Those are my two feet. I will stand on them.

I hope you all have had a great thanksgiving week! During this season we get time to spend with friends and family. It’s a shame that we have to wait for a holiday to be around our friends and family, but that just makes it all the more special.

I have had a better week this week which I am glad to report. I like to say something positive every so often, I hate feeling so negative all the time. I do not like negativity one bit. That’s something that I miss the most, being positive and looking forward. Hard days have only gotten harder. Fear has only dug deeper. Fear...fear has grown in me in more ways than I ever knew possible. I always have had faith that I will be okay one day, whether it be that I live a healthy life on earth or in heaven. Suffering isn’t forever and I have never doubted that. 

What I have learned is how many different types of mental suffering one could experience-all at once.  I have become so afraid of others judgement and opinions, I have become so paranoid of everything around every corner, paranoid that my friends are just being sympathetic towards my cause and they are just temporary, and most of all afraid that I will never get “me” back in one piece. I don’t like the idea of never exactly being myself again, I know that my body will be healthy again but I do fear that I will have “battle scars” I guess you could say. I used to feel like being sick had built me up in many ways. I have lost this feeling, I am sad to say. I feel like the events of this year have turned me bitter and pathetic. 

I don’t know where all of these thoughts came from. I don’t know when they started. I know I never purposely welcomed them in, but maybe I did by accident ? Sometimes I wish I did have a twin, someone right beside me every minute of the day who knew what I was supposed to be like and could see when something was turning south. I used to catch it, like oh no this ain’t right I need to be working on these thoughts and these emotions. Something broke in me and I lost that too. I lost my personal monitor for keeping up with what’s running through me. Seeing as I am a chronic insomniac I spend a significant amount of time awake at night thinking(I know that’s the worst time to think). Seeing as I sleep alone also means that all this thinking that leads to my fears and rampant emotions means no one is around to see that I am torturing myself by accident. My quiet time at night used to be spent reading and calming my mind. Oftentimes my reading would be other Lyme blogs, those are always so encouraging to read. Well, brain fog said no to reading for about the last eight months. So my quiet relaxing time has diminished and anxiety moved right on in and took its place. If anxiety had a face it’d be a smiling, greedy little devil. It just showed up one day and started stirring the trouble that it causes-also unwelcomed. 

This week I have tried to get back to calming my brain down a bit. Since I started skipping some of my meds every day my brain is starting to allow reading again. While this window of opportunity is open, I’m getting back to reading some old blogs that have traditionally been encouraging. So the one I’ve been flipping through is Ticks and Trust by Shannon Goertzen. Yesterday I sent this post to several friends of mine, who I share Lyme things with. It was recieved well, as you can imagine with fear and anxiety being an issue sharing personal things is something that I am wary about. The post just explains so well what I am feeling and what everyone with chronic Lyme probably feels. I can’t not share it, it’d be a disservice. Reading through Shannon’s blog has certainly helped me to gain some of my confidence back. It’s reminded me that I’m not just hurting and suffering, I’m fighting and digging in my heels. I may be out of sorts constantly, in pain, and foggy but I am fighting and I am winning. 

I am still here am I not?? I don’t have any reason to not be here anymore. This disease isn’t going to kill me, it doesn’t have my permsion to do that. I am not in that bad of shape, my brain isn’t itself whatsoever and my body is right behind it. I still work and I still go to school, I have never had to call in sick to work. Never. So I can’t be doing that bad. At least physically. 

I just have to keep digging in my heels and reminding myself of the things I have to be thankful for. When I first started going south earlier this year I quickly became thankful for what I had. This time of year, however, everyone is talking about what they are thankful for and that does my dusty mind some good at being grateful. It gives me excuses to tell people why I’m thankful and it also inspires me of what I have to be thankful for that I may not have noticed. Something else that comes with this season is time off from work and school that I can spend with my family and friends. So I have something new to be thankful for right now. My friends are my number 1 support system, they get me through the worst of days whether they even know it’s a bad day or not. Usually all that’s visible is how much I talk out loud, the worse I feel the quieter I am. Other than that it’s not always very visible that I’m floating south. 

I can say this also, since I started to rethink my school decisions for next year my depression has disappeared. Last week I decided maybe I should follow my best friend to school next year, him d I have talked about it and he seems to love the idea. Allowing myself to even think about going off to school and unleashing myself from the teather that Lyme has kept me on has been very freeing. I’d be with my best friend so I should be safe, he’s been with me sick before. Even so, by the time I would be leaving for school next year I should be out of this funk. Some of the stress that has been a contributing factor to the severity of my health decline is gone and will stay gone. So now I am in a recovery period of sorts. Stress isn’t what put me in decline, or at least as a whole. But it’s been a major contribution I believe. 

Naturally, thinking about following my friend and going off to school has sparked a couple dozen fears about the situation. #1 being that I am only going off to school because people will think I can’t let go of my friend. The school in question was actually my goal way back when I thought I would be  100% healthy when I entered college. So it would be like going back to an old dream, opening a box that I thought had long been closed and locked. Now the box has been opened and this time I have a best friend to go with it, I didn’t when this was my original plan. Actually I wouldn’t have ever met him most likely if I left for this school my first year of college. 

So I am trying to use these thoughts to encourage myself, if this is meant to be, that I am making a good choice. 

Like I said, since I started playing around with this my depression disappeared. Remnants still poke around, but I haven’t had any for real depression since. That was more than a week ago now. 

Fears of being judged are at an all time high but this too shall pass. I figured all I can do right now is apply to the school and wait. Either I’ll get in or a I won’t and that’ll be that.

I just keep on praying. I am praying for guidance and healing. I am praying for others that are suffering(Rebekah Miller and the Goertzen family among those), I am praying for my uninvited house guests-depression, anxiety, fear, and sadness to be banished without a trace
I have faith that all of these prayers will be answered, I don’t know how or when they will be answered. If I did I guess that would be a wish, not a prayer. I’m not much into the wishing business...now that’s something I don’t have faith in.

I am also praying that this week has inspired thankfulness to be in your heart this week. I have found many things to be thankful for that my issues have prevented me from seeing. Being around others of a like mind tends to make the old wheels turn and new thoughts appear!

Hansa Round 5 days 1-2

I am going to go ahead and post about my doctors visits from today and yesterday, I know I still haven't posted my 4th visit to the clinic. Ill get to it one day.

Day 1-

OK so on to today's visit, #1 among all things from the doctors testing and my blood work-parasites. So again, we are at it treating those with new things, so far he hasn't said if they were digestive or blood parasites. As far as their effects, they are causing issues in my whole system not just something here or there. 

Something unique that muscle testing can find is "attachments" or "entities", that's what he found on me today, negative energy attached to the parasites. The remedy he made for me was to clear the negativity from my system and disconnect the connection it had on me. This surprised me, yet didn't surprise me. I have been so dark and depressed...much more than ever before. After he gave me the remedy I felt happier, for the rest of the day I was able to laugh and have fun even though I felt garbagy still.

I have never had anyone tell me this before. Something interesting, last week I visited my friend who does muscle testing, shes been helping me out some since I have not been able to see my doctor. She couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, we ended up down meaningless rabbit trails, no answers, and I was completely untestable. We tried for two hours to figure out what was up in my system, nothing. We didn't check for attachments though, and thats what the test block was. 

