Has anyone tried natural treatments?

Hey there!

After being diagnosed with fibromyalgia and getting new symptoms that were very different out of nowhere (intense shaking, almost as if I'm incredibly cold, accompanied with deep anxiety, breathing difficulties and GI problems) I posted on the fibro forum asking for help, and if anyone had success in treating these symptoms because pain just wasn't my big issue (although I do have it).
They were very supportive but many of them mentioned that it didn't sound like fibro, and that's when the thought of it being Lyme came up.
My parents mentioned me having a bulls eye rash before, when I was 14 (I am 20 now) but I couldn't see it because it was on my back. We didn't think much of it because everyone kept assuring us it was a "spider bite" but when I talked to my mom about it again and showed her pictures of EM rashes she said that was EXACTLY it, and we lived down south in a very warm area and I was rather partial to being outside and walking in the forested areas.

So, after checking through the symptoms of late stage lyme disease, I think it's pretty obvious that I have it! However, while these shaking attacks I get are incredibly uncomfortable, they don't happen on a daily basis (I have had 3, 2 rather bad and 1 mild, in the last 2-3 weeks) and it's something that I'm able to "wait it out" at home. Because of this and the fact that my pain simply comes and goes and I have a very high pain tolerance, and then the only more consistent thing these days is fatigue and some general flu-ish feelings, I think it's safe to say that I probably have a more mild-moderate case.

My mom conveniently happens to be a naturopath (though she hasn't practiced in a while, she's going to refresh herself on lyme treatments) so I have easy access to natural treatment, and I was wondering if any of you are on it, and what's worked for you and what hasn't??
I'm going to let my GP know about it as well so that if it doesn't improve or I get worse I can take a course of antibotics alongside the natural treatment, but I have a dental surgery soon that's also going to require me being put on antibiotics, and antibiotics do NOT take well to my body as I'm incredibly sensitive/allergic to many of them along with many types of medication.

So, yes, any personal experiences about what's worked and what hasn't and how you felt with natural treatments would be very welcomed! I'd also like to hear from any of you if you also have antibiotic sensitivities and have done an antibiotic course, how that went?? I'm feeling very hopeful!

Thanks!!

Thanks both of you!
Sayyadina, yes, that does sound like what I experience. I also have cholinergic urticaria (allergy to my body heat) that I've had all my life, and I happen to be the one of the .6 in a million that are allergic to vaccinations so when I was immunized as a baby I got extreme fevers and had to be kept in ice baths and air tents from allergic reactions, and because of those two things my idea of what I think my temperature is seems waaaay off. When I get these shakes, my upper body feels really hot so I try and cool off but then the shakes get worse, and while I can't feel the cold internally when I take my temperature I am surprisingly cold despite what I feel. So I've found that even though it makes me uncomfortable with the heat, I have to do like you said-- bundle up in blankets and I lay down beside someone warm and the shaking slowly goes away. But as soon as I cool down again it'll come back. Typically lasts about three hours until it totally passes.

Hi ellip and welcome!

Sorry to hear you are not feeling well and I believe (I could be wrong) that spiders and ticks are in the same family.

Anyway, that's great that your Mom is a naturopath! I also recommend reading Stephen Buhner's book Healing Lyme as well as the book by the doctor who's protocol I followed (from his book) called Beating Lyme by Dr. David Jernigan. I have been totally healed for over 8 years now!

Buhner's books can be found on Amazon but not Jernigan. The only place that I know to buy his book is here:

www.hansacenter.com and click on store and then books.

Dr. Jernigan also has many video's you can watch and well as several people interviewing him.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMk0L4eXiYo

Below is an interview with Katrina Makris (cured of lyme and author of Out of the Woods):

hansacenter.com/listen-to-dr-jernigans-interview-on-chronic-lyme-disease-on-lyme-light-radio/ (right above where it says Bullet Points, it states Click Hear To Listen).

Hope this helps!
Denise

Thank you Traveler and Dejavuu! Traveler I read your story and its fantastic! I've been so worried that I'm "too far in" with my symptoms that natural treatment won't be as effective, but hearing how sick you were and how much you improved is really amazing! I am definitely notbthat ill, haha. And really, if I didn't have serious anxiety as one of my symptoms the other symptoms I have would not seem that bad at all.

I'm gonna give all this info to my mom so she can start reading up on it. She wants a couple weeks to become more Lyme literate before starting any treatment.

I must say that as optimistic as I have been, I'm also very worried. I live in northern Canada, and while out hospital isn't the worst, its also not very good, and since I'm so far north I don't think there's and Lyme literate doctors up here. I'm of course going to talk to my GP this week anyway and inform them about the Lyme thing and let them know I'm starting natural treatment first, but I'm afraid of this "herxing" thing and if that gets bad, what on earth would I do? I don't know, it's just a very uneasy time for me given how far away I am from a more reliable medical system. I'm also very poor (and a college student) so making medical trips and appointments with other natural healing doctors is a lot of money I don't have.

I was JUST looking at the detox information in the New To Lyme thread! It's funny because I was, on my own before thinking I had lyme, taking mild detox baths now and then almost instinctively to help myself!

There is a chance that I could have been infected with Lyme longer than I thought, but I'm not sure it's very likely. We would go camping a lot when I was a child but my parents were always very vigilant about watching for ticks, and when I was very young they even had one of those funny looking white suits for keeping bugs off that they had me wear if we were in forested areas. I remember when I was a kid they would frequently do body and hair checks for ticks as well. I lived up in the norther region here in Canada most my life, but when the EM rash showed up it happened to be in the one year we lived down in the Kootenay Boundary District, which is right beside the US border and has a higher tick population (and rattlesnakes, yikes). At the time I was 14 and they weren't as protective about checking me for ticks then, considering I was busy being an angsty teenager.

