The Flu and 101.6

So, on Sunday this week my 5 year old slept all day, then on Monday night had a fever of 102.5, on Tuesday it was 103.3 and I don't think it went much past that.  Monday night I began to feel really weak and get pain behind my eyes and get chilly and then spent the night tossing and turning.  Next day every bone in my body hurt, my eyes hurt, my head hurt, you know the routine.  Now everyone in the family (all four of my kids and myself) and down and out with the flu.  The interesting thing is, my temperature got up to 101.6 which is officially the highest temperature that I have had in 4 years since contracting Lyme Disease.  Why is this of signifigance to me?  Well, somewhere I have read that bartonella lowers fevers so every time I have gotten sick with the flu or strep throat in the past 4 years, my fever only got up to a whopping 98.6 - normal!  Which was up from about 97.6 my daily temp.  Well now that I have been taking Buhner's herbs, I get this flu and my temp goes up to 101.6 - the highest it has ever been in years which leads me to believe that the herbs are really helping my immune system fight off disease (which, of course, is exactly what they should be doing).  I am really excited about this, even though, today, 5 days later, I am still feeling pretty yucky with an intense and painful sore throat, cough, headache, chills etc. 

Biofilms and 2.5 years of Lyme Disease

 "Spirochetes can live 8 months in their biofilm without food, and if they fed, they can live 2.5 years in their biofilm form. Just because they didn’t leave their biofilm home does not mean they are dead. They are just waiting for the perfect time to strike, which may be in 2 years".

Just read this. This explains to me why the success stories that I have read, that have encouraged me are of patients that treated their Lyme Disease for 2 years and 8 months.  That would be enough to kill all the lyme spirochetes that were hiding out in the biofilm.  Wow.  I guess it just gives me the faith to keep on keeping on for a few years.  That said, co-infections such as babesia, bartonella and protomyxzoa rheumatica would need to be treated concurrantly with the Lyme Treatment.  It is a long road.  A marathon not a sprint.

Speaking of marathons and not sprints - that is my ultimate goal if I conquer Lyme Disease.  I ran to keep in shape before I came down with Lyme Disease.  Exercise is such a luxury now.  I just can't do it without developing massive nervousness and anxiety that occurs 3.5 weeks after I start to exercise.  Which now I have figured out is probobly a herx.  That when my blood heats up and my circulation increases - the spirochetes are being killed.  The herx is so intense though I haven't been able to handle it so I just avoid that type of exercise (jogging).  It is unfortunate because I am way overweight but I have four kids and I need to take the long, slow and steady road to health so I can be there for them as well as get better.  I hope that if I kill off a good portion of the bacterial load that my herxing to exercise will be much less and over time I will be able to exercise more and more. 

Now just to clarify - I don't ever intend to run a real 26.2 mile marathon.  No way.  Back in the height of my health - the most I ever ran was 10 miles and I think stopping for orange juice half way super powered me up for the last 5 miles.  I think the most I would have ever ran in those days would be a half-marathon or 13.1 miles.  But today, I think that when I recover from Lyme Disease, or have it under control, I will only ever run a 10K out of respect for my body and everything it has ever gone through in fighting the disease.  That is my hope anyway.  I hope to run a 10K and not go into a major herx 3 weeks later!  I would hope to run a few miles every few days for the rest of my life.  And by using the word 'run' what I actually mean is 'jog'!

Zhang Herbs

Added in Coptis, HH2 and Circulation P Capsules yesterday from the Zhang protocol which is to be taken 6-12 months.  The first side effect I noticed was that my toes that had been cold for days actually didn't feel like they were freezing (our weather here has gotten much colder) .  Today, I am feeling a really low level of nervousness in my tummy that comes and goes so I am not sure what to make of that just quite yet (if it is due to the Zhang herbs or due to being in the part of the Lyme cycle when die-off occurs).  Other than that, I have been feeling really good this past week.

Encouragement: Chronic Lyme Recovery Story

Here is a link to a news article about a University of Connecticut professor who after 22 years of unknown Lyme disease, recovers after 9 months of IV antibiotics (not antibodies as the writer/editor didn't catch their error). http://www.countytimes.com/articles/2012/06/20/life/doc4fe24326b44bc141496300.txt