He made a new remedy for those today, once again this is a completely new and different treatment than before. In other words we are treating a different aspect of the whole parasitic, its not necessarily anything new as far as infections go. Parasites take a while to get rid of because they are very unique, bacteria and virus are hard but in their own separate aspect. If you have a strong functioning immune system, you wont pickup a virus or bacteria, and if you do they wont be capable of sticking in your system for long.
Lyme disease is a bacteria and it is hard to get rid of because it is capable of disarming and destroying immune cells, infecting the entire body but nonetheless it can be killed.
Here's what makes parasites unique, they are a living breathing multicellular organism just like an animal. They are capable of harboring their own set of bacteria, virus, metals, just like people. Parasites have their own brain, blood system, and digestive system unlike bacteria and virus. So when a person becomes infected with parasites and takes a treatment, the parasites are killed but then they release whatever pathogens or toxins they were carrying. You can take a standard X drug for Y parasite for years, you will never be able to kill every single one of them with a drug and you will have strong side effects from the dying parasites.
In the way I am being treated, the side effects, the parasites, and the communication between my body and the parasites are being addressed.
That's another thing that makes parasites unique, they have to have a host to survive. When they infect a person or an animal, they release chemicals that stop your body from recognizing them so they can fly under the radar. So the communication aspect has to be addressed as well, you will never find a standard doctor or naturopath capable of treating this. It takes a specialized doctor like mine who can do specialized testing to see what the pathogens are doing and what will stop them, there is no set protocol for this. Its mostly homeopathic treatment to disconnect the connection of the parasites to my system, herbs and drugs will mainly just kill. The thing is, you cant just kill parasites, they become resistant and they hide. They can even incase themselves in cysts which can't be killed.
So that was the majority of todays appointment, he made one remedy to cover everything involved with the parasitic ordeal, tomorrow he will test again to see what else needs to be done. My body actually tested at saturation today, which means we covered everything possible for the day-no more. My doctor said that is a pretty big deal because that means this new treatment is powerful enough to negate everything else.

He also worked on the hernia, he felt around my stomach and said that my diaphragm was swollen to the point that it was covering my stomach. In a regular hiatal hernia the stomach get stuck in the bottom of the diaphragm, so by pulling the stomach down you correct the hernia. In my case its the reverse, my diaphragm is swollen and veering my stomach. He adjusted it and did some facial release using the percussor, then he used hyssop oil on it to bring down the inflammation. Again he will check it tomorrow, but after all he did today it may finally be a done deal. He told me I need to continue using the hyssop for a while to prevent it from coming back, so that will be something I do once I get home.

As far as blood results go, this round is fairly different than before in how they've changed. For the first time vitamin D is good, cholesterol is closer to where it should be, white blood cell count is higher meaning my immune system is actually beginning to work on its own, but I did hit a new extreme on easonifils which is the parasite marker. He said its rare to see it as high as mine is, so we know for sure that we are chasing the right rabbit trail. My kidneys are showing some stress also, other than those two things I don't have a bad report.

With as bad as I have felt the past couple of months I was expecting worse for my blood scores, and the parasite markers are pretty bad. But that's it, Lyme itself is not showing up so far, that's a big positive. Neither are any other tick borne infections that I have, doesn't mean they aren't there it just means they aren't a problem right now.

Tomorrow ill find out what else we can find to correct, I'm fairly satisfied for today's visit because it was entirely new stuff as far as what's actually happening in my body and new treatment. 

Day 2-

Today was another productive visit at the doctors office. We worked on parasites again, this time with focus on the side affects of the parasites themselves. He found that the parasites are disrupting my mitochondria, causing me to be tired all the time. Plus he found some tie ins to my stomach and hormones.
He found I need a dopamine, serotonin, and pregnenolone booster to counteract the side affects. Plus he added something for me to take to support my adrenals during this time. The adrenals are what make a significant portion of your hormones, plus they make energy. By supporting my adrenals in addition to treating the other issues it adds a boost to my body as a whole.
He also added a neuro anti-inflammatory supplement, because the parasite toxins are setting off my brain and nervous system. So this tied with the dopamine and serotonin, this will help with my terrible brain fog.
The pregnenolone is tied into the adrenal pathway, so that is what the purpose of this hormone.

Most of this is new for me, several years ago I did a dopamine booster and it didn't help me much. This is the first time that my body has tested well for any direct neurotransmitter(brain chemical) support, in other words this is a new layer being corrected that we haven't been able to reach.
Pregnenolone is also new for me, I am interested to see how this makes me feel before long.

I feel pretty worn out today, my brain fog is just making everything difficult.

I see the doc again tomorrow, then I will be headed home. 

Treatment days 4/5

I am so sorry, I just forgot totally about my blog :(

I dropped the ball and forgot to write out days 4-5. This past visit to the center was fantastic, I made great strides! But while I was at the clinic I stayed beat, 8 felt worn out the whole time. Most days after treatment I would hit the couch and stay there until dinner. I felt well, just no excess energy.

