Listen to Your Gut

“Use The Force, Luke…trust me.”

Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars (Episode IV:  A New Hope -1977)

  

Luke did indeed “listen to his gut”, used The Force, blew up the Death Star, and was honored as a hero by Princess Leia and the Rebel Alliance. He felt and believed in the words of Obi Wan Kenobi. The legendary Star Wars story may be fiction but the idea of believing and listening to a feeling “that will always be with you” is very real.

Believe it or not, “listening to your gut” can save your life!  My classic example is the Allergie-Immun drops. I had a feeling that the drops could help me and I was right.

Within one year since I started the drops, I joyfully became aware that my environmental and seasonal allergies were gone. Intolerably itchy, watery eyes, a persistent stuffy nose and sinuses,  and sinus headaches and infections from exposure to dust mites, pollen, mold, fresh mowed grass (the list goes on) since God knows when, are now a thing of the past.

The drops also helped to alleviate all my anxiety issues. As a result, I don’t freak out over – anything!  And this includes my health. I don’t feel like I have chronic health problems anymore. I can actually say that I see myself in a different light, altogether. I see myself now as a work in progress, with layers of complex issues slowly becoming resolved.  

Presently, I have no Lyme symptoms. I am in remission for the first time in 14 years. (Actually the second time, which is another mind opening story that I will share with you in a future blog.)  I may not be symptomatic, for now, but who knows what the future will bring? I’m not out of the woods, yet. I still have more layers to peel away. I still have more work to do. And, of course, I’m aware that I can easily be re-infected, so I have to be careful. I have to protect myself. What can I say, I’m just one of those lucky people who are sensitive and can pick “things” up easily.

The AI Drops and Dr. Gurevich’s therapies brought my health back. But when you’re a sensitive creature like me, and vulnerable to whatever is blowing in the wind, you realize that you needed protection – super duper protection.  My gut was telling me that bug spray wasn’t enough. My gut was telling me that I needed to find some serious multi-dimensional protection. That is protection on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level.

This meant one thing – I had to change. In order for me to continue my healing process, I had to change the way I thought of myself .And I knew that this wouldn’t be easy. Physical protection is a no brainer. Anyone can do that.  But the other levels. That was another story.  Dr. Gurevich could show me the way, but I had to do the work.

Luke, my intuitive Star Wars buddy, listened to the advice of Obi Wan, but it was his ultimate decision in the end to follow his gut.

 I, too, had a life changing decision to make. Could I learn a new way of thinking? Was I open to a new way of believing?  Was it possible to relearn what I had been taught all my life? Was it possible to be reprogrammed to think that I had the power to protect myself? Was it possible?

Well…what do you think?

What does your gut tell you?

“Search your feelings…”

The Mini Miracle

It happened around the middle of August of 2010.  I don’t remember the exact date, but that’s not important. It was around the same time that Dr. Gurevich discovered that my brain was clear of mercury and Lyme. My mini miracle had happened.

Ever since I was diagnosed with Lyme, I felt intellectually lost. My neurological  impairments consisted of being chronically fuzzy headed, not thinking straight, forgetting words, getting my sentences mixed up, not being able to process, calculate, or analyze anything technical or mathematical, and not being able to organize my thoughts. It was a struggle to write a simple e-mail. I couldn’t figure out the percentage of a tip. I couldn’t balance my checkbook. I couldn’t troubleshoot simple computer quirks. (Yes, I do own a copy of PC's  for Dummies!)  It was as if that part of my brain was permanently disconnected.

Amazingly enough, I could compose music for solo piano. I even wrote a few piano and violin pieces. But again, with my processing and organizing timing out of whack, it would take me forever to finish one piece. My inspiration came from my piano students who performed my pieces in competitions and recitals. I had been teaching private piano lessons since I was a teenager, so that part of my brain was on autopilot. Teaching was second nature to me.   And since it was my own business, I could cancel lessons if I was having a rough day.

In was in the middle of August when I felt the change. My brain fuzz was gone. I began to think clearly for the first time in almost 14 years. It was as if my intellect was held captive and suddenly set free. All of a sudden, my brain knew how to collate my thoughts. My sleepy neurons finally woke up. Opinions, ideas, emotions, and experiences that were somehow lost in the black hole of my mind were spilling out onto my laptop, right before my eyes. Composing   e-mails, that had once sent me into a panicky freeze, were now effortless. I could finally navigate through simple technological problems.  I stopped using PC’s for Dummies cold turkey!

 It was a blast! It was a miracle! And writing became my passion.

So now, I’m writing – not just for the love of writing, but as a way of giving back. It feels good to share a bite with my fellow global guests. It feels right to share my passion.  It feels right to celebrate hope.

Sharing and giving is what it’s all about. So let me give you a little advice that was given to me:

Listen to your gut. You know I’m not talking about feeding it (that’s for a future post). I’m talking about intuition. A sixth sense. We are all born with it.

I had a good feeling about the Allergie-Immun Drops. I listened to my gut. It changed my life.

Listen to your gut…and it may change your life.

And who knows…maybe a mini miracle will come your way.

Till next time…

The Holistic Dr. Gurevich

Dr. Gurevich believes in the mind-body-spirit connection. He believes in incorporating Eastern and Western beliefs in his practice. As a certified acupuncturist and a holistic doctor, he believes in energy centers, known as chakras, and qi (pronounced chi), which is simply “life energy”.  In Chinese medicine, it is believed that when your flow of qi is blocked, it makes you vulnerable to diseases. When the qi is unblocked, true healing can begin.

So, what causes your qi to be blocked?  Are you ready? The biggest cause is unbalanced emotions. From personal experience, I would have to say that is numero uno in blocking one’s ability to be healthy. Another cause is imbalances in our environment, imbalances in the food we eat, injuries, scars, and even being prescribed the wrong medication.

Neural Therapy was one effective therapy that Dr. Gurevich practices to unblock qi. To be specific, this therapy unblocks the autonomic nervous system, which controls organ function - like heart rate, digestion, respiration rate and other involuntary functions. This therapy was originated in Germany and is practiced mostly in Europe.

A typical visit to Dr. Gurevich would consist of muscle testing me to see where my imbalances were, what the cause of the imbalance was, testing me for effective tinctures and/or supplements that would help me, and giving me tiny injections over organs or in scars to gradually unblock my qi. The injections would consist of the anesthetic, procaine. Sometimes he added a chelating agent, DMPS, to the procaine. Yep! Neural Therapy was not one, but many shallow injections at blocked sites. And Dr. Goodsoul loved neural therapy! Why? Because it worked!

The first time that I had neural therapy, he injected all my scar sites – and I had plenty of them. I must have had 20 injections, including ( WARNING: This is not for the scaredy cats who have a fear of needles),injecting the scars that were where my tonsils used to be. That’s right, kiddies! He injected at least 4 injections way inside my mouth. OK – so it’s obvious that one of my fears isn’t a fear of needles!

And this wasn’t the only time that the good doc injected this area. See, my tonsil scars were loaded with trauma. Trauma that apparently was still with me. I have to admit, now that I think about it, I remembered my whole ordeal as if it was yesterday. After my tonsillectomy, I recall throwing up blood in the middle of the night. The doctors said I was hemorrhaging blood. They finally stopped the bleeding by packing layers of gauze in my throat and up through my nose. (I had my adenoids removed, too.) I still remember being terrified, thinking I was going to die and the helplessly uncomfortable sensation of the nurse removing the bloodied gauze from my throat and nose.

So after my neural therapy treatment, I would repeat the words of Dr. Gurevich:

“I forgive myself. I let go of my fear.  I release my fear. I accept myself as

 I am now.

 I love myself… I accept my past and let go of doubts and fear. I feel joy.

 I am healthy.

 I am well. I love myself. I forgive myself… Thank you for my life…

Thank you, God, for my life”.