Chills, Fatigue and Knee Aches and Lumps

Two nights ago I had chills except I didn't really know I was having them. I just thought the house was extremely cold and when I went to bed I had a wool sweater on and socks and I made my husband sleep right next to me so I could feed off his body heat to keep me warm. I kept tossing and turning for 2 hours trying to get warm. The next morning I felt pretty warm. The thing is, ever since I have had Lyme Disease, I have never had a fever. Not once. When I was really sick with strep throat and massive body aches and pain and chills a year or so ago, my temperature rose to 98.6 at my sickest. Anyways, back to my story of having the chills the other night - after waking up feeling hot, a little later in the day my knees were really sore even though I hadn't been exercising. And this last night I went to bed without feeling really cold and this morning my knees didn't hurt at all. I also have two small pencil eraser size lumps as well that are painful and popped up out of no where. Have had these before but not often. Had a big one in my armpit that scared me but went to the doctor and they are not cancer or anything. Just sluggish lymph nodes, I think. Anyways, so now I realize it was some Lyme-related thing I was having that passed. All month long I have been waiting for the depression-anxiety-massive worry symptoms to return that I had last month and haven't had any of them at all really. I have just had these symptoms and then a few other things like spelling dumb d-u-m-e (what a perfect word to spell wrong!!) and telling my husband to get his fingers off me when it was actually his toes that were bugging me. So I guess word mix-up and dumb blonde moments are part of my Lyme symptoms this month. The past few days I have missed exits when driving and not gotten in the right turn lanes when I needed to, etc. This would be normal if I was driving to a new place but I have been driving this route for the past 5 months so it's a bit weird. Oh and I can't forget to mention that I have been really fatigued the past few days as well. Not to the point of sleeping during the day but just really tired. Oh, and I had nausea one morning as well a few days ago as well. And lastly, I have had tingling and vibrations daily for the past few weeks. Other than that I am still continuing at Level 3 of the Buhner herbs. There are two more levels to increase too but after last months "hell week" of emotional symptoms, I held off ramping up quiteyet. I will soon though. I just want to get through this next lyme cycle and feel like I understand and have a handle on it before ramping up though. One more thing, I started a all-natural low-fat vegetarian diet on Wednesday. The low-fat is to help break up the bio-films and the diet is to lose the weight I have gained with Lyme. Will see how this goes. By the way, I am still eating nuts as I know my body needs some fat and protein as well as I am taking Vitamin B-12 which is the vitamin that has to be derived from a meat source that vegetarians are often deficient in if they don't supplement which can in turn cause them to become ill if they don't get. At least that is what I think is accurate if I recall correctly from my studies.

One last thing I should update is an improvement I continue to have and that is my foot pain has gone WAY down!  For the past 4 years I have not been able to walk on my own feet without a really cushy flip-flop on because my feet have hurt so bad.  Since taking the herbs, my foot pain has gone WAY, WAY down!!  I am able to walk barefoot around the house so I am very happy about that.  The symptoms that I have been having that look they are not an improvement (fatigue, chills, nausea, depression, anxiety) are actually really good signs that the herbs are killing off the spirochetes.  The thing that gives me the courage to continue on is that the symptoms are passing.  They come and go which means that I am moving in the right direction (if thre were no symptoms that are coming and going it would mean the herbs wouldn't be working). 

Buhner Herbs - Week 4 Update

Okay. Well, I am actually staying at the Week dosage for Buhners herbs. I have to say that the it was really hard for me a week and a half ago when I was in my 4th and 5th weeks of my treatment and I didn't want to ramp up to the 4th level of his herbs quite yet. I did a little more reading and research (a favorite activity of mine) and learned that one of the herbs (andrographis) in the protocol inhibits progesterone. This could be a reason why it was SO hard for me during the weeks around and after my period. I feel SO much better now. I think it could be a combination of the Lyme Disease cycle as well as my progesterone being to low that made it so hard. I have slightly low progesterone levels to begin with so I very much think this is a possibility. I have about a week and a half's amount of the combined herbal protocol capsules left and I am going to use them up because they are so expensive. After that I am going to only use the other herbs. Fortunately, the updated Buhner protocol no longer includes Andrographis so I will still be targeting Lyme effectively with the other herbs. Those herbs are Japanese Knotweed, Cats Claw, and Eleuthero. It will be interesting to see how I go with just these herbs minus the Andrographis. I also wanted to write that even after I wrote my last post (that I was doing well), that I still struggled with anxiety in the morning on and off the next few days. I feel so much better now though. A few other things I have learned is that charcoal may absorb tyrosine which could attribute to my having morning anxiety. I did take activated charcoal a few times during when I was feeling really bad. I know it is good for mopping up toxins and I would continue to use it on a minimal as needed basis but always be aware that I may need a bit more tyrosine spray to balance it out. It also could be completely unrelated to the charcoal but instead to the Lyme disease and co-infections. Time and continuing on this journey will hopefully help me to sort this all out.