This Fatigue is Getting Old! And Z-Coils....

Okay.  Treating lyme is huge exercise in having faith.  For one, you have to feel worse before you feel better.  It just takes faith to believe that the medicine is actually helping you and not making you worse.  Tinidazole per the Eva Sapi study is said to kill 90% of both spirochetes and cysts.  So that is great.  So I am on Tinidazole.  And I feel tired.  All the time.  And I would feel better on the days off I had from the Tinidazole (as in the 2 weeks I wasn't on the Tinidazole).  But this last pulse, I still felt tired AFTER the 2 week pulse.  And then I worry.  Is the Tinidazole permanantly making me tired???  Am I getting worse??  This is the first Christmas that I just haven't felt the emotional energy and felt excited about the festivities.  Even though I was tired before, I would feel a bit of excitement and adrenaline from the celebration of the season.  But this year, I am just not as interested or excited but I want to be. I think it is the medicines affecting my motivation levels.  And then I think?   Will I feel like this during the holidays forever?  As in next year?  No, I don't think I will, I tell myself. I read an article over again about how with flagyl (similar to Tinidazole) that the profound fatigue continues for 6 months into the treatment whereas the other symptoms from the Lyme Disease almost disappear.  I find that this may be my experience.  I am having profound fatigue where I wasn't having it anymore, except on days before my period.  Don't get me wrong.  I had profound fatigue for a few years but after treating with herbs and vitamins and then not treating with anything for 6 months or so, I didn't have the extreme daily fatigue that I had had.  Well, it's back now that I am on the Tinidazole.  So literally, I hang onto hope from this one article.  Hope that once my six months of being on the Tinidazole is achieved, that the fatigue will have died down, alot.  So that's where I am at.  But the stabbing pains, the buzzing, vibration feelings, numbness, sore feet has gotten ALOT better.  The only one of the symptoms I am having any more is sore feet.  And it has gotten alot better.  Whereas I had a swollen lump in the middle of my left heel (which a podiatrist told me was the bursa sac) and it is gone now.  Just the perimeter of my heels are sore.  And it feels like the bones hurt there.  But the podiatrist says it is plantar fascitis.  I don't know how plantar fascitis makes it feel like the bones hurt and not the soft tissue but that's what he says.  This is an ongoing issue for me.  Literally one of the first symptoms I have had since September 2007.  Which leads me to talk about...

Z-Coils!!!!  They are shoes with literally a mass amount of testimonials of people who have heel pain or foot pain or back pain and these shoes allow them to be on their feet, to exercise and even one guy wrote about running a marathon in them.  I don't think my immune system or body or fatigue levels would allow for anything close to a marathon right now but this literally would be a miracle for me.  I wear flip-flops and have done so since....you guessed it....September 2007...so I would really love it if this worked out for me.  I have an appointment with a podiatrist who has a Z-Coil shop connected to her office.  I am really hopeful that this may be an answer to my long-standing inability to be on my feet for long periods or go for walks and runs.  I hope when I post another update that I can indeed say that they are a miracle!

How Long Until I Get Better?

