What Treatments Worked?

Many people email me and ask what treatments I would have done differently.  The biggest advice is this:  there are many ways to treat Lyme, at the beginning just start treatment. 

Antibiotics, herbs, homeopathics, both or all.   If you are very sick don't put too much importance on which bugs you've got.  Testing is so unreliable and expensive and exhaustive.  Just assume that if you are very sick you have all, most, or simply put, "a ton of infections."   Viruses, protozoal (parasites), bacteria, and atypical bacterial are the casue of chronic Lyme disease.  Anything a tick fed on before feeding on you got put into your blood stream.  This is why I think so many people don't get better.  They fail to treat for all infections.


How do you do treat them all?  Broad spectrum treatments.  Treatments with multiple agents- homeopathic, mushrooms, herbs and antibiotics are needed.  Read through my early posts.  I started with oral antibiotics and Cowden herbs, while replacing various vitamins/minerals and hormones, then after plateauing, I moved on to continuous intravenous antibiotics, followed by multiple pulsed intravenous antibiotics, and finally used intravenous homeopathics (pleomorphics) and peroxide. 

It's not a race.  The goal is NOT to "herx like hell," as you will hear on the forums.  The goal is to have slow steady die off, but if the die off is too intense, you need to hold treatments and detox and pay attention to good diet.  That's why eventually I embraced pulsed treatments- M,W, Th F for 2 weeks with 1-2 weeks off so that the body can do a little recovery and you don't feel completely victimized. 

Hormones and supplements are key.  Monitor TSH, free T3, rT3, free T4, cortisol (saliva), DHEA-S, IgF-1 (growth hormone marker), testosterone, and a most important hormone, vitamin D (25 OH D).  Melatonin is trickier to measure, so I just say take this most important antioxidant, 1-5 mg, whatever it takes to get you through the night, start slow and work up.  if you are a lady with irregular cycles, make sure to start using progesterone to regulate the cycle and if you are missing cycles, add in estradiol (transdermal).  You don't need to lose bone as well as your mind with this illness.


The other key is to follow your intuition.  I can not stress this enough.  If you are doing a treatment and you feel it, or the practitioner, is no longer working for you, its time to move on. 

Likewise, if you are on a therapy and it is making you feel too sick, reconsider.  Take a break.  if is die off you will feel better off the treatment.  Then, when you are stronger in a few days, restart it.  If you stop it and you feel worse, you are likely toxic from the drug/herb, and you need to detox. 

Easy cheap deotox support:  vitamin C, 3-5000 mg/day, lemon water 64 oz/day, detox baths with sea salt, baking soda and epsom salt, detox teas, green juices and plenty of green vegies. 

Don't go back on treatment until you feel better.  This process is not and I am not advising that you start and stop therapies without discussing it with a trusted advisor, who is hopefully, your treating practitioner. 


Hope this helps- next blog I'll share what recovery feels like for me, and why it is not relapse.......