How I’m healing from Chronic Lyme Disease, and when Lyme treatments fail. Part Four of my health journey…

I wish I had a quick fix for everyone diagnosed with Lyme Disease. Quick like the CDC recommends six weeks of antibiotics, and you’re healed! Can you imagine a world where that was true for most of us? Of course, a small percent of Lyme patients are diagnosed early enough that the CDC treatment may have worked for them. But, unfortunately, in the Lyme World, that rarely ever happens. You see, the doctors tend to miss it. Misdiagnose us, push untreated anxiety and pills our way, and call it good. After all, how many of us have heard it’s all In our heads? So we walk around for months, even years, with no answer to our illness. We get worse and worse before we get an answer. More symptoms come before we finally may get fortunate enough to find a doctor knowledgeable about Lyme Disease.

Yes, my story mirrors that one. I often think, what if the doctor would have caught it a year sooner? Would it be gone? Instead of taking over my brain, that I now have brain damage in my thirties. It can be pretty depressing if I choose to focus on it. But, I’ve learned dwelling in the past makes me sicker.

So, how did we treat my Lyme Disease? Until we found what worked for me, we tried many different ways. My journey has involved a lot of searching, and I quickly found out what works for one patient may not work for another.

In the beginning, with Lyme doctor number one, we used low-dose immunotherapy and a low-dose antibiotic. The best way I can describe LDI shots is like an allergy shot for 90 plus strains of Lyme to get the body to stop fighting it and live in harmony. We also did Herbs, IV super Nutritionals, Detox IV therapy, Low dose naltrexone, and tons of supplements. I also bought a sauna to kill Lyme and sweat out toxins. I had such high hopes that I would be healed in that nine months with that doctor. But I genuinely hate to say I wasn’t.

I got a massive wake-up call when I had to go off my low dose antibiotic for a GI test, and the tiny bit of progress I had made, I lost and went backward in just nine days off the 5 dollar prescription. It was devastating. I got the sickest I had ever been, twenty thousand dollars we spent in nine months with this doctor, to deteriorate entirely in nine days! When we asked the doctor, why? He told us the nurse should have never told me to quit taking antibiotics. His solution was to keep going with the same protocol because that’s all he does for Lyme Disease. So I went on his plan another six weeks with no improvements, with the seizures getting worse and more frequent by the day. We had no choice but to go to a new Doctor.

Let me tell you, that was a kick in the gut to spend that much money on treatments to get no improvements. Now, my personal opinion is if I do not see any improvements in 4 months, I’m moving on.

The next doctor was a combo of natural and medical as well. He preached high on EMFs being a huge issue, which I later found true. He recommended killing the Lyme, getting rid of it. I was also doing vitamin and detox IVs and taking supplements. We used oral antibiotics, and after trying three different ones over close to four months, I still wasn’t getting any better.

So what does one do when you have seen two different doctors with no improvements and getting worse? I called various Lyme treatment centers around the country. They all told me I needed IV antibiotics when it’s in the brain and central nervous system like I had—starting at twenty-five thousand dollars for just four weeks going up to sixty thousand dollars. We were desperate even took out a home equity loan to do it. But something kept holding us back. It was a lot of money!

So I heard of another lady that did rifing to get better and worked under a naturopathic doctor. So we thought, what do we have to lose? Less money than these treatment centers, So we went down to Indiana and tested me on her bioenergy machine. Of course, I was a hot mess. Because I’m a double MTHFR, I was told I wasn’t absorbing any of my supplements that weren't liquid. I was also told a lot of my supplements were junk. Blake didn’t handle that well. He was upset as we had acquired quite the natural supplement store at our house. To hear they were doing nothing was a hard pill to swallow. But the doctor had such confidence in his liquid Standard Enzyme Co. tinctures and supplements and said that if I didn’t notice a difference in three months to quit them. Needless to say, since I went liquid, it’s been life-changing. My body was finally absorbing. He was right. We also went after parasites, something neither of the other doctors found concerning. . The Rife machine was also helping. My rife also comes with a footbath machine, which has been excellent for detoxing.

