I'm so very happy you have made such wonderful progress so far!!
It's amazing that your story and mine are fairly similar. Although I was infected for 40 years before finding an effective treatment and did not have life threatening seizures (although I did have seizures) and many of the other things you spoke about
. I was lucky enough to understand that I did not have RA or MS (MS was the diagnosis that most doctors were stuck on with me), and refused the treatments. I count myself lucky for that. And for having a husband that was not ready to loose me yet either. He was the one that found the doctor that finally helped me heal.
You can also email me for referrals in NY or NJ, but you can also just continue to treat herbally. I've healed once using only herbs, and I'm doing it again.
This is pretty much accepted now by most good LLMD's I think, but from watching what happened to me and others in this community, here is what I believe we need to do to heal:
a)Detoxing - gene mutations, mold exposure and multiple tick-borne infections can all prevent us from detoxing well, but we must be able to get those toxins out of our bodies.
You can find some really good detoxing suggestions in the "New to Lyme?" thread that sits at the top of the forum. And this is another really good resource for detoxing ideas for Lyme patients:
www.tiredoflyme.com/detox-methods.html But, there is such a thing as over detoxing. This happens when we move more toxins than our body is capable of processing out effectively. Many toxins are stored in our tissues, and by detoxing, we move them to the bloodstream where we can process them out of our bodies through the lymph system, then on to the liver and kidneys as so on. We have to be sure to add in more detoxing routines slowly and carefully, or we will end up herxing just like we had never been detoxing. This article helps to explain that some:
www.tiredoflyme.com/4-reasons-why-you-still-feel-bad-despite-detoxing.html b)Supporting the body functions/systems. We have to have the body working at it's peak performance to heal from something as devastating as these infections. Supporting any gland, organ, body system that is struggling will allow the body to switch it's 'concentration' from just trying to function over to healing.
c) Raise the immune function. Many legitimate Lyme researchers now believe that it's the lowered immune function that determines who gets chronic Lyme and who heals right away. We already know that Lyme lowers the immune function and when a person has Bartonella and/or Babesia, the immune function is further compromised, so to heal we must raise our immune function.
d) Lastly, oddly enough, are anti-infective treatments. Many of us have experienced treatment failures, so we can see that the treatments aren't the only thing we need to have - there has to be more to the equation, but anti-infective treatments are very important!! Lyme bacteria are one of the most complicated bacteria! Although it takes only hours or days for most bacteria to replicate, Lyme bacteria only replicates in the body every few weeks.