HELP! Dilemma: Treatment for crohn ft. lyme?

1.Today I got diagnosed with crohn's disease. (auto-immune disease of the small intestines)
2.Today I also got results back from lyme tests: Dubious borrelia infection and positive erlechia co-infection

My complaints are: Nausea, weight loss, dizzyness, vertigo, sweat attacks, mood swings, sharp stings, muscle twitches, soft to medium-hard stool (switching between orange and brown)

The dilemma: >>>>>> Intestine specialist wants to put me on corticosteroids: These drugs slow down your immune system, reducing inflammation of crohn's, but also these drugs open all doors for lyme and co-infections by putting down the immune system!

What do I do? Do I take these drugs or should I get more proof I have crohn or search alternative treatment like LDN/Homeopathy? (they made diagnosis from high levels of calprotectin in feaces and a thick intestine portion found on a MRI scan, colonoscopy was all good tho.. I'm worried my crohn is a symptom of lyme/erlechiosis and this treatment will tear me up)

Hi Damrack,
Welcome to our forum! I am so sorry to hear of all the things that are going on! You've come to a great place to explore your treatment options and learn more about Lyme and other tick-borne infections. Healing Well also has a forum for Crohn's Disease if you are interested.

You are correct in thinking that by resolving the Lyme and other tick-borne infections that the Crohn's could settle down or be healed. You are also correct - as Achievinggrace also said - in the fact that that steroids will allow the infections to go even deeper into the body by lowering the immune system.

If I were you I would evaluate how severe the Crohn's is - if you feel like it's safe to just let it ride for a while, then find a LLMD to treat you or you can find an Alternative Health Care Practitioner to treat you.

Alternative medicine has a lot to offer Lyme patients if you are interested. Many here are using Naturopathic Doctors, I use a Practitioner of Chinese Medicine/Western herbs/acupuncture for my healing. Here is a link to a site where you can look over several other natural treatments for Lyme:
www.lymediseaseresource.com/Protocols.html

If you haven't already, it would be beneficial 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 relevant information, symptom lists and informative links that have been put together by our members here! Most of those who have read through it have said that it was very helpful!!

We also have a pretty good search function on this forum to help you narrow down your search for information from past posts. We must be our own health advocates now and the best thing to arm yourself with is knowledge about our infections and the different ways to treat them!

I'm so sorry to hear about all you're struggling with! I don't know much about Crohn's - but I do think it's important for you to find a doctor who is going to search for a treatment option that works for your conditions, but not against the others.

Like I said, I don't know nearly anything about crohn's disease, but I do know that it's an autoimmune disease. Do you know if Plaquenil is an option? My sister takes this for an atypical autoimmune disease and has had amazing progress (she's pretty much recovered at this point and back to being her wonderfully overachieving self). I also just started the same thing for it's cyst-busting properties (against the cystic form of Lyme bacteria). I don't know if this is an option that doctors treating crohn's use at all, or if it's effective, but it could be worth looking into as it might be like killing two birds with one stone on the off chance that it's the right combination for your set of problems.

Either way I wish you the best! And please let us know if you'd like help finding an LLMD in your area - I think that might be a good step.

Hi everyone, thank you for all the replies it means alot to me! I'm glad I finally found a community with active, real people! :-D

- The stumach-liver-intestine specialist wants me to decide on next tuesday if I'll take the entocort (9mg) for 4 weeks.

- I've got a LLMD, he's telling me to try the entocort and see how it goes - then come back to him to do treatment for the erlechiosis. The borrelia infection result was dubious, which I guess wasn't enough evidence for him to start treatment. (LTT test: 3 of <3, ELISA: negative, WB: 5 of <6 P100/P41, PCR: negative)

- My regular docter: I've tried to convince her today I need a second opinion for the crohn, becuase I don't have typical crohn symptoms (I don't have bloody diarrea, abdominal pain or cramps!) and I'm really worried about this drug beeing a double edged knife. She says I don't need to take the medicine but she doesn't believe I have lyme or that corticosteroids could have a negative effect on a possible lyme infeciton. :/ Sigh... I tried really hard to convince her but she kept on going that the immune system is a complex system of 8 or more layers and the steroid only dulls one.

- I recently read something about LDN(Low dose naltrexone - an immune-system booster) beeing great for both crohn and semi-good for lyme. Anyone have any experience with this?

I've had antibiotics (Amoxicilline, claritromycine) a while back for a Helicobacter Infection (false positive, biopt of the stumach wall soon after faeces test showed negative for HB infection) This dramatically improved my intestinal problems and general condition (except for the dizzyness/imbalance).

@achievinggrace: thanks for the welcome and the advice!

@traveler: thanks for the tips/interesting link: I'm currently doing supplements (garlic, aloe vera, psynogenol, curcuma, magnesium, VIT B/C/D, pro-biotics, zeolite) and tinctures (cat’s claw, teasel) but I'm betting I'll find some good tips on that detailed website!

@cheezhead: Wow sounds like you went trough exactly what I'm going trough D: Glad you got your diagnosis, it's so hard to get doctors to see what I see. Did you follow the crohn treatment after diagnosis or did you decline it?

@borderlyme: Interesting! I haven't heard of Plaquenil, I'll adress it to the stumach-liver-intestine specialist...!

@MysteryLyme: Glad you overcame your infection and ty for the advice! I agree that a round of anti-biotics can downgrade a BB infection to such a level that your immune system can take control again. I experienced this 3 years ago with my first lyme (at least I think it's lyme, don't have the proof or diagnosis yet...)outbreak (I got a ABX treatment for Helicobacter for a week and all my symptoms where gone for at least two years!) ..Out of curiosity... what where your crohn symptoms and lyme symptoms?

Ty take care wish you all good health and recovery!