HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Air travel and increase in Lyme symptoms

Support Forums
>
Lyme Disease
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 6/21/2012 3:33 AM (GMT 0)
Has anyone noticed an increase in Lyme symptoms during and after air travel? I have had to do a fair amount of traveling for work over the past 4 months and have noticed each time after I fly, my symptoms flare on all cylinders. Nausea, anxiety, depression, brain fog, extreme muscle pain and twitching etc. They all seem to hit hard. I am thinking it has something to do with the change in pressure and somehow that upsets the cellular Applecart and the bugs wake up in force. Anybody else have a similar experience?
Posted 6/21/2012 11:29 AM (GMT 0)
Hmmm. Very interesting. When I first went to Bahamas in 2005 and before any other noticable symptoms, I came home with an excredibly stiff neck. When it wouldn't subside I had to go to a chiropractor for the first time. By the time I travelled the following year, symptoms were out of control and I had been in ER for anxiety twice. It would take til 2009 to get diagnosed.

I am flying again next week so it should be interesting to see what happens.
Posted 6/21/2012 3:49 PM (GMT 0)
Definitely, air travel increases symptoms.

Some people think that it is the lower oxygen concentrations. However, I've actually found that travel by any means can do that. Even just a couple hours in the car.

I read somewhere that if your treatment plateaus, you can go for a trip and it will shake things up. The bacteria somehow can recognize when you are in a weakened state and comes out of hiding to form new colonies. At that point the bacteria is susceptible to antibiotics.
Posted 5/31/2014 2:41 PM (GMT 0)
I'm thinking this is true. If been doing fairly well and I went to Germany last month and had to come home early because the symptoms flared up horribly. Came home, started to feel better again. Went for a day trip to MS this past Thursday and I have been in agony ever since I returned.

I will say, I thought I'd beaten the lyme thing but now I'm not so sure. I've been tested negative a few times in the past 18 months. Just started taking indocin for the ongoing head issues. I'm under the care of the top headache doc in the US. Last night we almost called 911 as I had a crushing headache. Needless to say I have stopped the indocin.
Posted 5/31/2014 8:00 PM (GMT 0)
It might be the electro-magnetic interference from with the plane and being in the thinner part of the atmosphere. Apart from all the stress from travel, it add another load the body has to deal with.

Next time you have to travel, take off a shoe and sock and rest your foot on the bare metal bracket attaching your seat to the flusalage. It will connect you the the plan's grounding system and might prevent a flare-up.

I love to hear from anybody who tries this. My Lyme is pretty inactive so I don't suffer that much when I fly.
Posted 5/31/2014 9:25 PM (GMT 0)
Since I have the mold gene I am very aware of mold presence now. When I flew last time there was mold on ceiling tiles at Tampa International Airport and on the canopy as I was entering the plane at both airports. So if the OP has a mold problem that's why. All of my friends with mold problem have to take massive amounts of liposomal glutathione when traveling and so do I.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply