Heat and Lyme #3 - My Regime

One of my doctors I was seeing in Seattle mentioned Lyme hates heat and would die at 106 degrees in 24 hours.  She said if humans wouldn't die, they would invent a pill that would heat up the human body to 106, but that would be too dangerous.
As I was planning out my regime I remembered this conversation.

So, #1 I was hitting it with antibiotics, #2 I was starving it by eating greens and going alkaline. Now I wanted to cook it to death.
My mom had bought me a bio mat as a gift about two years previous. I do know that it helped with the achiness. And some times I even had more energy after using it. I remember when I first got it, I laid on it for two hours a day on medium heat and read, or slept. After a couple weeks of doing that I noticed improvement in my energy levels.
Bio mats have different levels of heat, going from warm to very hot and can heat up your body with infrared heat safely penetrating very deeply.

I did this on my 1.5 month regime:

 I decided to sleep on it every night at the highest heat. I always woke up around 2 am sweating and uncomfortable from the heat and would put it down on the second level for the rest of the night.  So that was a good 3 to 5 hours of penetrating heat every night.

Also, just before bed, I would make a piping hot bath with Epsom salts and make myself lay in it, whole body covered up to my neck for AT least 10 minutes before bed.
Heat was a very important part of my regime that I stuck to for 1.5 months and never missed a day.


You can see why it was important to prepare myself to do everything.

I needed to have on hand everything I needed everyday so I wouldn't miss anything, like for example put something in my mouth that wasn't green or think, oh I'm not going to bother with the heat tonight.
And like I said, I set a date in mind when I would be ready and I prepared for it.
Honestly, this was my last straw with Lyme. I felt like if this didn't work, nothing would.

That motivated me not to cheat on my diet, or skip out on my heat every night, and not to even have ONE sip of coffee. Kale/cucumber juice was ok though!

Part of my Lyme Disease Diet - Healing Broth

I made a healing broth and drank it almost every day.

Here is the recipe:

• medium pot of filtered water
• potato with skin on
• bunch of water cress
• some shitake mushrooms or other healing mushrooms
• couple pieces of celery
• a carrot
• onion
• garlic to your taste (I used around 5 cloves each time)
• Ginger to your taste (I used a quite a lot)
• sometimes I added a little seaweed
• astragalus

Boil all ingredients for 15 to 20 minutes. Then take out all the vegetables and discard them so you just have the broth.

• cut up some cilantro
• cut up some green onion
• organic miso

Pour some broth into a cup or bowl and add some organic miso to your liking, a little all natural soya sauce, a few drops of sesame oil and sprinkle with cilantro and green onion.

Potato skin is high in potassium. Water cress is very healing and is used in cancer treatment. Shitake mushrooms are great for the immune system. Celery and carrot are healing vegetables when boiled. Garlic is an antibiotic. Ginger is an anti-inflammatory. Seaweed fights cancer too. Miso has enzymes that are good for fighting cancer.

You may wonder why I'm writing about cancer fighting foods now. It got to the point where I decided Lyme was my cancer. And I decided it needed some cancer treatment. If I didn't kill it, it would kill me.

I read a book called Nature's Cancer-Fighting Foods. I highly recommend it. I still eat very healthy and use this book as a recipe book and just for a book of interesting reading on healthy eating. AND it has some nice green salad dressing recipes. I got it for 10 bucks on Amazon.

Another book I found useful was The PH Miracle.   It explains that disease can not live in a completely alkaline environment and it all made sense to me.
So I decided to try the diet out. I went to the health food store and bought PH strips, bought an alkaline water filter, got all my alkaline foods and I was ready to go. Before I started the diet, I tested my PH and I was highly acidic. Two weeks into the diet I was still highly acidic. So, since I actually never became alkaline on the alkaline diet, I guess that's why I decided to go ALL green, to the extreme. Was I determined? Yes!

If you are interested in reading about how PH effects our body and disease, I do recommend it. It has some good information about exactly how alkaline and acidic certain foods are. And helped me understand the effects of our bodies PH.

