Well, Lyme is not a viral infection completely. There are a few strains that are viral, most are bacterial infections - and they rarely appear alone. Other infections (viral, bacteria and protozoan infections) are often passed at the same time.
"Watching this I felt I don't know of any illness which can have symptoms so severe that can vanish, and new neurological issues show up?"
Yes, this happens with Lyme, as the symptoms can 'cycle' - meaning they will come back at some point in time. I have experienced up to a year or more without symptoms before I got effective treatments.
LOL - not much of anything has changed in the last ten years. In May, I will have been on this forum for 10 years, so it's easy for me to comment on that. I started looking into Lyme back in 1999, when someone finally mentioned that I could have Lyme disease - come to find out that I had Lyme, RMSF, Bartonella, Babesia, Ehrlichia, Anaplasmosis, Brucella, and others for 37 years by the time I was finally correctly diagnosed.
Abx treatments failed me, so I used herbs to heal. I followed something very similar to Buhner's protocols that are talked about
on here. If you are interested in seeing a basic protocol from him, you can take a look at this site:
buhnerhealinglyme.com/ Buhner does not run the site, it was someone else that set up and maintains the site, but he did grace them with answering some questions.
With the experience that I had personally, and what I've watched others go through, here is a basic layout of what needs to happen for many of us to heal:
a)Detoxing - gene mutations, mold exposure and multiple tick-borne infections can all prevent us from detoxing well, but we must be able to get those toxins out of our bodies.
You can find some really good detoxing suggestions in the "New to Lyme?" thread that sits at the top of the forum. And this is another really good resource for detoxing ideas for Lyme patients:
www.tiredoflyme.com/detox-methods.html But, there is such a thing as over detoxing. This happens when we move more toxins than our body is capable of processing out effectively. Many toxins are stored in our tissues, and by detoxing, we move them to the bloodstream where we can process them out of our bodies through the lymph system, then on to the liver and kidneys as so on. We have to be sure to add in more detoxing routines slowly and carefully, or we will end up herxing just like we had never been detoxing. This article helps to explain that some:
www.tiredoflyme.com/4-reasons-why-you-still-feel-bad-despite-detoxing.html b)Supporting the body functions/systems. We have to have the body working at it's peak performance to heal from something as devastating as these infections. Supporting any gland, organ, body system that is struggling will allow the body to switch it's 'concentration' from just trying to function over to healing.
c) Raise the immune function. Many legitimate Lyme researchers now believe that it's the lowered immune function that determines who gets chronic Lyme and who heals right away. We already know that Lyme lowers the immune function and when a person has Bartonella and/or Babesia, the immune function is further compromised, so to heal we must raise our immune function.
d) Lastly, oddly enough, are anti-infective treatments. Many of us have experienced treatment failures, so we can see that the treatments aren't the only thing we need to have - there has to be more to the equation, but anti-infective treatments are very important!! Lyme bacteria are one of the most complicated bacteria! Although it takes only hours or days for most bacteria to replicate, Lyme bacteria only replicates in the body every few weeks.