A forum member emailed me privately with a few questions. I ended up writing a very lengthy email, and figured I would post it on here so that others may benefit from my experience......I have written about
my recovery before, but not exactly in this light.......
I figured out I had lyme 4 months after the bite
I got super super sick, super super fast - it hit me everywhere, I was shrinking. Lost weight, muscle, my nerves were shot....etc. I treated lyme from Feb 2014 to Sept 2014 (antibiotics, herbs, nutritionals, etc). I cannot tell you how nervous I was about
stopping treatment, but my Dr felt I was ready. She was right, but it still wasn't an easy decision to make.
Right before I finished treatment, I remember taking my bactrim dose and herxing. I was so alarmed. I called her and said, well if I am still herxing, shouldn't I continue treatment? She advised against it. I was confused. She firmly believed the "leftover" symptoms or herx like reactions so to speak were just leftover damage and from the immune system being overwhelmed and still inflamed.
My lingering symptoms were surely muscle twitches, I still had pain in my right shoulder that radiated down to my fingertips (like a pinched nerve), when I did too much, I would get the pinchy pain in my legs, I still wet my pants on occasion (I had bladder issues from lyme too), and I had the arm pulling at the elbows at night. Oh, and I also always woke up with tingling at the bottom of my feet.
So, in most cases, the doctors would continue to treat. She stopped treating me for several reasons - I gained all of my weight back, my compliment c4a levels were within normal range, my western blot went from IGM 5 bands to IGM only 2 bands, I was able to function normally again, was sleeping well, my sex drive was good, and last but not least, I could no longer tolerate the herbs.
I was taking AL complex like it was nothing for a few months when I was initially sick. Never really reacted to it. A Bart as well (yes, I was clinically diagnosed with Bartonella too)
In september, I could not tolerate those herbs anymore. I would get heart palpitations and headaches. Now alot of people have trouble telling the difference between a herx and a sign of toxicity. When I say toxicity, I mean your body rejects it bc it is not needed. With me, a sign of toxicity was always getting heart palpitations and headaches. If I never herxed on AL complex earlier on, and I was on the max dose, and then in Sept I could't even handle five drops - this was a sure sign that something wasn't right. When I treated lyme for about
8 months, I did not get a single headache, except when I tried grapefruit seed extract - maybe that was a sign of a herx, maybe not, but i just didn't feel right, and I sensed the difference. I posted a thread months back that I truly believe some people treat lyme beyond when it is necessary and the antibiotics end up do more harm than good - the trick is, to know when this starts to happen.
So what happened after I stopped treatment? I remained worried of course, every time something went wrong, I was like, OMG, lyme is back! I was very very nervous. The spring came, and I started to exercise again. Tried weight lifting, but I couldn't handle it yet. Was still getting the pinchy pain the next day, which wasn't good. so I decided to wait a few weeks and then train to do the 40 mile bike tour with my husband in NYC. I did it, and I felt awesome. i was like, I am over it, I am good! So then I decided to go on an even stricter diet and tackle weights again. Whoa. I did a 21 day extreme hardcore program and it left me with the most unbelievable brain fog in the world. I couldn't do anything right, I couldn't think straight, and I never really new what brain fog was until that month. Everyone on the forum always talked about
it - well, now I understood! I will explain why I think this happened in the next paragraph. Anyway, 2 weeks after that, the summer came and I just went off my diet. BAM. tons of symptoms came roaring back, and then in the fall of 2015 I was a mess. I kept getting sick, I had the numbness return on my left side, etc......I went back to my Dr and she was all ready to put me on LDI - I decided against it. I did the Candida skin test, and came back a flaming 8 out of 10. That is what the leftover problem was for me.
No sooner did I take Diflucan daily for 2 weeks, I am telling you, EVERY single SYMPTOM was Gone! Everything. Diflucan was the bomb, and this only confirmed the skin test, that I had a horrible case of Candida. (this explained the brain fog earlier on, I went on such a strict diet and exercised so vigorously the brain fog I believed to be due to candida die off). So I went back on a strict diet, attacked Candida in every which way with all different herbs - alternating them every couple of weeks - ADP oil of oregano, garlic, tumeric, monolaurin, etc.
I herxed like hell, symptoms returned, and then one day it all just stopped! I kid you not. One day I had something going on, and then the next day I didn't, and nothing has come back. I started exercising again, and I am stronger now than I ever was before I had lyme. I am playing tennis, bikeriding for miles, swimming, climbing rock walls, weightlifting, you name it. I have zero symptoms today, and I haven't had any for I would say about
4 months.
Two things happened with me, either:
1. The candida disrupted my system and inflamed everything = symptoms returned (but not due to lyme)
2. Bc my candida was so severe, lyme came out to cause trouble again. I treated Candida, then my immune system was able to get lyme out of the way again.
Although I will never be completely sure of the answer, I believe it to be #1. Regardless of whether it is one or the other, all I do know is, I gotta stay on this diet, continue to detox, continue to exercise, and the symptoms won't come back to haunt me. I also learned that if I do need to take a course of antibiotics, I must follow it with diflucan, just to make sure the candida doesn't come back.
Just bear this in mind everyone, I have mentioned this before....since Candida and lyme have very similar symptoms, it is very hard to know when lyme has been treated and candida has lingered - there does come a point when antibiotics become toxic rather than helpful to the body.
Hope some of you find this resourceful!!!
I forgot to mention something very important, the book that guided me thru all this, plus internet research and this forum, is called "The Candida Cure" by Ann Boroch. It explains candida and its symptoms and gives you a 3 month protocol to follow, including diet and recipes! It is an excellent resource.
Post Edited (Chapelle) : 7/28/2016 5:22:03 PM (GMT-6)