Will I be one of the ones that gets rid of this disease completely and fully without ever having to treat it again?  Or will I fight low levels of it the rest of my life?  To be honest, I have been swallowing vitamins for years (like 35 of them a day) before I knew I had lyme.  I just knew something was terribly, terribly wrong with my incredibly fantastic body that had served me well all my life.  Everything was falling apart.  And vitamins did help.  A lot.  But the anxiety was so dominant and still there with moodiness.  The 5htp and Tyrosine really did help ALOT but the anxiety would still come on then and again...albeit nothing like when it first came on!  However, it was incredibly strong when I began treating with herbs.  In fact, the depression was so strong too.  I felt like I would NEVER get better.  That was the resounding thought and feeling.  I would ask my husband "Do you think I will get better?  Do you think I will ever get better?"  He would say "Yes, I think you will get better".  Just having another's vote of confidence meant something to me.  It helped keep the faith.  The fact that all hell broke loose when I started taking the herbs that targeted Lyme and Bartonella was most likely proof that I was killing something and eventually get better.  And I have.  So much better.  But still today, I ask, how long until I get better?  I am on the tinidazole pulse...this is my 4th pulse so basically when I have finished it I will have completed about 2 months of tinidazole (58 days at 1000mg a day).  So maybe I am herxing right now.  Maybe this feeling is just the tinidazole killing off the Lyme and the feeling and thought process I have in my heart is a shadow of the storm that once overtook my heart when first starting to treat the Lyme Disease with the herbs.  Last night, I had a bit of insomnia...had a hard time getting comfortable and to sleep and then I awoke for an hour between 3 and 4 with a RLS-y feeling in my joints and the need to get up, cool down (I felt hot) and so I went and slept downstairs on the couch (after staying up for about 45 minutes and writing).  Anyways.  So right now.  This is probably a herx.  And happy to say.  A lot better of one that I have had in the past.  But still, I am bored taking these dang pills everyday.  Nice, I know.  They are helping me but it just gets monotonous and I want it to be over.  I want to be better.  I want to be healed.  Forever.  But I carry on, taking my medicine.  It has been about 7 years since I got ill.  How I hate the sound of that.  I wish it was just 1 year, and I was where I am today and it hadn't taken me that long to figure out what was going on (or see what God was trying to tell me when he sent a friend next door who had Lyme and kept telling me about it....or when I went to a doctor and she mentioned Lyme Disease and it took me a YEAR to take the test because I just couldn't believe I had it!  A year because I don't remember a bulls-eye rash and that is all I knew Lyme to do.  Ugh.  Me and my thick head!  Makes me wonder what else I am being so blind to that God is trying to show me.  It is all right there, but it takes getting through our thick head, and our blind eyes, to finally see...at least it does for me!)  So I am praying that He guides me with treatments and of course, if it never does go away...gives me the contentment to walk through it.  But...BUT...I am still believing for complete eradication! 

This time around - Artemesinin

I am on my 3rd day of taking 1200mg of artemesinin in 3 divided doses.  The last time I took a high dose or artemesinin like that my muscles were so, so, so sore.  This time around.  They are not!  So that is good news.  My muscles still hurt (or skin) when you push certain tender spots especially so I am not saying I am free and clear but those intense muscle pain and intense fatigue is not happening.  This is my 3rd time (or maybe 4th) of adding in artmesinin to treat potential babesia.  The first time - the dose was so low, and my anxiety was so intense from Bartonella, that I really didn't notice in anything when taking artemesinin at 100mg 3x a day.  I did note a little fatigue though that first time.  The 2nd and (maybe 3rd time) of taking it, I took much higher doses like I am taking now and I had intense muscle soreness pain in my big muscles (glutes and quads).  This time, I don't have that pain at all. Go figure.  I haven't been treating Babesia at all this time around since starting treatment in August so I am really not sure what to make of it.  Maybe if I continued Artemesinin for a week or so they muscles might start hurting?  I don't know.  Anyways, I am happy I am not having muscle pain.

Another thing, I have been going for 20 minute walks every day.  I absolutely love getting outside in the fresh air.  Foot Pain and Anxiety and Lethargy have been the major road blocks to that historically for me (never before Lyme Disease but always after Lyme Disease).  Every time I would start to exercise, inevitably at 3 weeks in I woulds suffer debilitating anxiety and absolute depression that would last and last and last and last.  So far, I have been exercising very gently, and this has not happened.  I was reading another persons blog who has lyme and talks about how they want to be better than they are and they are running like 2-4 times a week at 2-4 miles a pop.  Honestly, that is my end dream.  I mean if I could run 2-4 times a week at 2-4 miles a pop I would be over the moon ecstatic.  Literally, that would be my dream come true.  And so that makes me realize that I am so much further behind than they are.  Right now, when I walk, the bottom of my heels hurt, and so that is still there.  I am thinking about going to a Podiatrist and asking for a bone scan or mri of my foot just to see if I have adequate blood flow or bone loss on the foot.  I am also thinking of taking the herbal tea Boneset that Stephan Buhner recommends as well as a formula for strengthening bones by Jarrow called Bone-up that has ground up calf bone, calcium, magnesium, vitamin D and vitamin K in it.  So that is where I am at right now.  And...I am still so grateful all the time...that I am not dealing with anxiety.  Yes, there is ALOT ahead of me but I am SO much better than where I was.  Ahead of me...heel bone pain, muscle tenderness, weight loss, lethargy gone and of course the lyme herxing of stabbing pains that I get when I am on tinidazole.  Today, I will be starting my 3rd pulse of Tinidazole.  Wish me luck!

