Pregnancy and Lyme

I have two children. Got weird symptoms after birth of first child. Took 3 years to figure out I had Lyme. Tested positive for Lyme through Igenex July. Wanting to get pregnant again. Saw an LLMD. Currently taking herbs for two months. LLMD says I have to go on antibiotics while pregnant and nursing. Wanting to know if anyone did this and how there pregnancy was? How their baby was after delivery? And how Mom was after delivery?

Thank you for all your input and responses. I am very nervous

Lymess

Hi Girlie!

Thank you for the warm welcome. I have been a visitor to this site for 2+ years and finally joined, because I am really needing the support and camaraderie right now. Yes, I have thought about postponing pregnancy, but unfortunately my age is an issue. : ( My LLMD said because of my age she said that she would advise me not put off trying. She also said that the chance of passing Lyme to baby goes from 50% w/o antibiotics during pregnancy to 20% chance passing by using one antibiotic and down to 5% chance with two antibiotics. I am considering taking just one. I had two great pregnancies and blessed with two healthy kids. I have not had kids tested yet. I go back and forth if I should or shouldn’t since they do not pose any symptoms. I would love to hear your thoughts.... thank you

Thank you for your honest opinion it means a lot. Definitely a hard decision.

Yes, I could wait the year but that doesn’t guarantee me remission or fertility. : ( Lots to think about

My main symptoms are body twitching and vibrations? Do you have that? I read some of the debilitating symptoms on here and people suffering and I just start crying. This is such a confusing, messy, awful disease.

Thank you so much Girlie! Happy Thanksgiving to you! Learning about other people’s stories or symptoms help calm me down somewhat. Did your twitches go away? What did you take that helped? If you don’t mind sharing what are your other symptoms? Today I woke up with a mysterious rash all over my legs. I swear keeping the anxiety at bay is very challenging.

Hello,

I would not take the type of antibiotics that can be allowed during pregnancy. Penicillin is never successful in obliterating borrelia and Zithromax does not work either. Before I spent untold hours researching and started microscopy - we read that antibiotics reduced the risk; and as Girlie stated there is no way any doctor could give the risk of a baby contracting borrelia. We followed a prominent physician's advice and of course, my daughter has many morphologies in her blood, despite antibiotics during pregnancy. She is like her four siblings who also have it.

I am posting a video today of my son, who had all the treatment recommended for a child and then some, but is post-treatment CDC Western blot positive and twice positive for borrelia DNA in the blood. This video uses acridine orange and the amount of spirochetal and other morphologies is truly astounding. The video represents just a fraction of the morphologies from two blood draws, and I will later post the comprehensive video of 1000s and 1000s of spirochetes and other forms. For decades science has told us that penicillin cannot work well against borrelia. You will hurt your microbiome with no positive outcome.

I am convinced there is no way to stop congenital transmission. But the symptoms may not start for many years and borrelia has varying long-term effects on individuals.

Thanks.

Most pediatricians or any clinician have very little education on borrelia. Ask the doctor how much personal time they have spent researching lyme. I did that once and the doctor admitted only around 3 hours in their whole life - and that was likely an exaggeration. The truth is that it is everywhere in the blood and I always find it. If you watch some of the recent videos on my youtube site from my wife's blood and compare the forms from my son's blood on the video I am posting in the next couple days, you will see that they have the same elaborate morphologies of spirochetes, L-bodies, and other aggregates. They are both DNA positive after treatment. 5 kids - how does the pediatrician explain that? Here is a link to my Youtube site:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMcCeO0tG4R4HOy8fFYIEnA

The video of my son's blood I took this week is insane and it will be up as soon as I can post it.

Hi Lymess,

I unknowingly had Lyme while I was pregnant with all 3 of my kids, and guess what? All three of them had Lyme. My LLND (after the fact) also said that transmission was 50/50, but 100% of my kids got it, so I'm not sure the stats are real.

I honestly don't know what I would do if I knew I had Lyme before I got pregnant. I can't imagine not having my kids, but at the same time, it is SO HARD to manage all of our illnesses, not to mention astronomical in terms of cost.