Okay, cliff notes of day 4 and 5-

The doctor added in a remedy for my stomach, to remove some emotional trauma suppressing enzyme production. He also did the neurophotinic therapy on me again (day5). The first time I did this therapy I had to take several homeopathics to correct missconnections in my system, this time there were only a few.

The doctor said I shouldn't need to see him for 6 months!! When I go back it will be a short visit instead of a full week. 

Since leaving the clinic-

I feel great. I'm in college and working, something I couldn't have done before. It would have had to be either school or work, not both. I'm still experiencing more brain fog than I would like, studying can be extremely difficult sometimes. Energy and pain are well, there's been very few days I've totally felt run down! Sleep is still unchanged, not surprised because nothing has ever affected my sleep positively. 

Exercise is iffy, I can't do a workout. But on a day I feel like I have excess energy to expend, a few push-ups or something will not leave me shaking or in pain the rest of the day. If anything it's a move in the right direction.

This last visit has honestly been the best. It went by in a whirlwind, but the progress made in 5 days was astounding.

Day 1 was the worst, I had no energy, no brain power, all I wanted was to stay on the couch. Day 2/3 were a total shift. I was still tired the whole week, but I felt alive haha

Before Treatment update

Hello you all, I know it's been a little bit since I've said anything. No news is good news, this time.

I go back to Kansas for treatment soon, which I am looking forward to. This visit has the potential to be the last needed. I would love for it to be, but my guy feeling is that it won't be. 

This week I am trying to get back into juicing like I need to be. I have been doing smoothies, which is good. But I really do need to step it up a bit. Every time I juice consistently I feel significantly better, without fail. 

One thing that makes me think, is it the detoxing from juicing that makes me more alive or is it the nutrition.

I know I don't eat much, my stomach doesn't allow it. Too much food makes me nauseas and bloated(still). 

In a last post I had mentioned my kidney pain had taken off again. I drank an herbal tea for a week, which had almost gotten rid of it. The pain stopped, then came back worse. So I made up another herbal remedy, and stuck to that a little longer which seemed to have finished off whatever that was. It may have been some kind of UTI, I didn't have any burning, just major side pains. If I thumped my back it felt almost like a bruise.

This will be making my list of question to ask the doctor when I get to Kansas.

Another recent thing to have popped up is yeast rashes. I had 1-2, around my hips that weren't bad. I noticed them but didn't think much, figuring maybe it's heat related. I have had a yeast rash around my stomach that comes and goes. I put coconut oil on it and it goes away, until I sway to far from my diet for to long-then it comes back to remind me junk food isn't doing me any favors.

But these rashes are more resistant to the coconut oil. Several rashes had appeared and grew before I started doing anything for them. Which was probably my first mistake. 

Yesterday I started to crack down on them, rubbing in coconut oil with a couple essential oils to soothe the itching that has started. Today I did even more. Maybe tomorrow they will begin to sway...

In the past my stomach rash would disapear after diligently rubbing coconut oil on it. Though each time the rash has come back it's been more resistant to the coconut oil, which can't be a good sign.

Other than this I have been doing well. Fatigue isn't at its worst, neither is insomnia. The night before last I went to sleep at a resonable hour, which felt fantastic by the way.

I am hoping this is the beginning of many more restful nights asleep. I still feel like I have a significant ways to go...but I do enjoy the improvement.

I would say since my last visit to my doctor I have had some of the most extreme ups and downs...

Post of Frustration...UGHH

When is it over?

I am looking forward to the day I can walk without aching knees and lay down and go to sleep. That's what I'm starting today's post off with, because it's a positive outlook.

Now for the rest. I am depressed. Just to simply put it, I feel like no matter what I do, I will always have bad days. That in the end, I have only had band aids to my body and when therapies are stopped I'll regress. If I don't stop I feel like I'm throwing my time and energy out the window because I may not get better.

Its a lose lose situation!

I do the therapies, meet with the doctors, educate myself, find the next best thing, but am I just making things better now. I want to be better all the time-24/7. I believe in my doctor. I believe he gets patients 100% well, I believe I will be one of those patients. I'm just afraid it will be years and years upon more years, before I get to be one of those patients to get well...
I know I have written many posts this year talking about my improvement. I have improved greatly, even now I am better than I have been. The process to get well is just so slow and I feel alone when I'm not well.

