Hi everyone! A little over a month ago I went to see a local LLMD (recommended by ILADS) and had kind of a weird experience.
You can read about that visit here! The TLDR version is that I paid $400 to see this doctor only to be told that I needed to be tested for the MTHFR gene and then would need to undergo a 2 week long, $4,000 IV treatment that would consist of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday IV sessions up to 8 hours each. Understandably, everyone here kind of freaked out a little and I promised to find out exactly what the treatment was.
It has been a month and a few days later and I still have no idea what the IV treatment actually is. First of all, no one in that office called me in the month since I was last there to see how I was doing, if I still wanted to proceed with treatment, if I was dead, etc. I called once to ask what the treatment was. The receptionist (also the Dr's wife) said she wasn't sure, took down my contact info, and said she would speak to the doctor and get back to me. I never heard back. A few days later I called back and asked again, stating that I needed to know exactly what I was spending my money on before dropping $4,000. She told me that she had spoken to the doctor and that all he said was there was no specific name or way to describe the treatment. She had absolutely no information for me. Um... what in the actual
. Again, I told her there was no way that I was spending that kind of money without knowing what it is I'm putting in my body. She said that she'd talk to the doctor again and get back with me. That's the last I've heard.
In the meantime, I did what my family begged me to do and went through the channels to be seen by an Infectious Disease doctor at the VA hospital. I was able to get that process going pretty quickly and saw the doctor two days ago. Shockingly, that was a complete waste of time. She told me that, although I did used to have Lyme Disease, I had been properly treated and no longer had it. All of my recent tests have been false positives and my symptoms are all in my head. Because I mentioned anxiety as a symptom (which has relented since beginning Cowden two months ago), she latched onto that, telling me I needed to "do yoga or pilates" or, my personal favorite, "take walks outside and smile at the sun." I just literally can't even. If I had paid for that visit I probably would've started throwing things at her head.
So here I am, months after my diagnosis and back to square one. My current plan is to stick with the Cowden Protocol and I've also just started a parasite cleanse. I am feeling somewhat better finally, so I feel confident that Cowden is at least doing -something- to help. I'm interested in all of your thoughts about
the miracle IV cure and the ID's suggestion to smile at stars and such. Thanks for reading!