You have a hard decision ahead of you, and I wish you the very best!

Oh and wanted to send my sympathies to Johb2. I am so sorry you are all going through this. Incredibly hard. You sound like your an amazing dad trying to research and help your family.

Jasperilla my heart is breaking for you as I read this. I am deeply sorry. I can only imagine a day in the life in your shoes, and your right is sounds insanely hard. I definitely can relate to the guilt feeling. The cost of treatments. The fatigue part. And taking care of children when not feeling well.

You are sooo fortunate to have such an amazing husband. I too feel fortunate in that area. My husband is supportive in many levels. And some areas with this disease he lacks. Sometimes I feel like I’m on Lyme island alone. That’s why I finally after a couple years of visiting this forum I decided to join. Needed the comradorie and support. So thank you for writing and sharing your heart. I pray Doctors start to take this disease seriously and we find a cure.

If you don’t mind sharing... what are your symptoms and your kids symptoms? Have been considering getting my two tested but unsure what to look for.

Thank you again.

I am sending you a hug

Hello all. Again, a lyme study that uses flawed testing to ascertain lyme disease is not empirical evidence, when most antibody tests fail.

Dr. Alan MacDonald before he retired, would have people send him blood samples on dried slides with no methanol. His instructions to me regarding antibiotics were: "No need to stop any antibiotics. the FISH method works independently of ongoing therapies". In other words - it doesn't matter what you take, borrelia is still in the blood. Unfortunately, he promised his wife he would retire before he could do my samples, but he was very kind in helping me get started with correspondence about microscopy. Just because a child does not have symptoms now, does not mean that the borrelia is not working on his or her body all over - becoming a symbiont for life. And that symbiont may cause some issues depending upon where it is and what it is doing. The range of problems varies dramatically. I would never not have children because of lyme disease. Obviously many people can live with it just fine, and those who do get it bad still have the joy of life, which far outweighs any sickness.

I posted the first of two videos of my son's analysis I did this week. I am not suggesting that antibiotics do not help, only that I do not believe anything can destroy all the borrelia at this point - nothing can come even close. Look at some of the lyme activists - they have tried everything for years and the spirochetes still squiggle in their blood.

Finally, the reason that congenital transmission is practically assured is that there are so many forms in the blood - spirochetes, l-forms, cysts, biofilms, giant aggregates, granules, etc. Spirochetes and other forms can exit L-bodies and granules turn into spirochetes. Look at this video I just posted from only 4 blood drops - and I did not have time to thoroughly examine and record the morphologies - this is only a fraction of what was in these four blood drops. Here is the link - thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_e_s0J435U

Shocking microscopy-Boy w/congenital lyme has PTLDS -Post Treatment Lyme Disease STILL THERE P1 OF 2

Post Edited (JohnB2) : 11/29/2017 4:13:47 AM (GMT-7)

Lymess - thank you so much for your kindness! It IS really hard, but honestly it's not ALL dark and dreary. We're pretty upbeat most of the time.

As for symptoms, my symptoms now are much better than they were a few years ago. Now I have fatigue, and while it's definitely improved, I still often need to choose between taking the kids to the park or being able to make dinner. Or sometimes I can do both, but then I need a quiet few days afterwards. I still have memory problems, pain if I do too much, but not otherwise. I have sound sensitivity and don't handle stress well. I also get overwhelmed very easily. All in all, a huge improvement from where I was, but it still affects me every day.

My girls have had a lot of things going on essentially since birth. My oldest exhibits a lot of ADHD-type symptoms, and has since she was born. It's hard to explain, because babies can't exhibit ADHD symptoms, but as she grew, and a symptom became a possibility, she had it. She was sensory-seeking as a newborn (needed a lot of physical stimulation to be able to go to sleep) and was hyperactive as an infant (NEVER sat still). She had reflux and tracheomalacia, which Dr. J (a pediatric Lyme specialist says can be symptoms). She still exhibits a lot of the ADHD-type symptoms, but none of them are severe enough to cause us a huge amount of trouble. She does well enough in school, but is very forgetful and needs a lot reminders and check-ins. She doesn't have learning difficulties. Where she has her most trouble is socially. She has poor impulse control, lack of boundaries, no verbal filter and she's socially immature. As she's gotten older, the bottoms of her feet hurt, her legs hurt, she has digestive troubles (stomach aches), and has fatigue so she can't be as active as she once was. She get dizzy sometimes. She has had an eye infection since March that the ophthalmologist is the longest one of her pediatric patients has had one.