Since I've been Lyme free, I have tested myself using PH paper and I've been on the alkaline side each time.

While I was sick, I'm not sure how many books I bought and read, because there were many. These are the two that stand out as most helpful to me.

My Diet for Lyme #2 - My Regime

Bacteria love sugar. Any kind of  sugar. Knowing that, I knew something I could use against the Lyme was starvation. I had been reading a book about the Alkaline Diet. Everything made sense to me except the fruits that are included in the diet. I did not want the Infection in my body to have anything sugars to eat! I wanted to starve it to death. After 9 years of having this disgusting bacteria in my body making my life miserable I decided to do the alkaline diet, but only eat greens. Absolutely under no circumstance did I want to give it anything to survive on!!!

For 1.5 months, this is what I ate while I was on my regime, and mission to suffocate the Lyme:

I ate unprecedented amounts of raw spinach, kale, avocado, cucumbers, celery, mustard greens, lettuce, green peppers, cilantro, and the list goes on. I juiced massive amounts, and made humongous salads and put lemon, avocado, and olive oil on them with some sea salt. I would crush garlic and leave it for 10 minutes for the enzymes to become active and sprinkle it on my massive salads. I ate at least half of a rather large head of organic garlic a day. Sometimes a whole one. I also chopped a lot of onion and put it on my salads. People would comment that I smelled. But seriously, I was fighting for my life!! And didn't care what I smelled like! Keeping my goal in mind:)

organic garlic

The reason why I took so much garlic is because  it is a natural antibiotic.

A friend of mine who grew up in South America told me story about  how when she was a little girl she got a red rash like growth allover her body. Her mother took her to the doctors and nothing they prescribed worked.  One day she went out to the barn and saw hanging from the ceiling bags of garlic. For some reason she craved it when she saw it, so she grabbed a head and sat down and ate it. The next day she did the same thing. She said to her amazement after that the rash like skin problem disappeared and never came back. When I heard this story, I decided this would be part of my Lyme regime diet. Raw garlic!

I ate all raw green vegetables. I sprinkled my salads with crushed raw garlic, onions, and raw pumpkin seeds.
Put whole avocados on them, sometimes two. I made juices from many green vegetables.
Sometimes I made guacamole using avocado, garlic, cumin, fresh lime juice and sea salt and puréed the ingredients together and had it for a meal. I tried to use my imagination while staying in the realm of green foods. It wasn't easy and since I had a time frame in mind when this would all end, I was able to carry this out.

I ate cut up vegetables through out the day including radishes as they are one of the highest alkaline vegetables.

For breakfast I made the smoothie that Paula Abdul makes for her inflammation flare ups. She was in a serious plane accident and has major head, neck and back issues. Her inflammation has caused her to go on major pain killing medication. She says after she drinks this her inflammation goes right down. When I heard her talk about this on a talk show, I decided it would also be a part of my regime. And when I started it, I noticed it cleared up my head/thinking a lot. Here is the recipe. I didn't add apple to mine. But I did add some almond milk to make it creamier, use your discretion.

Ingredients

green anti-inflammation smoothie

• 1 cup fresh kale (I kept kale frozen in a big zip lock back in the freezer)
• 1 cup spinach (I kept spinach frozen in a big zip lock back in the freezer)
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. hemp seeds 
• 1 tsp. chia seeds
• 1/2 avocado 
• 1/2 green banana (I used about 1 whole frozen green banana)
• 1/2 apple
• 1 cup coconut water

• pinch of stevia (I never used this either, it tasted good to me without it)
• 4 ice cubes (because the banana, kale and spinach were frozen, I didn't add ice to mine)

All of these ingredients are alkalizing. And it was a nice start to my morning.

For mid morning I had prepared cut up veggies. I ate a lot.

For lunch I would have a massive salad.

In the afternoon more vegetables and some raw pumpkin seeds and raw almonds (if they are raw, they should be considered green).
I ate unlimited amounts.