As I repeated these words, I visualized myself healthy and happily walking on the beach. It is a beautiful, sunny day. The bubbly waves gently play with my feet.  The salty air tickles my nose. The sky is an infinite blue. I am a child. I feel free. I feel happy. I am full of wonder. I feel loved.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Dr. Gurevich was guiding me into a new direction in how I saw myself. One by one, my emotional blocks were recognized and released. It started to click a few months later when somewhat of a mini miracle happened to me. It’s not really a classic miracle, especially in the Biblical sense, but more of an extraordinary event that was kinda like a miracle to me!  Like I’ve said before, life is full of possibilities.

Dr Gurevich realized this, too.  Dr. Gurevich was not always a holistic doctor. When he saw that his patients weren’t improving with conventional treatment, he realized that he needed to find another way. He saw that the drugs that he prescribed had many side effects and were only suppressing their symptoms.  He decided to change the direction of his practice and take “the road less traveled”.  He risked his livelihood for the sake of his newfound beliefs. It wasn’t until he applied these beliefs that he began to see many of his patients getting well and having happy and productive lives.

“You have to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is.”

Will Rogers

To be continued…

The Twilight Zone

Are you familiar with the old science fiction TV series, The Twilight Zone? Each episode was about some kind of bizarre event that happened to the main character. Well, for a few months, in the winter of 2009-2010, my life fell apart. I could have been a character on The Twilight Zone.

I sought help from Dr. Rasa. She literally saved my life. But Dr. Rasa could only do so much.  I needed a special doctor. I needed someone who could help me get my life back together. So, with the recommendation of Dr. Rasa, I found Dr. Gurevich.

Dr. Gurevich was a holistic psychiatrist, doctor, healer and life coach. Did I say psychiatrist? Of course! Who else would you go to if your life became a science fiction story! But Dr. Gurevich wasn’t your preconceived stereotypical shrink. Yes, there was a couch in his office, but I never used it. Dr. Gurevich was more interested in getting to the root of my problem, which he did. He was a wealth of knowledge, chock full of sage remarks, remedies and solutions. And you know what? They all worked!  In less than two years, he has helped to transform me from an anxious, cynical, chronically sick person to a positive, healthy and more spiritual human being.

As a holistic doctor, Dr. Gurevich practiced and believed in muscle testing. Through various tests, including muscle testing, Dr. Gurevich found that I had an abnormally high level of mercury in my brain, thyroid, liver, sinuses, intestinal tract and kidneys. I knew this was a big problem for me. Dr. Goodsoul said it was a big problem for anyone who has chronic Lyme. Some people are pre-disposed to mercury toxicity and can’t eliminate it from their body. Most of his patients that are positive for Lyme, anxiety, depression, bi-polar disorder or other mental disorders, are positive for  mercury in the brain.

So he put me on a heavy metal chelating therapy, IMP. IMP is a gentle intestinal metal detox that slowly removes the toxic metals from your system. The last time he tested me, I only had mercury in my liver. So the detox is working and I feel the difference – big time.

Just before my first visit…Wait a minute! ...I’ll bet you’re wondering when I’ll get back to my Twilight Zone experience. Just keep your pants on! You know my style by now. I’m not just going to blurt out something so profound that it can change your life as you know it. I have no intention of changing anyone’s life or beliefs. The question is, are you open to new ideas, new awareness and possible answers to having a more meaningful and healthier state of being?

Are you ready to believe in yourself, go with your gut feelings and boldly go where no one’s gone before? (Sorry – Trekkies – couldn’t resist!)

If you’re ready to believe, then possibilities await you. I believed in the AI Drops. I had a gut feeling about the AI Drops. I saw how the Drops helped my son and I knew that the Drops would help me.

The Drops actually took me out of my science fiction nightmare.

The Drops rescued me from The Twilight Zone.

I will give you one hint:

It has to do with frequencies. The Drops are energetic. There are frequencies in the Drops. We emit frequencies. We also absorb frequencies. We are surrounded by positive and negative frequencies. Many of these invisible frequencies are unknown frequencies.

I accidentally exposed myself to a harmful frequency.  Just like a TV channel, the Drops turned off that frequency and made it benign.

You know, there is more to this story, but that’s all I will say for now. That is…until you’re ready to believe in a new awareness.

Sometimes, events in our life happen for a reason. My Twilight Zone event led me to Dr. Gurevich. Dr. Gurevich helped to put me on a path of self-discovery and finding unconventional ways to good health in body, mind and spirit.