My youngest girl had feeding trouble, failure to thrive, severe colic (to the point the pediatrician ran a bunch of tests because she was convinced she was in pain). Her colic wasn't the crying non-stop for hours in the evenings, she would scream like someone was murdering her every waking minute until she was 3 months old. She had proprioception problems, which affected her development. She ended up not having delayed development, but she was on the late end of the calendar. She also has a twin brother, so that might have impacted why she wasn't delayed; she had someone to emulate. She has a very severe anger / rage problem, which started as a toddler, and is just now seeming to maybe become controlled. She tested for a yeast overgrowth, which my LLND says can cause severe anger, so she's on essential oil pills from a compounding pharmacy and we seem to be seeing an improvement (it's been about 2 weeks). But her anger issues took up so much of my time and energy because she literally would rage for hours every day.

My son, who is the least symptomatic of all of them, had no issues as a baby, but starting around 4, he had random aches and pains in his body. His skin was sensitive to touch and his legs hurt a lot. He also has a fair amount of stomach aches / digestive troubles, and has been known to randomly vomit on occasion. Just once, so we don't think he's sick.

They all also have some level of sensory issues with regards to clothing. My middle girl is the worst. She likes her clothes to be VERY tight, but then gets mad when they impact her movement, or bunch up. She's the one who rages, so calming her down is very difficult. My LLND recently suggested getting a weighted blanket for her to see if it helps, and it does. She likes a lot of pressure on her body. So I give her strong hugs, use the blanket and sometimes just push on parts of her body.

I'm sorry this got so long, so many of my kids' symptoms are not as simple as pain, fatigue....

I don't mind sharing at all, especially if it's of help to anyone.

Joe - I can't really answer your question, but Lyme can be transmitted sexually, so your wife has likely been exposed (unless you're using condoms). Whether or not she has symptoms doesn't mean she doesn't have Lyme. I transmitted Lyme to my kids during pregnancy when I had no symptoms, and didn't know I had it.

My advice for both of you would be that, if you do have children, do your best to keep their immune systems healthy with adequate rest, good, nutritionally-dense food, low-toxin levels in their personal care products, etc. Dr. Rawls wrote a great article on how Lyme can be controlled by the immune system until the immune system reaches a tipping point. He describes what contributes to that tipping point, so you can focus on those things. Google William Rawls Boiling Point. He also has a book that goes into even more detail. I would also familiarize yourself with pediatric Lyme symptoms so you can be on top of it right away if it seems like Lyme might be involved.

I follow Dr. K's protocol, and it has definitely helped me improve! They are heavy on detox, and I do chlorella twice every day, plus another binder. The type changes periodically, but I'm on Zeobind right now.

I think detox is crucial, because I really don't herx much at all, but am definitely getting better.

As for colonics, OMG, they are awful! Before I started ozone my LLND wanted me to get one, and then get another one after the ozone. I only lasted the minimum amount of time and never could go back for the second one. It was way too painful, which the woman said would ease up after a few minutes, but never did, plus the idea that other people had done the same thing before me grossed me out so badly I just felt completely contaminated. It was way too stressful for me. So now I do enemas at home after ozone, and let me tell you, they are not pleasant, but so much better than a colonic. And once I was too busy to do the enema after ozone, and I ended up getting sick for a week, but when I do them, I feel fine. So they definitely work for detoxing. I've only missed that one - lesson learned!

Sometimes I take epsom salt baths, do skin brushing and use essential oils for detox, but only if I feel I need extra support.