While doing this and along with everything else on this regime, I sweat and sweat and sweat. I always felt damp. I was shocked one day when I changed my pillow case and my what used to be white pillow was now dark brown. Some serious crap was coming out of my body.

Now that I look back, I wonder if adding meat would have made a difference to my out come.
Whatever the case I'm better now....
My next post will include the healing broth recipe and the name of a few books that were very useful for me on this journey.

Fluconazole

Antibiotics, Fungus and Teeth

Since I was on antibiotics for such a long period of time, my doctor prescribed an anti fungal medication to take care of that. Before I went on it, I had black fungus grow on my teeth from taking antibiotics.  At first look my dentist thought my teeth were de-calcifying and I believed him because my teeth were in such pain from the Lyme that it felt like they were going to all fall out. I remember going home after that appointment thinking about having no teeth at 28 years of age. It was a scary depressing thought. However, at my next appointment a week later, it turned out the dental hygienist could scrape it off. That's when we discovered I had black fungus growing on my teeth and my teeth weren't going to fall out of my head. What a huge relief that was!!!

An anti fungal is an important part of treatment.
I however did not take an anti fungal medication during my 1.5 month regime.
Only while I was doing my antibiotic treatment, alone, as prescribed by my Lyme Literate Doctor.
I took a very strong acidophilus however throughout my whole journey.
The acidophilus I took was very powerful. I needed it. It is called Theralac. At the time I could order it by phone, but I see there is a website online. Here is the link: http://www.theralac.com/default.aspx
I highly recommend this product.
There are some really good probiotics out there!

Apo-Sulfatrim

I took this while I was taking Azithromycin. Usually a LLMD will prescribe two or more medications for Lyme co-infections because they form colonies inside your body and build cysts around the colonies to protect themselves. Two antibiotics or more will break these cysts.  Here is some information on Apo-Sulfatrim.
While you are on antibiotics it's good to pay attention to which one makes you feel like you are getting the most progress in eliminating your infection and make sure you communicate this with you LLMD. Don't be afraid to say how you really feel. LLMD's get it. Here is some information on this particular antibiotic:

 Uses For Apo-Sulfatrim

Sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim combination is used to treat infections such as urinary tract infections, middle ear infections (otitis media), bronchitis, traveler's diarrhea, and shigellosis (bacillary dysentery). This medicine is also used to prevent or treat Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia or Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), a very serious kind of pneumonia. This type of pneumonia occurs more commonly in patients whose immune systems are not working normally, such as cancer patients, transplant patients, and patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

Slideshow: 10 Things to Know About Antibiotic Resistance

Sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim combination is an antibiotic. It works by eliminating the bacteria that cause many kinds of infections. This medicine will not work for colds, flu, or other virus infections.
This medicine is available only with your doctor's prescription.

Azithromycin otherwise known as Zythromax

Azithromycin

I was on this antibiotic off and on for one year. This is the one that worked the best for me. I had probably been on 10 different antibiotics over the course of four years. Azithromycin helped me get my energy back unlike any of the other antibiotics I had been on. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about it:

(trade names Zithromax) is an antibiotic useful for the treatment of bacterial infections. It is an azalide, a subclass of macrolide antibiotic. It is derived from erythromycin, with a methyl-substituted nitrogen atom incorporated into the lactone ring, thus making the lactone ring 15-membered. Azithromycin is somewhat more potent against certain bacterial species than erythromycin, but its widespread popularity arises primarily from its slow elimination from the body, which allows many infections to be treated with 3-5 days of once-daily administration, compared to 3-4 times a day for up to 2 weeks for erythromycin.^[1]
Azithromycin inhibits the growth of bacteria by interfering with their protein synthesis. It binds to the 50S subunit of the bacterial ribosome, and thus inhibits translation of mRNA.
This antibiotic is widely used alone or in combination with other drugs to treat^[2] otitis media, pharyngitis, community-acquired respiratory infections (including pneumonia),^[3] gastrointestinal infections^[4] (such as those caused by eating contaminated food), and gonorrhea.^[5]
It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, a list of the most important medication needed in a basic health system.^{[6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azithromycin
Azithromycin}

MY Lyme Disease Regime - MY REGIME

This is what I did for 1.5 months

 

I am going to go through these one by one with more specific details in my blog, so this is just a short run down of what I did.