Rambling....

My feet are sore from trick-or-treating last night with the kids.  I soaked them in hot water when I got home and after I put the kids to bed I massaged them with peppermint lotion.  I took ibuprofen too.  I probably was on my feet just an hour.  Maybe an hour and 20 minutes.  That is all.  It is an annoying symptom because I just want to be on my feet without them being in pain.  I don't have any of the anxiety symptoms of Bartonella anymore and they have been gone for about a year or so, so I think this maybe it's Lyme or Babesia Duncani or just the fact that I weigh so darn much.  Today, I am trying again to eat healthy and make a habit of it.  It is so darn tempting because I have four kids and quick kid food doesn't tend to be healthy and that is just about all I cook these days.  We have pizza about twice a week.  I do make them healthy snacks (buy a veggie tray, fruit tray, carrot sticks) but I don't have much motivation to cook.  Maybe if I was skinnier I would because then I wouldn't be afraid to eat the food I cook and gain weight from it!  Anyways - I make quick foods because they are easier when you just don't have energy or motivation.  But the quick foods I make - I try to make them as healthy as possible.  Lean chicken breast, brown rice pasta, salad, taco's with ground turkey instead of beef.  But pizza seems to sneak in there.  Especially if we are in a rush - or going to someone's house.

Moving on. So the symptoms that are annoying me the most right now are - lack of motivation, foot pain and fatigue.  I know I felt like it would be a miracle to have anxiety not part of my life and here I am living it.  It was really hard to kill it and took a long time but today I don't have that symptom.  But still, right now I wonder, will I ever get better?  Will I feel motivated again?  Will the foot pain go away?  Will the fatigue that comes with the Tinidazole pulse (2 weeks on, 2 weeks off) go away at some point?  I often forget about the 'little stuff' like pain in the right side of my chest last night I had as I was going to sleep.  Or just a hint of it happening right now in the same spot.  On Tinidazole, I had a ton of stabbing pain towards the end of my pulse and I wonder - is the stabbing pain from the Lyme or the Babesia Duncani?  I haven't had any formal treatment for Babesia Duncani and I would really like to start it except for my doctor is on maternity leave right now so I have to wait until January to get a medication switch.  I guess I could go to another doctor to start the Babesia Treatment but that just feels like a hassle.  It is only a couple months and I am plugging away at the medications she had me on so it will all be fine in the end.  I think I am going to add in Artemesinin on my own though because from what I have gathered from the lyme forums on the internet, high dose artemesinin for 3 days ever 2 weeks seems to be more effective for treating Duncani than medications that tend to be more effective for Microti.  However, there is a story in the forums of one guy who had remission from one course of Babesia meds for his Babesia Duncani.  I have tried Artemesinin before and at a low daily dose (that my doctor had me on) I didn't feel anything herx-wise from it.  When I took it at the high dose, I felt extremely fatigued in my muscles.  Like I had just ran a half-marathon. The word is that Babesia Microti is much easier to treat than Duncani.  Great. 

Anyways.  I also wanted to say that I wish I didn't have to pulse Tinidazole, I just want to keep taking it straight through. It seemed to be helpful to my digestion and because of the fatigue I had while I am on it, it is killing something off (Lyme cysts and maybe Babesia Duncani???) and I just want to grit my teeth and get through it and see if the fatigue goes away. I don't want to have to wait 2 week to restart but I am.

That's it for now, but as I sign off, it is with a small stabbing pain on the top of my head.  When I first started the medications I am now on for the Lyme, I had a ton of random vibrations come and go at different places in my body.  Those have gone now.  Replaced with these random stabbing pains.  Wish more people who have gotten better from Babesia Duncani would post their stories on the internet.  Success Stories are like liquid hope for me to press through the discomfort of symptoms.  That is why I post any success I have had here on my blog.  It encourages me to keep hitting it hard and overcome it.