The A - L is most likely referring to Byron White's formula's, I believe.
Welcome to our little spot, Marigold!! BTW - I love those flowers!! I'm always sure to plant them every spring and get to enjoy their sweet scent all season long!!
Like the others, I'm so sorry that you have these dreaded infections, but at least you now know what's been going on!! I too am a long time sufferer, as many of us are here - so you're in good company!! LOL!!
As Borderlyme suggested, it would be very good for you to read through our "New to Lyme? Start here!" thread at the top of the forum. It's packed full of important information, symptom lists and helpful links!! Pay close attention to the post about
detoxing, as this is something that we should all be doing, since our symptoms are driven by the toxins that these infections put off as they die - both a natural death and because of the anti-infective treatments.
We have a whole lot of info right here! We have a great search function that allows a person to search out the thread and posts that has information that pertains to them.
There are soo many books out now about
Lyme and the co-infections, which is a good thing as it gets the word out. The only book I've read was "Insights into Lyme Disease Treatments" by Connie Strasheim. It was a wonderful introduction into the different types of protocols and helped me tremendously to understand the goals of treatments. Here is a link so that you can see a preview of the book, should you be interested:
www.lymebook.com/insights-lyme-treatment-strasheim-book Something I
would encourage you to read though is Dr. Joseph Burrascano's paper, "Advanced Topics in Lyme Disease", as he writes in such a way that it's easy to understand, and he goes into what each form of Lyme is and how it acts, as well as the other infections that are usually passed along with Lyme - Bartonella, Babesia, Ehrlichia and so on. There is a link to that in our "New to Lyme?" thread, but I'll include one here as well:
www.ilads.org/files/burrascano_0905.pdf Many people choose to use not only the natural treatments to heal from these infections, but abx as well. This is up to you and a lot will depend on how you respond to each treatment. I am using only natural treatments, and am healing very well, with lots of progress.
Like many things with these infections, herxing is different for each person. When I first started treating my infections, I herxed so horribly and for so long that I had to quit using the abx and can't use them as of yet - that's when I switched to the natural treatments. Others don't hardly herx at all. It all depends on how blocked your detox pathways are and how well you tolerate the meds.
The length of a herx will change as well, depending on which med you are using and other factors too.
A herx is a worsening in the severity of your symptoms, or sometimes new symptoms pop up, due to the die off of the bacteria. You should do all that you can to not only avoid any real herxing, as a herx is a healing crisis and the body can't heal very well when it's in crisis, of course, but to help the body to detox by using the methods described in the "New to Lyme?" thread.
Many people repeat at least a portion of their treatments, because we want to be sure that the active infection is really gone. If a person is still having symptoms, then there is still an active infection going on. Personally I will need to repeat my treatment for Lyme, as my doc and I chose to move on to treat Bartonella and then Babesia, because we had my Lyme symptoms under much better control and the symptoms of the other infections were really knocking me down to the ground.
I've seen that lots of sites toss around the word "cured" when referring to Lyme disease, but I use the terms 'active' infection and healed, because if a person really does the research they will discover there really is no way to tell if the spirochetes are completely gone from the body unless an autopsy is done, as these bacteria can hide in the brain, eyes, joints, heart and other places without causing symptoms for decades. With effective treatments though, many people do go on to live happy, healthy lives!
Once again, Welcome!! Read all you can, as a better informed patient makes a better patient - and you can ask a whole lot of questions here since we are all here to help you learn and find your way through this time in your life!