1) took antibiotics ( there was no way around it for me)  I was on Azithromycin  and Sulfatrim.

2) ate all RAW green organic vegetables, tons of organic raw onion and organic garlic, organic green
bananas, organic green pumpkin seeds. It if wasn't green I didn't eat it. This was the HARDEST PART! Everything was raw and organic.

3) slept every night on a Bio-mat at a very high heat

4) took a piping hot bath every night before bed with Epsom salts and made myself stay in it for at least ten minutes.

5) completely stopped drinking coffee, or eating sugar. This was a very strict green diet, I juiced tons of organic vegetables that were green like cucumber, celery, kale, and even garlic!

6) took oil of oregano in a capsul along with my antibiotics, teasal root, holy basil AND garlic pills. I also put drops of Siberian pine nut oil in capsules.

7) drank loads of green veggie juice and water.

8) made a healing broth with shitaki mushrooms, watercress(I took this out before I drank it), ginger, and natural soy sauce. This was very yummy. I chopped cilantro and green onions and put it in after it was In The bowl with a little sesame seed oil for flavour. I drank this everyday.

9) Prayer. I prayed for wisdom, courage and strength. This disease is an extremely scary Goliath that has the power to make you feel hopeless and give up. DON'T!

I set a day in my head where I would be completely ready to start this regime. I planned on staying on it for  two months, but the hunger got to me and I lasted one and a half. For the first month, I felt like I was doing it for nothing because nothing in my body seemed to change, then one day, I felt like a heavy load was lifted off my body,...that's when I believe it died. My body was no longer a worthy host.

I've been off antibiotics for 3 years now. And I feel completely normal.

Antibiotics - Finding the Right One for Me

Finding the Right Antibiotic for Me

Azithromycin otherwise known as Zythromax definitely helped cure my Lyme co-infections. I had been on a lot of other antibiotics before taking this one, and nothing compared.  I think what's really important is to find an antibiotic that is right for your infection and your body. I tried many different antibiotics over the course of five years. I took this one on and off for a year along with a Sulpha antibiotic. During treatment on these I felt so much better, so I thought I would try to come off the antibiotics and see if the infection was really gone like I felt it was. But no, within two weeks or so, symptoms would come back. But rest be assured I felt very confident with these two antibiotics, especially Zythromax. I actually regained my energy back while on them, something I never felt while taking any of the other medications. So for me, this antibiotic combination was a break through.
In my opinion antibiotics are integral in treating Lyme co-infections. When you try to treat them naturally only, I believe you are prolonging the disease. My infection was so rampant in my body, I know if I did not take antibiotics I would either be dead or in a wheel chair all shrivelled up.

During the 4 years of being sick before my diagnosis, I spent wads do cash on nature paths and natural therapies.  I probably spent $50,000.00. Some of them helped, but none of them got rid of the Lyme, or even detected it. Nothing against naturopaths, I still go sometimes, but I was fighting a the unknow. No one could give me an explanation that I accepted. I felt like I had been poisoned and was searching for what I had been poisoned with.

Antibiotics were integral, but on their own, didn't cure me.

After 5 years of being on antibiotics and 9 in total of being sick, I was really tired of fighting. I was frustrated and scared. You would think 5 years of treatment with antibiotics, three different ones at a time would be powerful enough to kill any infection! But it would not die!
The bacteria digs deep inside, and builds walls around itself. It needed starvation, fumigation and explosives all at the same time. And my big fear then was I would be on antibiotics for the rest of my life if I wanted to function like a half normal human being.
I did NOT want to be on antibiotics anymore, but I did because they made me functional.
After being on Zythromax, I never felt better. It was just getting off Zythromax and not depending on it anymore that was the problem.