I'm do the Paleo diet, but probably not 100% - I use grass fed butter and sometimes allow a little sugar in a product if I can't find one without (like sriracha or something). I also allow myself to cheat every so often, for sushi with my husband, or on Thanksgiving. Oh, and I also put a little organic half and half in my morning coffee. But I'm also not terribly sensitive to foods, but did improve by leaps and bounds once I cleaned up my diet. As long as I maintain at about 90%, I'm good.

My kids have done so many different diets. We first got my oldest of gluten, and noticed a HUGE improvement in her ADHD-type symptoms and her anger issues (she raged a lot like my younger one and was very emotional and easily upset until she was about 8). The ADHD-type symptoms settled way down, and the rage / emotional lability pretty much disappeared. So they're all gluten-free. My oldest also is sensitive to dairy, so they're all dairy-free. I can't handle too many different diets, lol.

My oldest did a food sensitivity test, where it showed she was sensitive to a TON of foods, so we cut all of those out for all of them (for my peace of mind), but saw nothing, so we added them back in. Then we put them all on a strict Paleo diet, and saw nothing, so they went off that too.

Because so much of my oldest daughter's issues are social, we also feel having such a restricted diet made her stand out even more and were not helping her situation. So, now, they are completely gluten- and dairy-free, and at home, we really limit refined sugar (use maple syrup, honey, stevia, monk fruit, etc. instead), corn, soy, and use no inflammatory oils (canola, soy, safflower, etc.). We limit rice mostly because of the high arsenic content in rice (even organic). So sometimes they get the Paleo meals I eat (complete with cauliflower rice or zucchini noodles), but other times I'll give them real rice or GF pasta. I just make sure that their diet is not rice-heavy, like so many GF people's are. We also pretty much let them eat whatever at parties, playdates, etc., we just make sure it's GF and DF. So we often bring food for them.

We also don't notice a huge difference with the diet changes (except for gluten and dairy), so that's what we're really strict on, and limit the other inflammatory foods as much as possible at home. My oldest is 10, and soon will be places where she will be responsible for making her own food decisions, and I have to hope she will make smart choices. We do a lot of educating about food and how it affects the body, and they know their Lyme makes them need to be more careful.

They're really good about their food restrictions. They mutter about how they wish they could have cheese and gluten and stuff, but they eat what I make, and really like my homemade treats. They prefer my homemade Paleo pizza to any GF pizza from a restaurant, and love the desserts I make, so I think it's all good.

My husband, man, oh man, I don't know. We wondered about that, and got him tested through IGenex years ago (soon after I tested positive), and his test was pretty ambiguous. My old LLND said he was negative, but my new LLND said it's suspicious. He is very fatigued, has weird aches and pains, gets dizzy, has a lot of stomach problems, so it's quite possible that he has Lyme. But he definitely has SIBO, which can cause his symptoms (although maybe not the dizzy part), but SIBO can be part of Lyme as well. He's gearing up to take the DNA Connexions test, but we're so broke, he's having a hard time getting there. I definitely wouldn't be surprised if he has Lyme. Although part of me prays he doesn't, because he's the only financially keeping us afloat, and if I have to worry about him crashing at some point, I don't know what I'll do.

You're so welcome for the details, and please, feel free to ask me anything, I'm pretty open about things.

You're so sweet! Honestly, I'm far from an amazing mom! I feel lucky we CAN live a little! I know there are folks sicker than we are who can't.

No, Dr. K isn't my personal doc, but I go to one of his satellite clinics in CA and have been very happy with the results!

As for enema bags, I just searched on Amazon and got a silicone one. I really do think this form of detoxing is powerful, but I definitely don't look forward to it. I've been wanting to try an IF sauna, but heat makes me feel worse, so I've been to afraid.

It's so great that you've been feeling better and sleeping well - sleeping has always been a huge problem for me! I was taking Takesumi before I switched to Zeobind.

Yeah, the husband thing is worrisome. His symptoms are concerning, but I'm hoping it's the SIBO. But he's been treating his SIBO for MONTHS, and it's not getting better. :-/ I really hope your husband doesn't have it either!