Western Blot Student

Hello all,

I'm a new user and much like all of you I am seeking answers! It is nice to have found a place where I can speak about lyme to people that actually understand what it's like.


I'm hoping that somebody might relate to my situation and perhaps share some of their own handling of this exhausting disease.

March 27th of this year I was finally tested for Lyme, after having my knee's drained three times by an orthopedic doctor within a span of 2 months he put the pieces together and had me get tested. The results of the Western Blot were the following:

LYME DISEASE AB (IGG), BLOT

18 KD (IGG) BAND REACTIVE
23 KD (IGG) BAND REACTIVE
28 KD (IGG) BAND REACTIVE
30 KD (IGG) BAND REACTIVE
39 KD (IGG) BAND REACTIVE
41 KD (IGG) BAND REACTIVE
45 KD (IGG) BAND REACTIVE
58 KD (IGG) BAND REACTIVE
66 KD (IGG) BAND REACTIVE
93 KD (IGG) BAND REACTIVE


LYME DISEASE AB (IGM) BLOT

23 KD (IGM) BAND REACTIVE
39 KD (IGM) BAND NON-REACTIVE
41 KD (IGM) BAND REACTIVE


The doctors saw this as definitive evidence (I wish my family did) that I have an active & chronic lyme infection, I've placed the tick bite at 2 years ago. It took 2 years before I got tested, in those 2 years my health and physical capabilities deteriorated. I was a student in college when it all went down, in a physical therapy assistant program, and I somehow managed to get good grades in spite of my swollen joints and cloudy brain. I finished my first year of the program and then opted to take one year off of school to tend to my health, that decision was made long before I knew I had Lyme.

I wish I had found out that I had Lyme earlier in my leave of absence, because I return to school in three weeks to tackle the hardest semester of my life. I completed one round of doxy 100mg twice a day for 28 days and WOW I felt like a completely different person, as though I had a new set of eyes. The fog was gone and I was able to progress in the gym without my joints swelling up. Finished the antibiotics 2 months ago and slowly but surely the brain fog and lack of focus crept back into my life, doing some reading of my own I found out that Doxy doesn't kill the Lyme bacteria it just forces them into hiding.. that makes sense based upon my own experience.


I don't have much time before I go back to school and my options for treatment are somewhat limited.

My plan is to begin a second round of Doxy, stronger this time. I read that 400mg a day can kill the bactera.. has anyone else heard of this?


Does anyone know if there is a correlation between the western blot results and the amount of lyme spirochetes living within me? If I begin a stronger Doxy cycle while I'm at school I fear that I may experience a very bad Herx that will swell my joints. If I don't take antibiotics I will need to force myself to study through the fog and WOW is that difficult.

I'm losing focus here and I have a re-entrance exam tomorrow morning I hope somebody can make sense of this post and provide some relatable feedback.

I feel blessed to have found this place, I have been desperately in need of a portal of communication because my family does not want to hear about it.. it hurts them.. and I don't want to hurt them.

happy to be here, back to studying

thank you for reading, I wish you blessings and healing

No correlation between western blot results a d spirochete burden. It is a measure of host response not infection. So much like a vaccine you may be reactive long after effective treatment. Or you may not. It's different for every pathogen and no one really knows with lyme because "effective treatment" hasn't been clearly defined given controversies in persistence. Best thing to do is just treat until you feel better.

For neuroborreliosis you can get IV ceftriaxone but I hear there is some controversy on whether it is better than oral doxy. Some use minocycline for better CNS penetration. Tinidazole for supposed dormant forms. Many use herbs like Stephen buhners protocol. Plants make a lot of antibiotics and have the benefit of having novel mechanisms that pharma has not tinkered with much. But no one has the one right way. It's all just trial and error for us until someone actually carries out the research. You are lucky to have such strongly positive test results. Getting a Dr to recognize your issue is half the battle

Haha what kind of idea...? ;) I don't give out my email on this forum but I am more than happy to respond to questions here. I wish we had a private message system. But nonetheless we can talk here or if you have questions later you can make a post with my name in the title. Users do that pretty frequently when they have specific questions for people.

Hey man... I don't think everyones down with it here. But we've had discussions on hallucinogens numerous times. You're in a pretty safe place to be open it if it pertains to healing. These are plant medicines after all and this is a group dedicated to alternative (as well as conventional) modes of healing.

It's interesting you compared Lyme to altered states of consciousness. A year before getting sick I had a horrific ayahuasca trip in ceremony which I credit with preparing myself for this disease. At the time it was the scariest thing I had ever been through and I completely hit rock bottom and had to learn to see the light and follow it out. 10 years of depression. Feeling like I was in a dark void of meaning. And there it was, all in my head. A tiny little flicker I had been ignoring my whole life. I didn't chose my situation, but I chose to let my light dim to near nothing. And now at rock bottom I had two options. Be consumed by the darkness or kindle the flame. Except at that level of depth option one isn't really even an option. It's too unbearable it practically forced me to go with option two.

Talk about acquiring an internal locust of control by force. But that experience repeated itself with this illness. Stripped me down til I had practically nothing. Til I was no longer the human being I had been my whole life. My only options were "kill yourself" or "kindle that flame, find your way out". Both equally transformative experiences and I don't know that I would have handled this illness without my aya trips. I just wish Lyme had the visuals. God do I miss those

Girlie said...
We may have talked about “shrooms” here before.

(Sorry if I’m off base).

I'm pretty sure we have several times lol. Enough herbies coming through here it's hard to avoid. Shrooms, cactus, aya...

Girlie said...
We may have talked about “shrooms” here before.

(Sorry if I’m off base).

You're awesome Thank you for the lightheartedness in the midst of my own personal study storm

ChironicHealing said...

Girlie said...
We may have talked about “shrooms” here before.

(Sorry if I’m off base).

You're awesome Thank you for the lightheartedness in the midst of my own personal study storm

Lol - I live in the Pacific Northwest - where they are aplenty.
A former boyfriend went out with a friend one foggy fall morning “looking” to pick some and they got lost along the way - they were sampling as they walked through the field. Took them hours to find their way home in the shape they were in

Psilociraptor said...

Girlie said...

ChironicHealing said...

Girlie said...
We may have talked about “shrooms” here before.

(Sorry if I’m off base).

You're awesome Thank you for the lightheartedness in the midst of my own personal study storm

Lol - I live in the Pacific Northwest - where they are aplenty.
A former boyfriend went out with a friend one foggy fall morning “looking” to pick some and they got lost along the way - they were sampling as they walked through the field. Took them hours to find their way home in the shape they were in

Ahhh that is the dream... Ocean, state parks, mountains, nice weather, hippies, skiing/snowboarding and mushrooms. Applying to some schools in oregon, cali, and washington. Kind of hoping my wife might want to make the move lol... I conveniently live in a place where they don't grow and also one of the two states that spores are illegal in. No laws against cactus, but not enough sunlight for them to grow well either... bummer

I’m even further northwest (across the border)

Well not everyone likes the rainfall here, I suppose.
Maybe you can fool your wife and say the PNW schools are the only ones that accepted you? Lol

I've never done the DMT, and nor do a want to. Especially if my current condition. But I have done my fair share of LSD and MDMA in my day. In a sense I feel like chronichealing, where some of those experiences prepared me in some ways for this part of my journey.

Welcome to the forum chronichealing. I hope you find your healing in a timely manner.

DMT - what's that ? What drug contains DMT? and is it similar to the psilocybin?