips, there’s no reason that someone dealing with Chronic Lyme and co-infections or HIV/AIDS can’t live a mostly normal, typically long-lasting lifetime.

I think it can kill if it gets bad enough in the heart. But most of the time it just tortures you. Babesia can kill if you got your spleen removed. And Bartonella likely won't kill, but i hear can lead to atherosclerotic build up in the cardiovascular system over time if left untreated. it can also cause carditis. I hear erlichia and anaplasma can sometimes kill if not treated, luckily those are the easiest to treat of the bunch.

Why do you say that?

Don't give up or lose hope. Life may be a little different, in that you have some lifestyle changes to make, but you should be able to live a pretty normal life as long as you:
1. Eat a Lyme healthy diet
2. Use nutrional supplements as needed-B vitamins, C, and D
3. Keep up with some herbal remedies
4. Seek immediate treatment for any major medical issues

Will this kill you ?...........Hmmm, probably not even close.

Well what others have told you and my thoughts:

Driving can kill you, bad food that tastes good can kill people, and Pnumonia can even kill people.

Lyme does not mean you you will die or be bedridden, a very small percentage are.

YOU HAVE THE INTERNET TO HELP YOU, its does save lives, we did not have this 25 - 40 years ago- back then we were screwed

Lyme forces you to make better life choices. At almost 50, I have already outlived some people that didnt have lyme.

Even with Lyme, I can do some things that other 50 year olds cant do. There are things I know I need to do in moderation now, but that also comes with age.

After antibiotics I plan on continually expanding my herbal knowledge, realizing that this might be required to some extent my whole life.

What really bums me out is I absolutely love the northern woods but thats, where tics are. I always wanted a small cozy home in the woods on a road without curbs, now that doesn't seem so wise. That was my lifelong dream. I used permetherine on my outdoor cloths when it came out in the 80's, and still got infected.

I hear you. But my dream area is also the Lyme epic center in the northern midwest woods- thats where I got it. There is more of it there. A lot more. Without permetherin , 10 ticks per day on you in the woods is common. Some people still dont use it. Even if used only on high top hikers- it does help. But I still got it.

At least I'm close enough to vacation there. I was semi rural before the urban spwal. I now see being an outdoor addict is not as good as I once thought it was. I try to do more water stuff than trail stuff now - there are still mosquitoes though, enough to carry you away. The best thing (only?) about winter is no mosquitoes. I've woke with a bear 1 foot from my face (yea, holy #@#!), wolves will lear and run (so far), but ticks make me think more.

Trav-

We can always modify our "dream" plans to suit accordingly, somewhere in the middle, thats what I might do. Time will tell. If we had less deer up here in Paul Bunyan land, wed have less deer ticks too - same prob here as in the north east US. The deer hunters associations want to keep the populations lager than needed.

I think I threw those shorts away.

Parts of Arkansas, the hilly areas are beautiful, many dont know that. Kinda hot for me though.

I'll try not to derail this post anymore.

On the books, I have had Lyme for almost 2 years. Off the books, it's suggestive I've had it for 7 years (symptoms and blood tests kind of prove it). I am doing much better now.

Since you say you are broke and really can't afford treatment, I would recommend the MCT Ketogenics Diet. Since you need to eat anyway, might as well start there. If you like eggs, eat a bunch, they are cheap and produce cysteine which produces Glutathione. I eat about 6 a day.

MCT is Medium Chain Triglyceride:
Coconut Oil (is a MUST!!!! Research and you will see)
Butter (anti-cancer/anti-fungal)
Palm Oil (I don't user)

The diet is basically high fat and no carbs, so you might actually save money by not buying bread and cereal, etc...

I do take a bunch of supplements, but they can get expensive. Foods provide most of what you will want anyway.

LOL! No doubt. Its kinda funny like "The first rule about Chronic Lyme is that no doctors know about Chronic Lyme. The second rule of Chronic Lyme, is that there is no Chronic Lyme".