Structural issues

Long post. I’ve never read your whole story before on your specific questions, good thing you wrote this.

I can relate. So I’m gonna tell you my story just so you know you’re not alone and you can see the order in which I have improved.

(My comment is long and I used what I call the voice thing on my smart phone. Way easier texting, but there might be a few spelling or word mistakes.)

I grew up in north central US surrounded by lakes, forest, and ticks. The first tick I remember I was about four years old that’s the earliest age I can remember anything.

I had a lot of structural body issues, for decades, probably since I was a child. and on top of that I was a competitive endurance athlete from age of 12 up to 35, I am now in my 50s. I could no longer do it in my late 30s. so I tried to remain in pretty good shape, but I think that somewhat masked my problems. In my 20s and early 30s, I learned how to do my sport with the handicaps that I had. To try anything else was absolutely miserable though. and then once i hit my late 30s, it was obvious something was very wrong.

The typical body structure Doctors were puzzled and I tried every type of chiropractic technique there was. My body was a combination of very stiff, and yet joints would pop out of place occasionally, and it was discovered that all of a sudden I had slight scoliosis as well, which I did not have when I was a child.

I started reading healing well around 2013 and finally started treating Lyme disease with many antibiotics via LLMD around eight years ago. After I did that different physical therapy and chiropractic techniques would work much better. My LLMD did not specifically treat one tick illness at a time. He basically threw a shotgun wide spread of antibiotics at me for a total of one and a half years it seem to help. But the damage has been done, and I’ve been working on the damage for the last five years.

It seems like if you have all over body pain and structural issues, which can also bother the nerves you have to start at the center which is the SI joint. My SI joint was stuck for years, making one leg higher than the other. My muscles actually adapted to this somewhat, which is both good and bad, the bad part was it took a long time to straighten and balance it out.

I had many chiropractic visits where they snapped her SI joint back into place and it did not last very long at first then sooner or later my SI joint just started to loosen up on its own, and sometimes it would make a noise and I could feel the change just rolling over in bed. that was kind of scary when I realize that was a good thing because it gave me the opportunity to strengthen the SI joint in its proper location. It took a couple of years to stabilize it and I needed to use a low back strengthening machine. Physical therapy places have these and some gyms do you also. But it needs to isolate your back. Many of them don’t work and you end up cheating using your legs or your Glute muscles, which will not strengthen your lower back muscles. Just remember when one muscle is weak or injured the other muscles try to take over its job.

To continue improve and maintain my back muscles I use a 45° incline bench facing forward and down, moving/ arcing down where my head gets close to the floor and then moving back up to a 45° upright incline. There is a foot rest that holds her feet in place that allows you to arc your upper body on a padded hip pad.

Most standard chiropractic only temporary Lee leaves pain in the neck. However, there is a complete different type of chiropractic called NUCCA, which is specifically for the neck. They actually do not crack it. They gently move it into place. This seems to work, but it takes mini appointments over a period of about a year, I go back every two months to check it. The theory is when your neck is on straight and centered on your atlas bone It should make everything else below it more likely to lineup as well.

NUCCA, has a specific website that shows chiropractors who offer this.

My body seems pretty good lately however, I do not completely trust it so I do not engage in very rigorous activity that I used to do, also keeping in mind that I am now in my later 50s.

I did twist my knee out of place last spring and an MRI revealed that my ACL ligament was ripped in several places and probably happeneda long time ago. So I have been doing physical therapy and specific workouts to strengthen the muscles around my knee because when you twist your knee without an ACL, you sprain every single muscle around your knee and due to the low blood flow, it takes a long time to regain strength. Living without an ACL has an actual term lol they are called “ACL copers”.

Interesting observation, for years, my left leg muscles in the outer thigh were kind of tight and nothing with loosen it up for a long time. Well, for the first time last spring, I went to actual Chinese acupuncture, which released the tension on the left side of my body. Three weeks after that I twisted my knee. So probably for years. The left side of my body was very tight. Trying to keep my knee in place since it knew my ACL had ruptured. The body tries to heal itself, but it doesn’t always do the job correctly, now I am strengthening my leg muscles correctly. Hopefully this’ll have a good results long-term. I also now have a knee brace should I decide to do more rigorous outdoor activities again off the beaten path.

My tight body muscles and aches and pains also made it very difficult to sleep the recommended 7 to eight hours in the past. For many years only slept three hours. Now I can sleep up to 5 to 6 hours sometimes seven on the weekend but I will be a little more stiff in the morning then. I am and always have been an afternoon or early evening napper. 15 minutes on the couch is a huge difference for me for the remainder of the day.

Post Edited (astroman) : 11/12/2023 10:18:09 AM (GMT-8)

What you describe, unfortunately, is the expected result of thirty years of untreated Lyme disease.

The borrelia got into my joints and the joints would swell. At first it was subtle and not painful. I ended up buying slightly bigger shoes, but otherwise did not notice much. Then occasionally I would notice that my hip or shoulder or back would hurt from time to time. Over a few years it got worse.

Once I killed the borrelia, all this buildup started to disintegrate. The amount of crud that I peed out was incredible. I would wake up in the night to pee, and peed out urine so cloudy that I couldn't see the bottom of the toilet. This has been going on for over a year. It is a really long and slow process to get rid of it all. A lot of the joints have gone back to normal, but I still have a problem in my shoulders.

