Book Review, Why Can't I get Better

Dr. Richard Horowitz is a well known doctor and activist in the Lyme disease community. Whenever I have a question, this book is one of the first places I go.
Dr. Horowitz is a pioneer in the treatment of resistant babesia, a malaria like organism. Babesia is becoming more resistant to common drugs such as atovaquone and atovaquone/Proguanil. These drugs are some of the most used and reliable methods for ridding the blood of these horrible parasites.Whenever someone no longer responds to conventional or even alternative treatment for babesia, they turn to Dr.Horowitz.

He describes in great detail the many, many infections a tick can transmit to a human. Lyme disease is only a single drop of water compared to the amount of pathogens a tick can transmit. Information on bartonella, brucella, erhlichia, mycoplasma, Q-Fever, etc is scarce online, all of these are well highlighted by Dr. Horowitz.  Incorrectly treating co-infections can lead to treatment failure! That makes this book beneficial for not only the patient, but doctors as well.
Treating the bacteria borrellia burgdorferi alone, without testing for and treating co-infections will result in the persistence of symptoms. It takes away the point of treating in the first place doesn't it?

In this book, he uses an abbreviation to sum up what Lyme disease patients live with-MSIDS.
It stands for Multiple Systemic infectious disease syndrome, it is a summary of the symptoms and infections commonly associated with Lyme disease complex. This has since became a useful term to describe those that suffer from multiple, systematic illnesses.

Dr. Horowitz describes all of the common symptoms associated with each infection, this is paramount for someone like me who had to be diagnosed on symptoms alone. The tests for tick borne diseases are inaccurate, I only ever tested positive to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Yet, I responded very well to babesia treatment, which is an infection my blood was negative for.
He details his methods for treating Lyme disease, like combinations of herbs and antibiotics. Combining antibiotics alone can be dangerous for someone (non-llmd) who is not well educated in the affects of drug combinations. There are several drugs that should never be mixed. MSIDS patients often have afflictions requiring treatment of not just the illness, but the symptoms also. Insomnia for example is huge; he estimates about 70% of those with MSIDS suffer from insomnia. Sleep drugs and some babesia drugs do not mix well, both can have strong psychological side affects. This is just one example of why when treated using pharmaceuticals, it is essential to find an LLMD educated in drug safety.

Another amazing thing about this book is how he highlights treatments. The book is full of information about antibiotics and herbs that are useful in treating MSIDS. I personally learned about the herb cryptolepis, which was essential to beginning my babesia treatment. He also teaches about how some of these work in the body, such as their effects on cytokine levels.

There is so much to be said about Dr. Horowitz and his book Why Can't I Get Better. It is what really jump started my treatment. I felt confident after reading this book, I no longer felt like a helpless sick person. I could identify what was making me ill, and learned how to destroy it! He not only writes about the infections and their treatments, he writes about their effects on our bodies. Like cytokines which cause inflammation for example. I had never heard of this before reading this book. Reading this book gave me the tools to help myself, I would recommend it to anyone suffering from Lyme complex.

My Views on Lyme Treatment

     I have to be honest, I am not a fan of conventional lyme treatment. I do not believe finding a doctor to prescribe antibiotics will lead to everyone being cured or reach remission from lyme disease. The literal meaning of antibiotic is "anti-life". It doesn't make sense to me, kill bacteria and be healed...Too good to be true??

     I believe the best way to treat any disease is holistically. Holistic healing is when all systems of the body are addressed. Usually diet modification is one of the first steps. Avoiding all processed sugars, synthetic chemicals, GMO foods, and hydrogenated fat is paramount. Our bodies have to work extra hard to process these "foods" because they were not designed to break down and remove such loads of toxins.

    How can our bodies fight an infection if it is too busy trying to process a massive sugar overload? The answer is-not well. I know, I know, we all know that person who can eat whatever they want and do whatever they want without ever getting fat, sick, or bogged down. Don't assume you are one of those people. If you have lyme disease like me, you aren't one of those people (you wouldn't be sick).

     According to Medicine.net each American consumes 29 pounds of ADDED sugar each year. This is not counting the natural sugar from fruits and vegetables, only the processed, refined sugar. That is huge! Refined sugar lowers our immune system. Therefore eliminating it, in theory, would boost the immune system right?  Shouldn't this be step one of the first-line treatments for illness? It is fairly simple in my book. LLMD's are not easy to come by, and remember it is the treatment they provide that assist in healing the body. The act of visiting a doctor and sitting in his/her presence will not cure a disease or put it in remission.

