**Disclaimer** By reading this you are agreeing not to take anything said on this blog as medical advice. Please see a medical professional for guidance and/or treatment. Thank you.
What if you had something that was killing you?
What if that something was an epidemic?
What if that epidemic was hidden?
I have it, and it is. Lyme disease.
What is lyme disease?
Lyme disease is a very serious disease in which if it turns chronic, does not have a cure. It is a huge compilation of serious, often debilitating symptoms.
How do you get lyme disease?
It is most often transmitted through a tick bite, but can also be transmitted through deer flies. Pets can bring ticks into the house. There are cases that show lyme disease is also an std. These bacteria go into your blood stream when a tick bites you. From there, they can move through your body into any organ or system.
What can I do to avoid getting lyme disease?
Don't go in the woods or high grass areas. Even so you can still get it, anywhere. It is suggested if you are in any woodsy area to cover up your skin as much as possible. Tuck pants into socks, wear long sleeves. When you get in, remove all clothing and wash it immediately. Check over your entire body to see if you have any ticks on you. They can be extremely small and hard to notice. If you find any, remove them completely with a tweezers. Do not leave the head in. Save it and you may be able to have it tested for lyme disease and other co-infections. See an LLMD immediately if you find a tick on you.
Is it "just" lyme disease or does the tick cause something else too?
Often it is not just lyme disease. There are many co-infections that can also be extremely serious and involve their own treatment plan. Long term, lyme disease can cause a large number of other complications.
Will you know if you have lyme disease?
The classic key symptom of lyme disease is a bullseye rash anywhere on your body, small or large, especially if there is a tick still attached. Other key symptoms are flu like symptoms of fatigue, muscle aches and pains, stiffness, headache, chills and fever. However, you can get bit by a tick and not know it; you can have lyme disease and not have these classic symptoms.
You can also have, especially if lyme turns chronic, many other symptoms and more serious ones especially neurological... memory issues, trouble talking, vision problems, trouble swallowing, facial paralysis, sensory issues, ringing in the ears, headaches, temperature sensitivity, absolutely extreme fatigue, tiredness, horrible pain, muscle and joint pain and stiffness, mood swings/fits of rage, becoming very emotional, nausea, balance trouble, seizures, heart trouble, etc. Lyme can cause a number of other diseases, or those diseases may be lyme misdiagnosed. Lyme can kill you, though the number one reason people die from lyme is from suicide. Lyme disease is that bad that people feel they have to do that. Lyme disease is unable to be put into words. It is living an absolute nightmare while trying to put on a smile to the world carrying on around you.
In addition to all that, you can have lyme and not know it. It can perhaps be in your system but not brought out unless something serious happens such as pneumonia. You can have it and possibly transmit it to others and not know it. It could show up in them and not you even if they got it from you. It can be transmitted from mother to child.
Can I get lyme disease more than once?
Yes. You can get it again and again and again. Or you can get it and it may never go away.
Is there a test for lyme disease?
The regular testing at a regular doctor for lyme disease is highly inaccurate. Furthermore, testing will most likely not show positive until at least weeks to months after being infected. There is special testing through a special lab which is much more accurate but often not covered by insurance.
Who treats lyme disease?
#1 thing to know- if you go to an infectious disease doctor, which is who a primary care doctor will refer you to if you have a tick bite, the infectious disease doctor will most likely say you do not have lyme due to the huge controversy behind it. If you want lyme treated properly, you will probably have to see an LLMD- lyme literate doctor. They are hard to find again because of the controversy. They kind of hide out and the best way to find one is a recommendation through another lyme patient or a lyme literate organization. More importantly, they most likely will not accept insurance because of the controversy which leads to hundreds and thousands of dollars out of pocket for consultation and treatment.
What is the controvery?
Bottom line is that the people who run the rules of everything lyme disease have a conflict of interest with receiving money from different sources. Also when they were laying out the lyme guidelines, when it came to discuss chronic lyme, it never got discussed. So they based their information off what they already had. It is highly inaccurate. These people run all the rules. Insurance doesn't want to pay. Thus regular doctors cannot treat chronic lyme disease without risking losing their license. Doctors who do treat can't accept insurance because it goes against the guidelines of treatment. It is all a bunch of politics.