As for the face twitching, yes it's generally hormonal, and I am taking hydrocortisone because of my adrenals being over stressed.

Regarding the numbness in my hands, I'm not sure if it's just the mass of borrelia pressing on the nerves, or micro blood clots cutting off the circulation. Probably both. It has gotten better with treatment.

some great input above from someone who has gone through many structural issues themselves

i will limit my comments to what seems to me to be your main questions

1, is it due to infections?
and
2, is it worth treating?

in my opinion from everything i have experienced and read over the 8 years i have been studying the topic in depth i would say

1, if you have been diagnosed with vector borne illness in the past - and still have debilitating symptoms - then - yes, i believe this is exactly how these illnesses manifest in people who have gone through the acute phase and then partially recovered -
there are numerous papers showing the kind of stereo-typical picture often described as lyme disease ( i am using the term in the broad sense - of chronic lyme and or co-infections ) is not how everyone experiences the disease.
for example i have been told by so called infectious disease doctors that i couldn't have lyme disease because in thier view - i would be on a rapidly descending staircase of more and more symptoms which would have landed me in hospital long ago
but if we look at the actual published medical literature on the topic we see that this is just ill informed nonsense. for example - there are studies of large patient groups that show something like 50% of chronic lyme patients can do at least some kind of part time work -
and
most bartonella positive people in Breitschwerdt's study of vets and animal workers found they were also mostly partially functional - still working but with pain syndromes, fatigue, rheumatological issues reduced quality of life etc
so its not at all uncommon for people with this illness to be semi functional - but its a spectrum - so some will be bedridden - and some will have either no noticeable symptoms of a "summer flu" and then recover - and everything in between

you should congratulate yourself for doing enough to get yourself recovered to this stage
where you can partially function - that in itself is an achievement

2, is it worth treating - or should you regard it as incurable?
its obviously a difficult illness to treat
but there are a number of recent papers showing people can recover even after 20 or 30 years of illness
eg
the Fallon/lambert study earlier this year showing 10 bedbound or paralysed patients recovered - after suitable antibiotic treatment targeting their infections - many of whom after being ill for many years
or
the horowitz series of studies exploring Dapsone treatment - where people reached remission even after 20+ years - and his wife is now in remission after over 30 years of illness
so its clear it is treatable in even the sickest people and even those who have been ill for decades

the other aspect of this disease that i think people often overlook when deciding their direction - is that the disease is slow moving - but not entirely static -

unfortunately, this means we cannot safely assume whatever its doing today or in the last month or so - is what is will be doing next month or a year from now.
typically its a disease of random ups and downs or new symptoms popping up out of the blue some of which settle down again as mysteriously as they came - others that do not.

in my case for example i was managing quite well - but then after 8 years i got serious heart symptoms out of the blue

this means that any calculation of " i can just about cope with it if it stays like this - so i don't need to treat it " includes that implied assumption - and is therefore not really dealing with the disease as it is or accounting for that future risk.
in reality the disease takes an ongoing toll on our bodies, there is a ridiculously long list of ways in which it can seriously impact our health over time - and if left untreated it is unfortunately likely that sooner or later there will be some of these problems further down the road that will impact our quality of life, or even shorten it dramatically.

i am sorry if this is an unwelcome or frightening message - that is not the intention.
i posted the reasons to be optimist about treatment above to try to highlight that there is every reason to be optimistic about treatment
i just want you to be fully informed of the facts when making your decision - so you get the best possible outcome for you.

for these reasons i believe its always advisable to treat the disease - and although we know it will be challenging - its way better than the other option - living with both the daily pain and suffering - as well as the sword of Damocles over your head.

i hope its of some help

i know what you mean - we all want a rapid cure - without all the tribulations

unfortunately that does not exist (i see a lot of people get into difficulties chasing it)

better to grasp the nettle - accept the reality - we have what we have - and that there is nothing really revolutionary on the near horizon

it is however possible to self treat and make progress

and with a gradual approach and say - pulsing - hexing can be manageable

i am currently self treating - with pulsing - and making progress
i have gone slower than some of the LLMD's do - because i live on my own and need to be able to look after myself - so it can be modulated to fit your circumstances - using the same underlying principles - and still be effective.

i think the key to self treatment is being systematic about it

not a few weeks of this then a month of that based on a whim or a hope and a prayer - instead a long term systematic plan - following those used by one of the better LLMD's is a good place to start.

you dont need to do it 100% like for like - but understand the main principles and why they do it that way - then adjust as needed to fit your circumstances

You might say I had a rapid cure ,….enough, which made me. functional.

I like to use the term in remission versus cure.

My LLMD used the shotgun technique. Throwing as many different types of antibiotics at me as possible while heavily monitoring my liver function.

It’s highly unusual to become functional in one and a half years after three decades of infection.

I was lucky, but there are still things that take time, and I may never be completely normal again for the rest of my life. The damage has been done but some of it appears to be reversible, probably not all of it.

“I do the ball on wall in traps but hard to get ball in the mass/ knot that there. It wants to roll over it .”

Maybe try a smaller ball?