Bab Herx :(

My flesh and my heart may fail: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:26

    Well like yesterday, I crashed. I woke up tired and dragged throughout the day.
All day I have felt tired, dizzy, shaky, and had a total loss of concentration.

     Its not the same fatigue as usual, its more so flu-like. So my guess, its a herx.
Generally I don't herx often, or for long, so I should be better within a few days. In the mean time, detox and rest. That's all I can do.

    Again, like yesterday, I nearly took a nap for about an hour. All I could do was lay down and try to sleep. Not because I wanted to sleep, I didn't have a choice. I didn't feel recharged afterwards, I went to bed because my body said I had too. I felt like if I didn't do this, I wouldn't be able to finish the day.
This only happens on the days I have a lot to do, part of it is stress. Thinking about all I should be doing just knocks me out. I try to avoid it, but when I have a lot to do, and cant, stress happens.
It just is what it is, I make do and keep moving on.

     Because I have been feeling more ill than usual lately, I am rethinking my current protocol. That will be the topic of my next post. I am going to highlight my past treatments and what worked, I have saved around 70-80% of my empty pill bottles from the last two years. This makes it easy to remember what all I have taken.
Judging by my symptoms, I will probably look at restarting DMSA, probiotics, and probably something else for lyme. At the moment, I feel like only babesia is covered well.

     I did take half of the Dopalift like my ND advised me to do. I didn't feel anything, but being in a herx, that's normal. The real test is, will I STILL be awake at 6:00am, that is the question.

Autism and Lyme Disease

Earlier today I shared this blog on G+. This is an amazing blog written by a mother whose two children developed autism. She had to rise above the standard medical system, which has no cure for autism, to save her two children from a life long tether to prescriptions.

This mother, Jessica, successfully treated her two boys. I bet you have never even heard of anything like this! She was able to completely reverse autism in both of her children, using natural methods.
You have to check this out. Not everyone understands the cause of autism, or that it can be reversed when treated correctly. She goes deep into the cause of their cases, which included heavy metal toxicity and food allergies.

The reason I am sharing this with you is because the natural treatment of autism is fairly similar to how lyme disease is treated.
The point is to remove what is blocking your body from healing, heavy metals, allergic foods, toxic foods, etc.
When you take away the reason your body cannot heal, it can begin to repair itself. That is when we can achieve optimum health. On paper it is that simple, by removing the cause, the symptom will also be removed. Its practicing your own specific protocol that will lead to healing. We are all  toxic from different pollutants, everyone is their own individual when it comes to health.

Their treatment involved parasite cleanses, hair tests for heavy metals, stool tests to check gut bacteria, and herbs along with vitamins to help their bodies heal.
I have done all of this actually for my lyme treatment! I have already posted about my chelation journey, Jessica is where is learned about the method I used.

At some point in the future I will post some of the other tests I have done along with nearly all of the supplements I have taken up to this point. I have had neurotransmitter tests, stool tests, liver and kidney, genetic tests, allergy panels, etc.

She used all of these same things on her children. Another thing that worked well for both of us was homeopathy. I had great results when I was taking ledum palustre, it just didn't last for me and I couldn't find an alternative. One day I will get back into this.

Jessica also had her children tested for lyme disease, which has been found to be fairly common in autistic people. She writes about this on her blog, I guess you will just have to read it to find out more...

Artemisia, Cinchona, and Black Walnut

Hello my friends!
The new supplements for babesia arrived today!
A few posts ago I said I was ordering cinchona bark, artemisa combinations, and black walnut hull. I did this because I have been stuck in a babesia flair, this should help knock it down a peg. Here is some info I found on the herbs-

Cinchona bark is used for malaria treatment in South America. Traditionally ground and made into a tea for usage.
Quinine, which can be derived from cinchona bark, has been used as a traditional drug for malaria in North America. Quinine is no longer used for malaria treatment because of possible side affects.
However, the synthetic versions of drugs are nearly always much less safe than what they were derived from, so the bark should not have these side effects at low dosages.
I am going to drink a cup of tea daily.

Artemisia and its derivatives have been used in Lyme/babesia treatment for a long time. Many of the prominent LLMD's use Artemisia or artemisinin in their treatment protocols. It is also an antimalarial that is effective against babesia. It is typically taken in a capsule, 3 days on, 4 days break. It is said Artemisia builds up in the tissue and should be discontinued to allow it to clear. If it isn't allowed to clear it cannot be utilized by the body, it becomes desensitized. I don't know if its true or not, sounds kinda odd to me.
I am going to take 2 pills, 3x a day, three days on 4 off.