I need to elaborate when I say depressed. I'm not standard depressed, I just get depressed at night. During the day I usually have no problem. At night, I feel like it's the end of the world. Like everything I do is worthless, that all of my actions of the day were wrong, I could have done/said/planned whatever it is better and what I did was a mistake, I just start to feel like I have nothing.

I don't know what to do about it. I haven't told the doctors because I know it will resolve with treatment and on some nights it's not bad. I don't know if that's a good choice of not, but I don't want anymore tests that get me put on anymore pills that aren't a permanent fix. Ugh...I feel like I have an amazing doctor, but many days I still feel like I have to fend for myself.

I know I have stated a hundred times before I don't sleep at night. I don't sleep much at all and its late when I finally get to sleep. It just is what it is these days, I sleep better during therapy at the clinic in Kansas. That's good. But that's it. At home I go back to my normal sleep patterns.

This week I am doing brain wave optimization therapy to try to get my brainwaves back in gear. I hope it works. But I'll be honest, my first thought when I started this therapy wasn't This is it, after this I'm going to sleep normal again. My thoughts were, this is boring...what's the chance it's even going to work.
It's not that I don't have faith in the therapy, buy I've just done so many different therapies and remedies in the past....I still don't sleep. Is this really going to be it?? I mean, I'm tired of doing so many different treatments.

It's depressing not being able to do what other people do. I want to get up and go to work, I want to exercise for fun, I want to throw out all my medicines, I don't want to know my doctors home phone number!
Can I tell you what it's like to become chronically ill and your own doctor at 13? It's hard. It's complicated. I wouldn't even know where to start, so I'll just say this,

It would be nice if I could go online and find a study saying XYZ treatment fixed X-Lyme disease problem 100%. I can go online and find all sorts of official, authenticated, backed studies with a bunch of diseases showing what will be beneficial and what's not. Treating Lyme disease is like gambling, who knows what's going to happen.
That goes for traditional, alternative, conventional, whatever you chose treatment. None, NONE have anything to back them with enough information to give people a cure for the disease. Kill bacteria sure, you can find studies about killing bacteria,

But it's not about killing the bacteria, it's about making the patient LIVE!

Guess What!

 Hey you guys!
I just came back from a school trip to the beach! It was so nice to get away, even if school was involved the whole time it was still great.

During this trip I remained on all meds but couldn't do the sauna at all or detox baths. The amazing thing is I feel better now than before I left. My acne is 98% clear, my energy and motivation is way up,  and wait for it....I've been sleeping almost like a normal person. Who else is shocked?? Get this, I ate junk all week long. The only healthy foods I ate were oranges. That's it, the rest was sandwiches, processed meat, synthetic crap foods(think chips/cheese puffs/yogurt), and cereal. I even had plain old processed, pasteurized cow milk on my cereal in the morning.

If you aren't surprised of my progress after that I'll be shocked again...

I have no idea what did it. Could have been the positive energy and the adrenalin (my first guess), all of the sunlight, being in a different environment, or even simply because I didn't dwell on the fact I was eating nutrientless food.
I noticed I was feeling different and acne clearing probably the second day. I didn't really get into the sun until the fourth and fifth day so I know it isn't fully responsible.

Ya know what though? I don't question it. I feel better, I exercised and played soccer with minimal inhibitance (even impressed someone), and I have been able to wake up early and go to bed on time without issue. Not seeing a problem here.

I praise God for this improvement and protection from the toxins that can harm my progress.

The Healing Code, have you read it?

     Today I want to talk about a book to nearly everyone I know. Dr. L recommended this to me a few years, and I am so glad I listened! This book really helped me get through the emotional trauma caused by being sick. People with chronic illnesses often have had some kind of emotional trauma at some point in their life.

