New Here... need some guidance

Hi CrazyJen!
Welcome to our community! I'm so glad you found us.

If you haven't ​yet​, it would be helpful for you to start with reading through the thread at the top of the forum titled,"New to Lyme?...Start here!!", as it is packed full of important information, symptom lists, helpful links and pdf's, how to detox when one has these infections, information on probiotics and much more. And this is another good list of possible detoxing routines: www.tiredoflyme.com/detox-methods.html

It's quite common for an ID doc to deny the reality of Lyme being so widespread.

Your Lyme antibodies show that your immune system is fighting Lyme - just not as well as it needs to. That's why you only have 2 markers/bands that are "abnormal". Lyme lowers the ability of the immune system to function properly, so this is common.

C. albicans is Candida. It's a yeast infection. If you aren't already, you need to get a good probiotic - usually need the more expensive ones in order to help with this.

C.pneumonia is also a fairly common co-infection with Lyme.

C4a is an inflammation marker. Lyme is an inflammatory infection, so it's common to have more inflammation than normal.

There are alternative medicine doctors that you can see that know how to treat these infections possibly, or you can do as many do and use alternative medicine to treat yourself. Buhner's is the most common protocol used here, although there is Cowden's and others.

Personally, I would encourage you to check into Buhner's if you choose to treat yourself, because he breaks it down so that you can treat each infection - that way you know that it's been addressed. You can get an idea of what his protocols entail on a website that is based off of his books: buhnerhealinglyme.com/, but I would encourage you to buy his books, as they give a lot more details on what you can do for symptoms, as well as the core protocols - and his books are not very expensive.

Believe me, I know!! The learning curve with Lyme is pretty steep, so don't feel like you have to understand everything all at once.

Start by asking questions. Do you want to know about herbal treatments? Ask us! Do you want to know more about detoxing? Just ask. We are here to help you learn and to support you as you find your way through all of this!

Well, after being sick for 20 years, you want to move slowly. This is more like a journey and not a sprint to the finish line. At this point, your body is likely pretty overwhelmed with not only bacteria, but toxins as well. Those that try to move too quickly through treatments usually end up having to stop everything and start all over (much more slowly) due to only continuing to get worse. No matter how much we all want this to be over yesterday, the fact is it's all about maintaining a careful balance in the body.

The best way to start is with the diet and detoxing - which helps correct imbalances and to lower the amount of toxins in the body before adding more in with treatments. But, at the very least, you need to keep those two things as a high priority in your healing.

Normally people will start off with either Japanese Knotweed or Cat's claw for treatments. No matter what type of treatments you choose though, you have to start off on a very low dose and build up to the suggested dose slowly, or you will end up herxing severely. Mild to moderate herxing is a mild cytokine cascade - and that can be really hard to get the cytokine cascade stopped and the herxing down so you can continue treatments, but for those that try to push through the herxing (or during severe herxing), they are at risk for starting a cytokine storm that can end up being life threatening - which is why detoxing is so important.

I've yet to meet someone that says they wish they had pushed through treatments and herxing a lot faster, but I've sure met a lot of people that have said "I wish I would have listened" as they have had to stop treatments, taken the time to allow their body time to recover and then they have to start all over again.

So, to start off with Buhner's herbs, let's say you choose Japanese Knotweed. You need to start off with just one drop a day, as it can cause quite a herx, or you could be allergic to it. If you do have a herx like reaction, then you either stay at that dose or lower your dose and increase your detoxing until you symptoms of the herx slow down again.

Once you reach that stage, then you add in another drop - preferably one in the am and one in the pm. If there is any herxing, you need to hold at that dose until it passes. Once the herxing passes, you add in a third drop a day, preferably midday. If herxing happens, hold that dose, or lower the dose until herxing passes.

At this point, you are ready to add in 2 drops in the am, while keeping the midday and pm doses at only one drop. Same as above if there is any herxing.

Then move on with this same pattern, increasing the am, midday and pm doses one at a time until you have gotten up to about 2 or 3 drops each dose. At this point in time, you can add in Cat's claw - just be sure to follow the same dosing schedule, as these herbs work synergistically - together they are stronger than taken alone.

Keep following this method of adding in herbs until you get all the herbs in the core protocol added into your routine. We can help with many of your questions.

Hi CrazyJen. Welcome. I actually just added Buhner to all the detox things I have been doing. I was never addressing specific body systems support, only dealing with detox and killing of bugs. I think it's a huge thing I was missing. So, I happened to start with anything supportive. I have only added in 3 herbs thus far, and all are still at a very small dose just like Traveler said.

Good luck, and you have most definitely found an awesome resource with this forum.

3Hump

Welcome jen...ya there are no false positives ...if the id duc said no then he wont have to treat it ...watch under our skin and justinandchristie..
there is herbs and bee venom therapy ..also rife and you can order med online and self treat ...andrographis ,smilax ,lomatium,teasel and others have been helpful...real gains with rocephin and bee venom

Welcome jampee...bvt is cheep..read the ellie lobel story ..watch justin and christie on u toob....she only spent 340k...

will there be cake hit 200k in two years ...im at 20k in 1 yr ...test parasites , learn herbs @nd you can by online meds and self treat ....but ya refinance,sell the cow, take off work and fight

Stopping by to say welcome! You've gotten some really AWESOME advice already, and I don't think I have much to add. I can just share what worked for me.

One: Big shift in my diet. Created an environment that bacteria doesn't like. For my body - no gluten, no dairy, no caffeine, no alcohol, NO SUGAR

Two: I began to do what I could - I don't have access to anti-biotics (no LLMD's in my area - couldn't afford one anyways)- so I went the herbal route and followed my intuition about which protocol going with Buhner's protocol because it was cheapest. I began with Cats Claw and Japanese Knotweed and focused one ONE thing - the lyme spirochete.

Three: I came to this forum often with questions and did my own research. I logged symptoms, what I ate, reactions and began to mix things up and treat different things when symptoms stopped improving. I trusted my gut instincts on things.

I just want to echo about IDD. The people here warned me not to expect much when I went to see one in my insurance network. The person openly admitted that IDD's don't often have the time to stay on top of what's new and then proceeded to give me mis-information. A complete idiot. Her view was, that all of my symptoms would go away now that my brain aneurysm was repaired. Total moron.