Though I had seen changes in my fatigue, gut, and body not looking so emaciated, nothing was still helping my brain. It was just unbearable. I lost more of my memory, was still seizing, having tremors with neuropathy, experiencing dark thoughts, and felt like I was losing my mind. I couldn’t drive and barely read as the brain stuff was so intense. Life was passing by all around me. My family was beyond concerned.

I wanted to keep treating as natural as possible and give my body more time to respond. But time was starting to feel like something I was running short on.

We had caught wind of a doctor a couple of hours away that was strictly medical that may be able to help me. He does IV antibiotics. I made an appointment and kept treating naturally while I waited. I was really struggling with the whole antibiotics will destroy my gut thing. I started praying over what to do, as I had a lot of fear.

Finally, after eight weeks of waiting, I went to see the doctor, and I didn’t do so well on some cognitive and brain damage tests. He ordered a spect scan of my brain. He told me the test looks for LOTS of different things, not just Lyme Disease. He wanted to rule everything out and said that if it’s Lyme, it will tell us and will qualify you for a PICC line with IV antibiotics covered by insurance.

As I waited for test results, I had a big talk with God one day. I felt horrible, and I had made myself go to church, hoping to uplift my spirits. Instead, I came home feeling deathly sick and still struggling with the idea of antibiotics, after praying on it even at church. Once home, I realized I forgot to do another important thing Blake had asked me to do and got so frustrated with my poor memory. Blake could see I needed some alone time, so he took our girls to my sister-in-law five minutes away and would be right back. After he left while all alone, I cried (or one could say screamed) out to God, “Please HELP ME! I don’t know what to do! I feel like you DON’T hear me! Like you are not listening to me!” repeatedly I went on sobbing telling him he doesn’t hear me. After calming down, I went on the couch and had a massive seizure. All alone. I was always conscious during my seizures, but I couldn’t do anything to help myself. I laid there for fifteen or so minutes with my dog biting my hands while jumping on me, trying to help me until Blake came home and found me. It then took another 10 minutes to get me out of it. We both agreed God was telling us something. We decided I would do the IV Antibiotics, combined with all my natural stuff with my naturopathic doctor. I had to let go of opinions from the natural world I was so used to leaning towards and just trust God.

I’m still fighting with IV antibiotics ten months later as I'm writing this. I’ve had ups and downs, as I would say I only have gotten seven months of IV therapy as I’m a reactor to medicine. Rocephin worked great until it messed with my gallbladder, causing me to pause treatment for weeks to heal from that. We tried a couple more drugs my body didn’t like causing more pauses in treatment. It was finally doxycycline that I have handled and have done amazing on. So between Rocephin and Doxy, plus all my supplements, and continued rifing, I have made huge improvements in my brain. Just a week into IV therapy, the seizing stopped.

There are other holistic healing tools I do as well in the last couple years that have helped like: Infrared sauna with a portable ozone machine, dealing with EMF’s, special diets, grounding, rife machine, counseling, and having CFT massage therapy. I've learned on my journey it's not just one healing tool that is going to heal my Lyme, it takes multiple.

In the last six months, I’m noticing considerable strides to getting my health back. My brain is clearing, and I’m finding who Melissa is again. Though I know my healing journey isn’t finished, the fact I’m strong enough to be in this space and have found my voice again, I’m so beyond thankful for.

I have also dealt with the blows of Lyme treatments failing and feeling defeated. That's where I credit my relationship with The Lord, he kept me going when I lost my strength, and helped me to keep fighting for answers. After all, if I had gotten healed right away would I have ever started this blog in hopes to help people? He allows trials to grow us so we can then witness to others. Looking back I'm actually thankful; I'm not the same person I used to be. I like who I am now much better:).

If your a fellow Lyme Warrior dealing with trying to find what works to get healing, keep fighting for answers. Don't give up and know your not alone.

~Melissa

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