See, we are all connected. But wait…that’s another story.

In the meantime, if you want to know more,

you must be patient…and stay tuned…

for another episode of…

healerdealerdiary.J

The Allergie-Immun Drops

 If you are looking for any kind of information, regarding Lyme Disease, you will wind up at http://www.lymenet.com/ . Lymenet is a place for support. It’s a place for advise. It’s a place for a cyberspace shoulder to cry on. If you’re looking for a doctor that specializes in Lyme (Lyme Literate Medical Doctor), you’ll find one here.  If you’re looking for alternative therapies, this is the place to go. And this is where I followed some bloggers who were taking the Allergie-Immun drops.

The drops sounded intriguing but, no one exactly knew how they worked. The drops were energized. That meant that there were frequencies added to them. I checked out the Allergie-Immun website to see if they offered any other information or insight as to how these drops worked. Besides explaining what an allergy is, my foggy Lyme brain still couldn’t quite understand the concept. All I knew was that they regulated your immune system so that it can function properly. 

The way it worked was that the user submits a DNA sample (saliva or blood) approximately each month together with current symptoms and health issues. The lab would analyze the sample and send corresponding drops to correct whatever is disrupting the immune system function at that time. New drops are sent with a personal biochemical and energetic analysis each month. The analysis would commonly reveal chemical, biological, and energetic disruptions in the body. And the drops are designed to correct each disruption.

Some bloggers were experiencing weird, emotional and physical symptoms, like constant runny noses for months, achy, teary eyes or rashes that came out of nowhere. Some had periods of extreme exhaustion and depression.  And some started to feel better around the fifth or sixth round of taking the drops. It seemed like many of their chronic symptoms were subsiding and possibly going away altogether.

I had a gut feeling that these drops would help my son and me. I also felt my son was the priority. I wasn’t going to let him go down the same path as mine. So I e-mailed the lab to ask if my son should continue antibiotics while doing the AI therapy. The answer was no, it was not necessary.

So, as soon as my son started the drops, he stopped the antibiotics.  My son’s progress was slow, but little by little, I saw this extraordinary change in him. Fatigue, depression, brain fog and anxiety had been replaced by vitality, contentment, clear thoughts and a sense of calm. It took about one and a half years to complete his treatment. We went to our family doctor for a CBC and they checked his CD-57 level.*

*(The CD-57 test is a marker for chronic or active Lyme disease. In patients with active infection, the specific subset of natural killer cells (the CD-57 count), are always suppressed. According to Labcorp, the normal range for these natural killer cells is 200 or above. Doc Brown had tested Zack’s CD-57 count almost two years before he started the drops. At that time, his count was in the 60 range. Doc Brown had said that his infection was active and with treatment, his CD-57 count would rise. Doc Brown said the same thing to me when he first started treating me. My CD-57 count was 12! After years of antibiotic treatment, my CD-57 barely rose).

The results of the CBC came back and guess what?  Zack’s CD-57 count was normal! That meant that he had no active infection. He was in remission. And I knew it. I could see he had more energy. He was always borrowing the car and going somewhere. He had become a social animal! As a matter of fact, he had so much energy that he was hardly ever home. It seemed like he was making up for the years that he was sick.

I believed in the drops. And I was planning on taking the drops. But I kinda got side tracked.  You can say that I took a detour on my road to wellness. This “detour” was unplanned and unintentional. My life, as I knew it, came to a sudden halt.

You’ve heard of the expression, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” Well, I’m stronger today as a result of my “detour”. But this event led me to my next doctor. And this doctor helped me to heal emotionally, physically and spiritually. You read right, he helped me spiritually.

For a few months, in the winter of 2009-2010, I tumbled into the Twilight Zone. I had an experience… I can’t explain.  I needed help. I needed answers. I needed a specialist. And that’s what led me to Dr. Gurevich.

To be continued….

The Lyme Will Be A-Changin'

Sung to Bob Dylan’s, The Times They are A-Changin’

“Come gather ‘round people, wherever you roam

There are ways to mend your achin’ bones

It ain’t easy, if you think your alone

But if your life is worth savin’

Believe you can heal, believe that it’s real

And the Lyme will be a-changin’.”