     Mine stemmed from a few points. When I broke my arm I was in a cast for about 9 weeks. My thumb and pointer finger were unable to flex because the nerve was stretched. All of my fingers on that hand were messed up in some way or another. I had 0 feeling in my pointer and thumb, my middle finger had pins and needles and diminished flexibility, my ring finger was like my middle but less severe, then my pinky was unaffected somehow. Even today I still have diminished feeling in that hand after nearly 5 years, PE, and laser therapy.
Another thing that gets to me, especially on the bad days, is losing friends and being unable to stay involved with things I did previously.
At one point I was active in Boy Scouts, gymnastics, tennis, and anything else fun that came up. The boy scouts especially ticked me off. I was one of the highest ranking kids in the county, active in the Troop, first one in my patrol to reach the rank of eagle at 14 years old, and I had known most of the other guys most of my life.
I went to the meetings and taught the younger kids every week, never missed. I knew all of the younger kids, I enjoyed teaching them. It was great.
A year after becoming an Eagle Scout I just had no more energy for extra activities. I couldn't go and teach every week. No one said anything to me. I took a three month or so break before I went back. One of the first things a patrol member of mine said to me was "Why are you here"
Warming isn't it? I could talk about the Boy Scouts a lot...but lets be honest. Its way overrated.
 I am a double silver Eagle Scout with a full sash of merit badges(I could start the second). I know this from experience. I wasn't one of the kids who let their dad take over either, I made it at 14 because I wanted  to. It was a goal I wanted to accomplish. I just had a strive to thrive.
Now Lyme disease is my priority. I have to strive to survive. Ill thrive later, God willing.

     That's the gist of my sob story. Ill probably post about it again at a later date. Ill get off my rabbit trail and go back to the book.
Emotional trauma stops healing. The mind is the control center for your whole body. If it is overwhelmed with emotions it has to deal with, its priorities are going to change from healing the body, to healing the mind. Stress kills, a stressed brain cannot function.
When we live with emotional trauma, the added physical trauma will be our downfall. Its not possible to be physically well when we are taken down from both sides.
Our heart, according to Dr. Jernigan at the Hansa Center, holds onto these emotional memories. This book, The Healing Code, goes into great detail about how our emotions and thoughts control our health. One of the doctors in the book discussed how his chronically ill patients
 wouldn't get better. The root of it wasn't the wrong pill combination, but emotions.


     Reading this book gave me more sense of self awareness. I am not controlled by the anger or unhappiness I had from becoming ill. I don't blame myself. I used to try to blame others or myself. "Maybe if I would have started complaining about my symptoms sooner I would have found a treatment sooner". Or why didn't someone else see that I felt so bad and say something.
Its important to remember, everything happens for a reason. We may not be able to see the reason, but there will be a positive outcome.

     Being sick taught me to become independent and to avoid following blindly. Whenever a doctor tells me to take something I need to know A.Why? B. What is it going to do to me. C. What are the important side affects.
Too many people take a doctors advice way too seriously. A doctor practices what he/she is taught, most of them do follow a similar script for everyone.
They have a fairly specific protocol for everyone already, for depression they have an A drug they tryout first, same goes for infections, ADD/ADHD, and other disorders.
When drug A or even herb/supplement A doesn't work, they have a backup or plan B.

     I learned to think creatively. I try to think outside the box when it goes to my own treatment. Most doctors(who treat lyme) give 1-3 abx. This will cause a herx reaction from the bacteria dying.
When a herx is coming on, we are told to detox. Detox what? There is always more than lyme bacteria to detoxify. The goal may be to remove the toxins from dead bacteria, but detoxing is so general. It will help remove anything that needs to be removed.
So what specifically is being detoxed, heavy metals, other bacteria toxins(if so which ones?), environmental toxins, pesticides, parasites?
When detoxing usually some symptoms will increase, for me brain fog usually. Which toxins coming out cause which symptoms?
Anyway, this is how I think. "Why" and "how" is what I am always asking. I no longer think, "what if I had" or "but if this-". This poisons our body.

The Healing Code taught me to check my thoughts and emotions. Letting them run wild will lead to downfall, not a better circumstance that "could have been". It was not a standard self help book, it wasn't telling me to change my life to be happy. It explained the science of cellular memories and how they affect our body.
I recommend this book to anyone who struggles with a resistant, chronic disease. It was easy to read and extremely informative.
Emotional healing should be considered in everyone with a chronic disease. Something is blocking the body from healing.