     My philosophy is to boost the body's' natural ability to heal itself. Our bodies are built from vitamins, proteins and minerals, not antibiotics, pain relievers, or synthetic chemicals. To boost the immune system our bodies need to have the natural building blocks to create immune cells and repair damaged cells.
Without proper nutrition from a healthy diet, the body cannot rebuild itself. Building blocks cannot be pulled out of thin air, they must be consumed in some way.
No synthetic chemical-MSG, aspartame, antibiotics, synthetic vitamins, sodium benzoate, etc will build your immune system or rebuild the body.

     So why do so many of us go straight to a chemical for a fix? If you get a headache what do you reach for? Man made chemical most likely. There is a cause for the headache, and it isn't your body crying out for a synthetic pain reliever. Headaches, from a conventional viewpoint, have several known causes but few known cures. On the other hand, a holistic doctor is going to look for a cause. If the irritant is found and removed, the headaches will be gone. When the cause is taken away, the symptom cannot not happen. It really is that simple.

     When I started researching self-treatment of Lyme Disease, a few things jumped out at me. One was that many people decide to go gluten free, and another was the wide use of herbs. Both of these have an impressive track record for improving symptoms. It turns out gluten is pro-inflammatory, just like borrelia burgdorferi bacteria. Inflammation is what causes our joints to hurt (just to name one symptom). By consuming gluten we are adding insult to injury. Literally!

     When the pro-inflammatory gluten is removed from our diet, inflammation will decrease. Less inflammation will equal less pain. Imagine that. Removing one simple food item can change the expression of symptoms. Imagine how our bodies would react to removing all synthetic chemicals, processed/nutrient lacking food, and heavy metals that poison our bodies. The immune system would be able to work correctly.
Remember that next time you take a pill.

    Then there are the herbs. Several of the most popular herbs for treating tick borne infection are anti-inflammatory. Resveratrol is an example of a strong anti-inflammatory. These herbs remove some of the inflammation our stressed bodies produce, how many antibiotics do that? On top of being anti-inflammatory herbs can also be immune modulating. Immune modulating herbs change which immune cells are created. Our immune systems create immune cells for acute infections and chronic infections. The immune system will quickly become overloaded  if it tries to kill a chronic infection with acute immune cells. The immune modulating herbs help our bodies adjust to the correct expression.

     Single herbs have more than single benefits. The herb resveratrol, for example, is used as an anti-inflammatory, immune booster, and strong anti-oxidant. I don't know of any single antibiotic that can do all of that. Anti-biotics are made to kill bacteria. They cannot help the body rebuild damaged tissue or re-balance the sleep/wake cycle. By default, however, symptoms will improve when the bacteria are killed (the cause is depleted). In Lyme disease patients, myself included, go through months of antibiotic treatment and experience an increase in symptoms. When the bacteria are killed they release neuro-toxins that, if allowed to build up in the system, increase the symptoms. This is referred to as a herxenheimer reaction.

     There is no prescription drug for a herx reaction. Natural therapies actually provide dozens of remedies. N-Acetyl-cysteine, alpha lipoic acid, and glutathione reduce toxic build up in the liver, for an example.
The liver has to process everything that goes through our bodies, food, drugs, herbs, everything. If the liver cannot keep up, the organs before and after it become stressed. This would be the stomach, kidneys, gallbladder, and skin(primarily). Taking a look at chronically ill people it is common to find patients who no longer have a gallbladder. Instead of preventing the organ from becoming over stressed and toxic in the first place, it was just surgically removed after it was too late.

     Holistic methods treat all of the body systems. When used correctly, the detox organs are supported to aid in removing wastes, the immune system is aided by adding herbs that assist in killing bacteria, and diet is changed to provide maximum nutrition. Once the body is able to "catch up" the immune system will be able to adequately kill bacteria once again. I personally do not know of any conventional treatment method that can provide this type of restorative therapy.

Anyway, this is my rant about why we shouldn't rely on one method to achieve relief from Lyme disease. In the future I will post more on my diet and the reasons I eat the foods I eat.