Bryan Rosner, http://www.lymebook.com/,  is an investigative  medical journalist who has an extensive knowledge of Lyme. All of his books are intelligent, informative and must read for anyone who has or knows someone who has Lyme. One book, When Antibiotics Fail: Lyme Disease and Rife Machines, is a fascinating book about the alternative treatment of rife therapy.  

After reading Bryan’s book, I was convinced that I was the perfect candidate for rife therapy. A friend of mine, who was also diagnosed with Lyme, and I split the cost of an analog rife machine.  Our machine looked like it came from a B science fiction movie. It was white, about the size of a large bread box, and weighed about 25 pounds. It had knobs in the front and two plasma tubes inside that were filled with gas. The front tube was filled with xenon gas and the back tube contained helium. When turned on, the lights from the tube would arc and give off a high pitched sound.

The rife machine worked by producing electronic frequencies that would penetrate the body and zap the targeted microorganism. When the targeted bacteria, virus or fungi was hit by this frequency, it would vibrate to death or disablement. “It’s similar to when an opera singer hits the right pitch and shatters a glass.” ( When Antibiotics Fail: Lyme Disease and Rife Machines, copyright 2004 by Bryan Rosner) The particular wave frequency the rife machine delivers is specifically for microorganisms, so it can’t harm you.

So, we began to rife. We did this on our own without a doctor’s guide.  We had the complete list of all the frequencies for the pathogens and diseases. That was our guide. We rotated between the Lyme, candida, Epstein-Barr virus frequencies and so on. And, like antibiotics, we were experiencing that “Herxheimer reaction”. The toxins from the targeted bacteria made our symptoms worse. So, we had to stop for awhile until our symptoms subsided.  But we were getting impatient. Months went by and we just weren’t seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

My friend stopped rifing and started an innovative therapy known as the Marshall Protocol. The Marshall Protocol,, has improved my friend’s health and he is now a leading advocate for the protocol.

 I still felt rifing was beneficial and helping me. I felt I was going in the right direction. I wasn’t ready to give up on it yet. But I needed guidance. I needed to find a doctor who was open to alternative therapies.

Dr. Lovejoy was that doctor. Dr. Lovejoy was a holistic chiropractor and therapist who believed in the Eastern philosophy of healing the mind, body and spirit. She also used lab, blood work and other Western methods for treating her patients. She uncovered allergies I never knew I had, (like corn, cow’s milk and gluten) and what supplements my body responded positively to. She also treated me for emotional problems that I was unaware of, and what treatments would be the most effective.

One of the ways she tested me was by muscle testing. Muscle testing – also known as  applied kinesiology, is a form of  diagnosing a problem or priority in the body.  Kinesiology, or the study of muscles or body movement, has been around since the 1940’s. Originally, manual muscle testing was used to “evaluate muscle function and strength, and to assess the extent of an injury.” Then in 1964, and American chiropractor, George Goodheart (that’s his real name!), “founded what has become known as applied kinesiology when he linked oriental ideas about energy flow in the body with western techniques of muscle testing.” (thefreedictionary.com)

I would lie down and raise one arm straight out. The doctor would touch a point on my body that is related to that muscle, then push down on my arm(or leg) for a strong or weak response. If I couldn’t resist her pressure, then “an imbalance is suspected in the related organ, gland or body part. This diagnostic technique uses muscles to find the cause of a problem, and is based on traditional Chinese medicine and its idea that the body had common energy meridians, or channels, for both organs and muscles.

(thefreedictionary.com)

Muscle testing is not common in the United States. It is practiced mostly by a specialized group of chiropractors and other health practitioners. It is more widely accepted and used as a diagnostic procedure in Europe.

I was fascinated by how Dr. Lovejoy performed this unusual type of testing. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. I felt I was in good hands, literally! Dr. Lovejoy was highly recommended to me and I trusted her.

