All good posts - PeteZa and Traveler - those are good lists of herbal protocols - are they in the "New to Lyme?" thread?
Kct said...
Anyone experience bad muscle soreness, burning especially when I try to yard work and gardening. It actually wakes me up at night sometimes, then I move and it lessens.
Sore, achey muscle symptoms are common with lyme and bart as well as yeast/fungal overgrowth. I also would have burning, sharp pain and spasms at night--this was the worst because it kept me from sleeping and often woke me up (which is the kiss of death for someone who struggles with insomnia).
I've experienced significant relief with LDN (low dose naltrexone - there are some good threads here discussing this) and treating yeast/fungal overgrowth (this is a complicated treatment - I'll be adding info to the "New to Lyme?" thread very soon so watch for an announcement on that.)
Kct said...
Also wondering if the herb protocols are as effective as antibiotics, because I'm getting tired of running to the bathroom and having loose BMs.
I think you'll find that most who are treating successfully are using a hybrid protocol with pharmaceutical and herbal abx. There is a specific way to use pharmaceutical abx but unfortunately, most MDs--even LLMDs/NDs aren't doing this.
GI PROTECTION
When people are having a lot of problems with abx t's often because they aren't doing enough to protect and care for their guts. Once our GIs become compromised (which can happen with improper administration of pharmaceutical abx and even some herbal protocols due to the high quantity of alcohol in tinctures) the mucosal lining of the gut is compromised, which is 70% of our immune system. Not only do they then have problems with sufficient absorption of foods and meds/supplements which can adversely affect the efficacy of their treatment, their immune systems also get weaker. Regardless of the protocols we're on (pharmaceuticals vs herbals abx) we generally can't heal without a functioning immune system.
DETOXING
And MOST people simply aren't detoxing effectively. More on this below.
IMMUNE SYSTEM OVERLOAD
Also, for people struggling with their treatment we often discover that they are treating for lyme & co with antimicrobials in isolation and haven't done enough to determine other stressors on their immune systems (other confections, viruses, protozoa, yeast/fungal overloads).
Of course there are people who cannot tolerate pharmaceutical abx and have had much more success with herbs, and vice versa. I think psychology plays a bit part in this - some feel more confident in pharmaceuticals or herbals and this is important. The last thing we need is to feel uncertain about
our treatment or pressured to favor over the other. Confidence is a big part of our healing--there is enough uncertainty in this lyme journey without being nervous about
our treatment.
I had extreme sensitivities to bart herbs and better luck w/ pharmaceutical abx, I had no response to some lyme herbs I used and had better luck w/ pharmaceutical abx, and had very good responses to babs herbs... so I had the full gamut of responses and had to test out what was most beneficial for me and this sin't easy or quick. I think a lot of people are like this.
Kct said...
This is such a difficult decision on. Its so frustrating as I am used to treating patients for 34 years as a PA-C.
What is PA-C?
Kct said...
And how do you measure your progress ? Repeat antibody labs only ?
Traveler had a good response. I'll only add that often when people start treating the infections, their immune systems become a little more functional and therefore are creating higher volumes of the antibodies the tests are looking for. My LLMD gave me an ELISA after my first appt. Of course it came up negative - the CDC tells MDs not to retest with a Western Blot unless the ELISA is positive (to reduce "false positives" but of course, this unfortunate methodology really only ENSURES FALSE NEGATIVES since these serology tests are so woefully inadequate.) She knew to ignore the CDC, we spent 4-5 weeks "provoking" a more accurate immune response by taking Olive Leaf Extract (an immune booster), then she gave me an IGeneX WB, which showed up CDC positive.
For insurance purposes we did another WB a year later, which was IgG negative, IgM positive (although it's also understood that these tests, like many other tests can't really effectively determine for you if the infection is newly acquired or recently reactivated). But many MDs use these tests to satisfy insurance requirements.
Our goal is not to "cure" or eliminate these pathogens--there likely isn't a way to do that or to prove you've done it. Our goal is to improve our overall health and strength and functioning of our immune system so that it can dominate the infections and do what it's designed to do to keep them under control. This is critical since most people also suffer from countless other infections that are so often overlooked in healing lyme & co that also burden the immune system.
As Traveler stated, the best determining factor of whether or not your immune system has dominated the infection is symptoms.
Kct said...
I'm looking at balancing symptom control with western meds ie nortriptyline, SSRI's and Ritalin with disease treatment of not just Lyme but Bart, Babesia and ehrlich, which is presently Zith rifampin and nystatin.
PRIORITIES
Most people aren't able to manage intense treatment for more than one or to infections at a time. I thought I could and I was VERY wrong. Many others have also solved road blocks in treatment and/or crashes by stepping back their treatment and focusing on the dominant infection (you can often determine this through symptoms - see
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=3033860IMMUNE SYSTEM OVERLOAD
Also, it's really important to reduce viral loads and yeast/fungal overgrowth before starting lyme & co treatment--your immune system just can't manage it all and it's very difficult to:
a) maintain a detox protocol at the same pace as your are killing microbes, which is critical to manage herxing and not crash your body (which can set treatment back quite a bit); and
b) streamlining the treatment by taking care of other loads on your immune system first can help you better isolate symptoms as responses to various components of treatment and detoxing protocols--many symptoms overlap so the fewer infections you are dealing with, the easier it is to know what symptoms mean. Symptoms are like a guiding beacon for lyme & co treatment.
DETOXING
I also strongly urge you to check into ways to protect/heal/soothe your gut (or let us know if you'd like input) and boost your immune function. Also, a solid detoxing protocol is critical. This is a huge subject matter so you'll do well to search for related conversations here - there are many great detoxing methods people are implementing and this is as critical as the killing mechanism you choose.
Kct said...
This is so exhausting to try to figure out .
Yes. It's not likely to let up much, either. And people wonder why this treatment takes so long and why our lives are ruined in the process.
Please let us know if you have other q's!
-p
Post Edited (Pirouette) : 5/30/2016 1:15:42 PM (GMT-6)