There is speculation that lyme disease was actually created as a biochemical weapon long ago. There is also speculation that there is a cure but it is kept highly under wraps. There is speculation that whether there is or isn't a cure, a cure will never be available to the public because of how much money lyme makes, "lyme" meaning a bunch of other illnesses/diseases which are actually lyme or caused by lyme but classified as multiple other things depending on symptoms such as MS, POTS, alzheimers, etc.
What is the treatment?
It will vary from person to person. The cdc claims you can be treated and cured with about 2 weeks of antibiotics. LLMD's and those of us who have lyme disease know that is not true for chronic lyme. Chronic lyme is treated for months if not years. It involves multiple medications, sometimes cycling different medications, pulsing different medications, supplements and therapies. Most likely it will involve a medication to bust open the cysts that the lyme hide in, a supplement to dissolve the biofilms, a medication or more than one that then attacks the lyme to kill it, a medication or more than one to attack any co-infections that come along with lyme, a medication or supplement to fight the yeast overgrowth that often comes on with taking antibiotics, probiotics to build up the good bacteria after the antibiotics kill off all bacteria, multiple supplements and treatments to detox the body from the outpouring of the lyme dying and multiple supplements to support the body going through this process. These medications can be orally or through IV. Often the day of a lyme patient revolves around a very hectic and strict medication schedule- some with food, some without, some you can't lay down afterwards, some taken away from other supplements.
Why doesn't treatment cure lyme?
The lyme disease hide in cysts inside your body. There they are hard to attack or find. Often by the time lyme is diagnosed, patients have gone years or even decades of misdiagnoses and improper treatment. Over that time the lyme takes over the body causing more and more symptoms and different stages of lyme. The lyme can get into any organ or system in your body. They can attack your heart, your brain, your eyes, your nerves and muscles, anything.
What else can you do to help yourself if you have lyme?
Eat healthy! By healthy I don't mean cut out fats and watch your calories. Society misunderstands healthy. Healthy eating means clean eating. This means cutting out anything processed- most everything that comes in a box, cutting out GMO's which isn't exactly food to begin with it's genetically modified who knows what given the word "food", cutting out sugar, eating organically. Many lyme patients find that also cutting out gluten or grains all together and dairy sometimes including eggs is a big help also.
So why doesn't everyone with lyme just eat healthy?
We try our best to. One problem is a lot of people with lyme get GI problems. That causes nausea and food aversions often to what is healthy, and cravings often to what is very unhealthy. That can be the lyme doing that to you because the bad stuff feeds it. Sometimes we have no appetite and can't eat at all and other times we throw up what we have eaten. Even when our GI system seems to be working fairly normal, often we don't have the energy to prepare anything to eat and we eat out of convenience. And unfortunately the problem still exists that eating organic can sometimes cost more and when we are unable to work, have to pay to see doctors and get treatments out of pockets, everything starts to suffer because of it. But if you are going to start anywhere, lyme or not, start by eating healthy.
If LLMD's aren't covered by insurance, the cost is very high, and there is no cure, why bother?
Treatment helps, it just doesn't cure. What that means is if we didn't get treatment we may be crippled, stuck in bed 100% of the time, progressed so far that we can't walk or talk, or killed when it attacks the heart or brain and makes us suicidal. Those with lyme are often willing to pay any price to improve their quality of life- which may just mean- just being able to get through the day.
Lyme disease is just as serious if not more serious than cancer. The reason some people may be offended by that statement may unfortunately be due to ignorance, lack of proper education and knowledge about a deadly horrible disease, thanks to those that run the medical industry. Lyme disease needs awareness and attention more than anything else I've encountered so far. Lyme disease may in fact be the cause of some of the other problems I've encountered so far, and may cause more in the future. Lyme disease is chronic pain and suffering inside a body that looks "fine". For more detailed information to better understand lyme disease and the controvery please watch this video here Thank you so much for reading!
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