I was born with a likelihood for allergies though. I had eczema and oral thrush at birth which apparently is a big marker that you're going to develop allergies later on. I had a milk allergy as a baby as well (which mostly went away and became a mild intolerance later on). I also had hay fever and asthma most of my life, and the temperature allergies onset around the time I was 6. My grandmother has a LOT of allergies as well so I think they skipped a generation and hit me!

That being said, my copious amount of allergies happened AFTER the EM rash occurred, about a year on the dot later I suddenly woke up at three am covered in hives the size of dinner plates (literally, it was frightening) and they stayed for 8 days, and blistering remained for about a month. My allergies are weird, they progress and change, the more mild ones, so some of it is definitely related to the Lyme in my opinion.

Some of them do create skin reactions, yes. I also get less typical reactions from allergies such as shaking, fainting, fevers, disorientation, and vomiting (without always having the other typical GI symptoms).
My nutritionist recommended doing rotation diets for allergies, but I find that the lyme-related allergies are much different than regular allergies and don't seem to follow the same rules that regular allergies do, haha. I've been waiting 8 months or so now for the allergist to book an appointment with me, but hopefully that happens in the fall and I'm going to try some immunotherapy shots.

Support wise, I've had serious allergies for five years now, and it was reaaaaaally complicated and stressful at first, but eventually it becomes so second skin that you hardly even notice it (until you suddenly have cravings for things you're now allergic to!). I read about this one doctor before who did a bunch of detoxing and healthy eating with complete elimination of everything he was allergic and sensitive to, and did a lot of exercise every day for a year and his allergies cleared up!

I'm glad I seem to do all right being in colder regions, I'd rather not get more tick bites! Hahah.
That being said, I'm feeling kind of blah off and on lately. For whatever reason since those big attacks started just over two weeks ago I've had this lingering anxiety and depression that just won't go away. I keep getting upset, because we've had such nice weather here, and I want to do the things I loved doing even just last year, like going out hiking and jogging, going to the lake and having hot dogs. I feel so consumed by worry that this disease will eventually kill me before I'm ready, or that I'll become so debilitated that I won't ever be able to do the things I love again. But, at the same time, I do know that there's hope and so many here seem to have improvement from the natural treatments!
I wish treatment wasn't so expensive though. I sent an e-mail to a natural healing clinic down south in the city asking if they treat for lyme disease, because while it's nice having my mom help I would also like to see a naturophatic doctor that's worked with lyme previously (plus they have private labs that they can do more specific testing in, so maybe I'll get a more accurate look at what all is going on with me). But the travel and hotel stay alone is a lot of money, and then it's about 90-150 dollars an hour for your first appointment, and labs are varying in expense but a fair amount of money usually. It's certainly not as much as those of you in the states have to pay, but when you're as dirt broke as I am, it's still so hard (especially when the clinic is 22 hours away).

Thanks sayyadina! Tinctures sounds like it'd be a good option for me, since I'm really sensitive to things too.

Yeah, unfortunately my adverse reactions to immunizations are near-death, so I'm currently completely unvaccinated, and honestly, it's really horrible. I could probably gripe forever about how because of not being immunized it's not safe for me to travel the world (or even go to certain areas in the states), that I have to be careful in congested city centers and try to wear masks and gloves if I'm not feeling okay about it, I wanted to do aviation maintenance before I got into college for what I'm going toward now (forensic psychiatry) but I can't, because I can't receive tetanus shots. The list goes on and on. But, I heard that there might be immunotherapy for vaccines that I can try to get, so I'm trying to look into that!

My mom actually has a meat allergy, too! Red meat specifically. Here it's actually not that uncommon to have a meat allergy (we have 11 top allergens too, and I think the states only recognizes 8?). Some people have meat allergies based on what they're fed, for instance people with really bad gluten allergies can react to meat that's fed gluten.
That tick bite info is neat though. My mom in her education learned a lot about blood types too, and apparently some blood types handle meat than others do, I wonder if that influences it as well?

Unfortunately testing isn't available here. I actually just saw my GP and was amazed at how supportive he was. He was honest that he hasn't treated many people with lyme disease, but he's also not from here and seems to know a bit more about it than most doctors here. He urged that I just not do antibiotics at all since I'm late stage/chronic. He said that apparently, antibiotics for chronic lyme are (like I found snooping around some of the academic articles on lyme) largely not evidence based, and it's more of a bandaid fix but also with a trove of side effects that my body probably just shouldn't go through. He was supportive of me trying to do natural treatments, and said it was the right idea because he would have suggested symptom management of some kind anyway, and then it's really up to me whether I want that to be natural or pharmaceutical. Since we can't do testing for the tick-borne infections, going natural is probably the safer bet.
We can do the ELISA test, but that's the only test available, and it actually gets sent to labs in the states! He said because of how inaccurate that can be and since we don't have a battery of tests available, it's probably better that I just try and symptom treat on my own for whatever I can. And that if I want to find a good naturopath that works with Lyme I should look in Alberta for one, and he'd try and do more research on late stage/chronic lyme and see if he can find anything worth trying.

So, not the MOST helpful, but at least he was supportive and gave me the reassurance I needed that I was on the right track!
I definitely am going to look into the bartonella thing. My anxiety is definitely my number 1 complaint right now. But I am feeling a bit better, though. After a little over 3 weeks of angry flare ups, my body seems to be calming down a little bit. Which is nice, I could use a break haha.

Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is know to cause red meat allergies.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19413526

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3085643/

Or you can search the internet for "RMSF, red meat allergy"