Antibiotics #1 - My Regime

Antibiotics
One thing is for sure! I would not have recovered without the help of antibiotics. I took antibiotics for a total of five years.  During that time, every now and then when I felt better, I would try to come off. But usually within a few days I could feel the Lyme coming back. It just wouldn't die. So I remained on antibiotics, usually two or three different ones at a time, just to keep myself functioning like a half normal human being. Even though they  made me feel better, they left me constantly exhausted.
  Finally in my fifth year of taking antibiotics, I realized I needed to do more. I had already been loyally sticking to an anti inflammation diet. No caffeine, sugar, nothing refined. It was hard, but I felt better when I watched what I put in my body. I wasn't sure what I needed to do that would finally kill off this monster. That's when I started to do more research and listening to people who had also been very sick and find out what helped them.  I didn't care if it was cancer or they had a rash, I wanted to know how they killed, or suffocated it because that's what I needed to do the bacteria colonies taking residence in my body. If I didn't find a way, I would be dealing with Lyme for the rest of my life. And it is  debilitating. Mentally, physically, and absolutely every which way, it will take your life away! If I  had never started antibiotics, I believe it would have killed me.

Antibiotics were crucial in starting me back to health. But that's not all that I needed. It was obvious to me, I needed to use more than one method. Lyme has a way of surviving through antibiotics and forming walls around them selves called cysts covered in biofilm, kind of like mucous to shield those little cysts from their destruction. That's why I was always on two antibiotics, to burst their bubbles.

It could be that it is actually a man made bacteria that got into nature during the war. There was a lot and still is experimenting in biological warfare going on with very evil people behind them.
Whatever the case, it is what it is. It's here and it is not just a part of people's imaginations. There are too many cases emerging for it just to be a psychosomatic thing. It would be great if our healthcare workers would get up to speed on all of this, but like I've said before, it's political. So just focus on getting better.

Antibiotics were the most powerful tactic I could get my hands on against them. But they weren't powerful enough to get me Lyme free.

Getting Antibiotics





The easiest way for me to get antibiotics was to go to America, from Canada every six weeks to see a LLMD. LLMD's are hard to find in Canada as the College of physicians  doesn't recognize Lyme like they should and NEED to in Canada. So, if a doctor is treating Lyme in Canada with long term antibiotics, they must be discreet, and expect the College of Physicians scrutiny.
I decided not to deal with it and go to America. The antibiotics are fairly cheap, its the doctor appointments that add up. I didn't care, I just wanted to get better. So, ALL of my money went into my health. This sickness taught me, if you don't have your health, you have nothing. Not even a brain if you have Lyme, that seems to get lost too which is the scariest part.
During the time I was seeking help in US, I was able to fax my drug prescriptions made out in the States by my LLMD to canadadrug.com, and delivered right to my door.

Lyme Disease Symptoms - Lyme Testing in Canada

Symptoms

Lyme disease and it's co-infections present themselves with very specific symptoms. Doctors underdiagnose Lyme or wrongly diagnose it because it can present itself as other conditions such as fibromyalgia, MS, depression, chronic fatigue, celiac, irritable bowel syndrome and many other diseases. That is not the problem for under diagnosing it though. Through my journey I have learned it's just pure ignorance. If you have Lyme, you need to work the medical system to your advantage. If you have Lyme or suspect you do, you MUST seek help from an LLMD (Lyme Literate Medical Doctor) in the USA or possibly in Canada. After I found out I had Lyme,  I wanted to go back to tell all those doctors That seemed so confused, why I was so sick!! So, that's what I started to do. However, I soon realized that was like beating my head against a brick wall because they don't get it, nor do they offer any help. I was so frustrated with the system.  Four years of doctor appointment after appointment, my time wasted and my symptoms becoming unbearable, and no one had a clue what was going on. It angered and frustrated me, and my anxiety from the whole ordeal was through the roof! I realized instead of focusing on them,  I needed to focus on me, work the system for what I needed, ignore the ignorance that surrounds this issue and just get better!