The black walnut is not for babesia (as far as I know), but it is good for killing parasites and yeast. Because Artemisia is also a parasite cleanser, although weaker than black walnut, I wanted to pair the two for a stronger effect. I take this every few months then take a break.
I am going to take 2, 3x a day, 15 days on, 5 off. Taking five days off is supposed to allow the parasite eggs to hatch, then restarting the herb will kill them after they hatch.

 

Here are my herbs after unboxing

 

I made a cup of cinchona tea. I had to grind the bark using the coffee grinder to make it into a powder.

I mixed 1tsp of the powder in a cup of boiling water and let it sit for a while.

Its not bad, kinda bitter. It has a unique flavor, with a texture like a raw sweet potato(know what I mean?) I can definitely take this without much difficulty daily. Its weird, but not bad.

 

Here is the finished product. The bark needed to be ground a little more, but hey, it was my first try!

 

 

I have already taken my first dose of everything. I became very fatigued late this afternoon, almost took a nap because of it. Wonder if it was a short herx? After I finished everything I had to do for the day I sat down, about 6:00pm. I almost fell asleep! I didn't get up for almost two hours. I am still tired, but on the days this happens...I know I wont sleep during the night. I can only pick one time to rest, today my body picked the late afternoon. I never know what to expect with this disease, its like a roller coaster.

 

One last thing, I emailed the ND today, asking him what I should do about my Dopalift situation.

He told me to half the capsule and try again tomorrow.

So tomorrow I am going to take half a Dopalift at 8:00am.

 

 In my last post I said I was going to try taking it at 8am this morning, but my alarm didn't go off. Slept right on through... I didn't think about halving it, I am kinda glad I forgot.

 

Until next time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 1!

Its the first day of November! The leaves are falling and its starting to get cool. The best part is the ticks start disappearing, so its safe to stay outside with minimal fear:)

I have some good news for a change. I went to sleep at my usual 3:00 am this morning instead of 6:00am! So it was definitely the Dopalift that was keeping me awake.
I skipped it again today, so I should sleep tonight. I am going to try the DL one more time, this time I am going to start fresh. Before my first dose was 7pm, so the dose of day 1 probably overlapped on day 2 and so on. I don't know what the half life of DL is, with it beings herbs I don't even know how that works.

So tomorrow when I restart dose #1 will be at 8:00am. Maybe this will be enough time for the caffeine to exit my system and allow me to sleep. I am going to try it for two days. If it keeps me up, I will talk to the ND and see if he has an alternative.

Another thing I have been looking for is info on brucella. Last week I showed positive for it at the ND, which has never happened.
I found this.
It looks like essential oils are beneficial for this! I actually have all of these so this should be easy.

Sorry for another short post, my brain fog is better than yesterday but its still going strong...

Until tomorrow

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

Almost...

Well I wish I had better news.
Yesterday I thought I was finally out of the week long fatigue streak I had been trapped in. I thought I was out of it. Nope. Today proved that theory wrong.
I woke up at 8:00am to take Dopalift, still slept in later than I wanted and had no energy. The first two days on the DL I did have some more energy than usual, but the increased insomnia has counterweighted even the thought of that happening.

I have been nauseous and dizzy all day. I get dizzy sitting down or when I stand up. Its SO nice finally being able to sit down at the end of the day!

I also couldn't eat well. I only felt like eating an apple and drinking a  protein shake...Nothing looked appetizing and I felt sick after the apple, so I didn't eat much else.

On top of that, I was up until 5:00am for the third time. This has made my brain fog stronger than ever :/
I am skipping DL tomorrow. Ill try again EARLY sunday.

As I type I have a headache between my eyes, which is unusual for me. I don't typically get headaches...this has just been a strange day altogether..
Tomorrow is new day, even though it is 1:30 am...I guess tomorrow its tomorrow already

I did finally order off amazon. I ordered Cinchona powder, Artemisia complex, and black walnut. I have never tried cinchona, its supposed to be a strong ant-malaria. Same with the Artemisia, but it hasn't been that strong in my experience.

I feel like this post was kinda choppy...must be the brainfog I guess

The beginning of a Good Streak?

Today was another good day! I was able to get through the day AND still have enough energy to write on this blog. I can't complain about that!

Last night was another long night. It was about 5:00am when I finally fell asleep. I took the DopaLift as soon as I woke up yesterday, I didn't think it would still be in my system after so long.
Tomorrow I think I will set an alarm to get up and take the pill. This way it helps me wake up earlier and maybe...just maybe, it could lead to me going to bed earlier.

I have been looking for homeopathies for fatigue and insomnia, has anyone used any that they would recommend?

Another short blog post, sigh. maybe I will have something to say over the weekend...