Update on 2-Year Old

My 2-year showed a couple of strange symptoms over the holidays. Twice complaining about foot pain and being a bit moody (although what 2-year old is not moody). My entire family was sick with flu-like symptoms but still strange to have foot pain.

I have become concerned that his 4-week treatment in October was not sufficient and he is doing a full blown IgenX test tomorrow (I understand the results do not come in for 2 to 3 weeks). Our doctor treats a lot of lyme patients but went a little light on the 4 weeks because my wife was not convinced it was lyme and expressed concern about the effect of the antibiotics. However, I do not want to go backwards and just think about the best next steps.

According to Dr. Burr, being under a year provides a pretty good chance to beat the disease if diagnosed properly and treated aggressively but I am nervous.

Any advice or related experiences?

I'm sure it's hard to find a pediatric LLMD, but that would be my way to go. They (hospital infectious disease specialist) under treated my 11 year old and he is now a raging psych case for the past 3 years... he is 17 now, it has been a long horrible road... They gave him amoxicillin which didn't even touch the Bart and barely touched the Lyme :(

Thank you Nosila. Do you know how long after the bite before your child received treatment? How long was the treatment? How long were the foot pain episodes? My son was twice when he woke up and they lasted less than 30 minutes. I am glad to hear that his signs are now minimal. Have you recently tested him with the IGenX lab? Was he ever explicitly tested positive?

I have probably had Lyme since childhood and wasn't diagnosed until after my son was born, so he most likely got it congenitally. I was in treatment for a couple of months when I started seeing his symptoms. This was shortly before his third birthday. Fortunately, my LLMD had experience treating children, as well as adults. Neither of us were tested at Igenex. Our LLMD's use LabCorp to look for any smoking guns, and then make a clinical diagnosis. I think he had one positive band on the Western Blot from LabCorp, along with a very low CD-57. The real evidence that he has Lyme, IMO, is his response to treatment. Our LLMD's treat primarily with herbs, using Beyond Balance brand for most patients. These are blends of herbs that target specific infections. If you don't have the infections, you shouldn't notice any reaction to the herbs. My son had noticeable reactions (herxed) with the treatments for Lyme and babesia. His reaction to the bartonella treatment was milder. He has been in treatment for about a year and a half and no longer has any symptoms that I can tell. about a month ago, our LLMD thought it might be time to begin stopping his treatment, so we took him off the Lyme herbs. Within a couple of weeks, he started having symptoms again. We started him back on the Lyme herbs, and he herxed again. So he's not quite there yet, but close.

He usually complained of foot pain at night, too. I don't know exactly how long it lasted. When anything hurts, he quite often asks for ice. After a couple of minutes with ice on his foot, he was usually calm enough to go back to sleep. Sometimes it lasted longer, and I would give him a little ibuprofen.

girlie - this is what i was discussing with him - is it too early to retest? I am still trying to understand this part. if he just got bitten and lets say was positive in sept, he would still be positive whether he treated or not right?

klust- what did Dr N say about his foot hurting? i forgot to ask....

thanks for your input cd - I totally agreed with you until my husband tested positive, but couldn't be clinically diagnosed bc he had no symptoms. This is why I am confused.

Igenex claims that if it is active infection, it is IGM, and then once the infection is cleared, you should only have IGG - but so many people have said that sometimes the test may forever show IGM, even if lyme is in remission. This is the part that confuses me! Because if this is true, then as you said, it is pointless to ever retest!!!

In my situtation, I was clinically diagnosed bc the basic tests came back negative. I didn't bother, and my Dr didn't push me, to test thru Igenex, bc i didn't want to spend the money if we both knew I had lyme anyway!

WOW, this really opens my eyes, cd - thank you for sharing this.

that's what i am thinking about my husband, that his immune system is taking care of the bulk of it. He said himself that maybe he has had lyme way longer - bc he spent countless days in the woods since he was a teenager btwn paintball, hikiing, fishing and hunting......

like i said, i was leaning towards herbs, but wasn't sure - now with what you said, i think we will bite the bullet and treat (but i am SO worried he will forget to take them!!)

let me take a look at buhner's protocol, I might as well have him on the same one as my daughter's as to not to confuse things, and everyone seems to swear by him anyway!!

THANKS CD!!!! =)

sorry klust for rambling on, but maybe this will be insightful to you as well!!

And, sooo sorry klutzpooh!!

I'm sure you recognize that these things happen but I certainly don't try to detract from someone's thread.

Hopefully, you do find something useful in our tangent :)

Best wishes to you and your son!! Trust your gut and you'll be fine.

So, here's what I have learned about IgM vs IgG (from articles I have read)

IgM is a current infection, and IgG is either an older current infection, or a past infection...
It used to be thought that IgM would convert to IgG after a certain length of time...but that doesn't always happen.

There really is no accurate test to date to show if we are healed...that's why we need to go on symptom resolution...
It does get difficult if we have some damage...or just need time for the body to heal once the infection is cleared - especially when we're talking about nerves.

Will I know when to stop treating...if the last symptoms I end up with are nerve issues. Having the disease go untreated for over a year...well, I would think that my body needs to heal...and I could still need more time after the active infection is gone for that to happen.