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”‘ – Romans 8:28

Why Diet is Important

     A few posts ago I wrote about my views on Lyme treatment, and some things that can be done to boost the immune system. In that post I spoke a lot on what should be eliminated from our diets. Today I want to talk about what we should add to our diet!
     What we eat is just as important as what we avoid eating. We can avoid all of the chemicals we want, but if empty calories are what replaces the chemicals its really not much of a difference.
Bread, pasta, cereal, jam, jelly, grits, cornbread, and potatoes are examples of foods most of us eat on a frequent basis.

    All of these foods can be prepared with minimal chemicals. The catch is, they have very little nutrient value. Then on top of these nutrient empty staples, we have the calorie counting/no fat bandwagon. Our bodies do not count calories, or even use them. The calorie is a unit of measure. The small calorie is the amount of energy it takes to heat one gram of water, one degree Celsius. The large calorie is the amount of energy needed to heat one kilogram of water by one degree, Celsius.
 
    Our brains are about 60% fat. Brain tissue is created from essential fatty acids. How is brain tissue supposed to be created without its building blocks? I don't know. Hard to make something without the correct ingredients in my opinion...

   Our bodies are built from minerals, protein, and vitamins. Calories have their time and place, they aren't useless. If building your immune system is a goal, look at the nutritional information instead.
Our bones are built from calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium, plus trace minerals. In fact our bones are the stores for minerals. They can be weakened as a result of a mineral deficient diet.
Calcium and phosphorus are found in dairy products like milk, yogurt, and kefir. People drink milk all the time, great right? Not if its pasteurized. The pasteurization process destroys nutrients according to Dr.Weston Price, A dentist from the 1920's. Dr. Price discovered something in the native groups of Alaska, Switzerland, and Australia. The people would never get cavities. Their bodies are capable of rebuilding their teeth, because they consume the building blocks to do so!
Dr. Price went looking for support of a vegan, plant based diet. He couldn't find it. He found that the diet of these people was primarily meat products.
The people of these native tribes typically never connected with the outside, modern world. They were completely self sustaining. These people were not influenced by the no fat, low calorie, plant based diet fad.
     
     Whenever I search for the internet for advice to improve my diet, vegan and vegetarianism are some of the first hits. A diet must be better without meat by what the research shows, right? Dr. Price found the opposite. The natives, who ate primarily meat, had a very low instance of disease, birth defects were few and far between,  cavities were rare (especially in the Australians), and had non-existent crime. I've never heard anyone say any of this about potatoes or cabbage. You?

    What was different about their meat and dairy from ours is this. They didn't pasteurize anything, the animals were farm raised on their natural diet, and to preserve food they fermented it. If milk needed to be preserved it was turned into cheese or yogurt. Both of these food products in their natural state (no dyes, preservatives, etc.. ) are high in the nutrients we need to survive. Vitamin K2, for example, is something that is diminishing from our diet. Cultured dairy products contain K2 in beneficial amounts, no longer found in their processed cousins...

    The natives also ate organ meats, and knew which organs were beneficial for certain ailments.  Organ meats are loaded with nutrients. The adrenals are high in vit.C, and the liver in vit.A, for examples. The vitamin A from meat is also a different form than from fruits/vegetables, retinol instead of beta carotene. Beta carotene has to be converted into retinol to be used by the body. The animal has already done that! Here's an example-
Imagine the a cow. The cow eats grass, its body breaks the nutrients down, then uses them to build  their tissues. We are capable of the same process, but we can also eat the animal, who has already broken apart the nutrients. There is always more than one method to accomplish a goal.

    The above is just the beginning of creating a well balanced diet. I didn't even talk about the benefits of bone broth, soups/stews, kefir, or eggs.
As a society we definitely need to consume more plants than we do, but I think we discount the health benefits of meat. Plant foods are invaluable to our health, I will make a post about them in the future. One example of fruit/vegetable benefits I like is this found here.

There is just so much to be said about diet! I could have gone on forever but decided this was enough for today :)

    

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.