Since I've been better and off of treatment, for three years now, I often receive phone calls or emails from people who are having trouble getting help for their Lyme. When they tell me their symptoms, I realize we all have something in common. LYME symptoms. They aren't hard to spot and are very specific.

For example,

• seeing phantom images in the corner of your eye as if someone's in the room with you
• exhaustion
• head aches in front of head and in the eyes
• creaky neck
• spine going numb

  

   tick in nymph stage

• low body temperature
• slightly swollen glands
• achy
• heart palpitations
• digestion problems
• ear aches
• blurred vision
• Seeing spots especially in florescent lighting
• chest pain
• extreme motion sickness
• forget-fullness
• shortness of breath
• pressure in the head
• waking in the middle of the night and not being able to sleep
• get an awful hangover from drinking little alcohol
• facial pain
• pain in teeth and jaw
• symptoms change
• hair loss
• sudden allergy to perfumes and scents
• muscle spasms & pain, like knives going through your body
• "arthritis"

There are some 70 symptoms, so those were just a few. Something I noticed all of us that have Lyme say is, "I feel like I'm 100 years old", "I feel like I'm dying", "I can't drink alcohol". Doctors need to be trained to recognize these statements when they come together.

Symptoms vary slightly from person to person, but the symptoms remain very specific and instead of writing it off as MS or fibromyalgia or whatever else, as many doctors do, why don't they AT LEAST test for Lyme with an accurate form of testing, which at present only exists in the USA. Then more people could get better and move on with life! But for now, if you have Lyme or suspect you do, just focus on getting better, not on what many doctors say, do or think. It doesn't matter. What matters, is that you treat what you really have and get your health back.

I do not recall being bitten by a tick or having a bulls eye rash. I tested positive in Canada for Erlichiosis and Bartonella. However, the medical doctors I went back to try and show my test results to denied these tests and said they were false positives.
So trying to help the MD's see what I was dealing with was really hopeless. I needed to see a Lyme Literate Medical Doctor. Please see a LLMD if you think you may have Lyme.

Lyme Testing in Canada

Here are my blood tests I had done in Canada. If Lyme is not tested for during a certain window  of time, the levels won't show in blood. Sound like reliable testing to you? My tests showed that either I didn't have an infection, OR the infection was no longer detectable. It was after four years of being sick I had these done. So of course the results would say that. Despite that, the medical doctors, even an infectious disease doctor, told me they were negative. Do you think I should've listened to him?





I just wanted my life back!!!
Lyme and it's co infections are extremely hard to treat. And, being diagnosed seems to be the most difficult part of the sickness these bacteria cause. It can take years.  So, as someone who went through the ordeal, and spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong with me, I understand that reading about symptoms, roadblocks to treatment, and out right denial that this disease even exists is probably something you've already done. Don't concentrate on that.

NEVER give up! 

After taking a trip to Russia I became increasingly sick for 4 years before being diagnosed with two Lyme disease co infections. I tried natural remedies, that cost a fortune! But, it wasn't until I started antibiotic therapy that I saw true progress. Antibiotics definitely got me on my feet again, helping me to get by day to day, and so did my regimented diet. But every time I would try to come off antibiotics, the infection would return. It just wouldn't die. This disease had taken over my life! That's when I decided I needed to somehow take my life into my own hands. The doctors I had been seeing were helping me tremendously by prescribing antibiotics. I was on an intense diet prescribed by a nature path that helped. But my memory was still awful, I was exhausted all the time, and the aches and pains stilled reared themselves, especially when I ate sugar. And even though a lot of my symptoms were much milder and bearable, I was also extremely fatigued from the medications. I couldn't live like this forever.  I decided to invent my own regime. I wanted to suffocate it, so that it was impossible for it to survive in my body and that's what I did.

I am not a medical doctor. I used medical doctors to my advantage and my common sense and now I DO have my life back. It was well worth effort. You can not give up!!!!