Through muscle testing, Dr. Lovejoy found that the toxic heavy metal, mercury, was causing big problems for me. I needed to have my metal fillings (amalgams) removed. (Doc Brown had tested me for heavy metals, but the tests always came back negative.)So she recommended a holistic dentist who knew how to properly remove the fillings.  (I had four altogether), and suggested I start a heavy metal chelating therapy as soon as my amalgams were removed.

The holistic dentist gave me literature on different self-healing alternative treatments. One of them was oil-pulling.

Oil-pulling is an old Aryuvedic method of healing consisting of swishing a few spoonfuls of cold-pressed sunflower seed oil in your mouth for about ten minutes and then spitting it out. It supposedly pulls toxins out of your body through your salivary glands. It is a common practice in India.

There are websites about oil-pulling. It doesn’t give much information but I thought I would give it a try. I knew no one else who was doing it. Dr. Lovejoy vaguely heard of it. As you know by now, I was open to anything that could help me. So, I started oil-pulling.

Even though Dr. Lovejoy was helping me a lot, I got to a point where I needed a break. I was seeing doctors consistently for years and I felt my health was on the up swing. I really believed I could manage my own for awhile. My sore throats were gone. My energy was returning and my guts felt better. I wanted to see where the oil-pulling would get me.

I was also preoccupied with the health of my son, Zack. Zack had started this new holistic therapy that I had heard about on Lymenet. It was from Germany and it turned out to be a godsend. 

This therapy would eventually put my son and me into remission.

To be continued….

  

A Lyme State of Mind

(Sung to the tune of New York State of Mind by Billy Joel)

“Some folks like to get away, take a holiday, guess they’re feelin’ good,

Wish I could swap my body with Carrie Underwood’s,

I’m just always sick and tired, and worryin’ all the time,

I’m in a Lyme state of mind.”

Are you in a Lyme state of mind? You know, like feeling like you can never return to a state of wellness or well-being. Feelin’ out of it.  Feelin’ sick and depressed? Feelin’ crappy all the time?

Well, that was me! That was my song. “Being sick and tired and worryin’ all the time”. And I considered myself lucky. I knew why I was sick. I knew I had Lyme and it was obviously chronic.

My story is very similar to many others in my boat. In the spring of 1996, I found this huge bulls-eye rash on my chest. Thinking it was a spider bite, I just treated the bite with anti-itch cream. I didn’t feel the need to see a doctor. A month later, I’m doing the dishes after dinner and all of a sudden I can’t stand anymore – I was completely exhausted. I stumbled up the stairs to my bedroom and collapsed on my bed. I woke up the following morning with aches, chills, sweats, dizziness, and weirdly enough, still exhausted. I thought I had a doozy of a virus that I caught from one of my kids. My symptoms subsided within three days and I went on my merry way, or so I thought. It never occurred to me that I could have had Lyme disease.

One month later, my symptoms came back and that’s when it hit me – I had Lyme and I needed to see a doctor. So I went to a GP, was tested by an in network lab, was given amoxicillin and went on my merry way again.  My test results came back positive which was no surprise to me. I felt spacey, tired, woozy and achy everyday. The amoxicillin wasn’t alleviating my symptoms. My merry days disappeared. I had entered into a chronic state. I needed to see a doctor who knew how to treat chronic Lyme.

I’m gonna be honest, I wasn’t happy with my first LLMD (Lyme Literate Medical Doctor). For almost a year, Dr. Dolittle(that’s right, this doctor did little!), prescribed me course after course of antibiotics. After each course, the dr. would send my blood to a private lab that specialized in Lyme.  My lab results were always negative. I’d go off the antibiotics and within months (or less), I would relapse. At this point, I stopped eating sugar. Sugar and high carbohydrate foods made my symptoms worse. And with every relapse, I’d get new symptoms along with the old ones. My woozy feeling mushroomed into a quasi hangover that would come and go. I had Bell’s Palsy a few times. I was tired and achy, had constant brain fog, chronic sinus and ear problems, a never ending sore throat, and digestive issues.  Dr. Dolittle suggested I take probiotics to balance to intestinal flora, but didn’t tell me which were the most effective and when to take them. So, as a result, I developed  candida, which is an overgrowth of yeast in my intestinal tract.  I was put on Diflucan for a month and at this point. I decided to look for another doctor.

My next LLMD was somewhat of a medical detective. Doc Brown ( yeah, think Back to the Future!) was an investigative doctor that was the king of testing. If you had it, Doc Brown would find it. And boy oh boy, I had it all! Not only was I positive for Lyme, but I was also positive for three co-infections. I had candida in my intestinal tract and in my blood! I had Epstein-Barr virus, and other viruses. I had other bacteria that I could hardly pronounce, like Chlamydia pneumonia. I also had chemical sensitivities and food and environmental allergies. (I had allergies before I came down with Lyme disease, but since I was diagnosed it seemed like they had gotten worse). All I can say was that I was a mess!

Doc’s game plan was to treat me aggressively with antibiotics and other medicines, improve my immune system and hope that someday I would be in a complete state of remission. Chronic Lyme, he explained, could never be completely cured. See, Lyme or Borrelia burgdorferi, is a spirochete bacteria that could drill into dense tissue with the potential of causing a myriad of health problems. If caught in the early stage, Lyme is easier to eradicate with a course of antibiotics. But Lyme is a “smart” bacteria. The spirochete can actually change into other forms. Some of these other forms, like the cell wall deficient L-form and bio films, are the main cause of chronic Lyme. These forms are antibiotic resistant, hard to treat and the main cause of relapsing symptoms.

So, for the next 9 years or so, I took cocktails of different antibiotics and drugs for the Lyme and co-infections.   Each time I started a new course of antibiotics, the “die off” or toxins from the targeted bacteria, made my symptoms worse. This was known as a “Herxheimer” reaction. It seemed like my life was a symptomatic roller coaster for awhile. One day, I would feel upbeat. The next day I would feel lousy.

  I took a slew of supplements to support my immune system and the appropriate probiotics for my gut. Within this time frame, my co-infections finally tested in the normal range.  My candida in the blood finally tested normal.  (That took 3 years!) But I still had everything else.  So I went on IV antibiotics for the Lyme. I had to have a port surgically inserted just below my right clavicle. I had to see the doctor weekly so that he could flush out the port, take my blood to check my liver and organ functions and check my progress. I was first administered IV Claforan. I had an allergic reaction to it and had to stop that after 2 weeks. Then I was on about 3 months of IV Zithromax followed by almost 2 months of IV Rocefin.

I hated being on IV. Hated it!  I had no energy. I was super spacey. I was depressed. I felt and looked like the walking dead. I finally stopped the Rocefin when I developed painful bladder infections that wouldn’t go away. So for the next year, I was on short courses of antibiotics for the bladder infections.

It was about this time that I started to look for alternative treatments. I didn’t want to be on and off antibiotics for the rest of my life. If I had stayed on this path, that would have been my future. But for now, my personal health was put on hold. My son, Zack, was showing the vague yet tell-tale signs of late stage Lyme disease.

Zack loved to play soccer. He was on the freshman team and enjoyed his first year at the high school. Late October, he was stricken with what seemed like a nasty intestinal bug. He was sick for almost a week and complained about how tired he was. The following month he got sick again, with the similar symptoms. Within a month, he began to have sleep problems, he had anxiety, he couldn’t focus in school and he had no energy. He would come home from school and fall asleep.

Of course, I took him to see Doc Brown. And Doc tested him for Lyme. He was positive. He was also positive for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, one co-infection and the bacteria, mycoplasma pneumonia. You get the picture! So, Zack was put on Doxycyline for the RMSF. It took almost a year for the RMSF to test in the normal range. Of course, he was still positive for Lyme. Doc Brown had suggested starting antibiotic IV therapy.  I remember that gut-wrenching feeling as I looked at my son while we were sitting in the doctor’s office.  I kept on asking myself, “Is he going to have the same fate as me? Will he be on and off antibiotics his whole life? Will he always be sick? Or, is there another way? Is there another option? Was there a way out of this chronic state of Lyme? Was there a way?”

All I knew was that it was time for me to go in a different direction. It was time for me to change my tune. I had to find another way out of this Lyme state of mind.

To be cont…