What is this site?

Lyme disease treatment seems to me to be a combination of:
  • killing stuff off (bacteria and other microbes and lifeforms)
  • dealing with the toxins produced
  • movement, exercise and nature

This is a documentation of my methods to treat Lyme disease. Some of these are old, some are new, some are just plain crazy.

I believe borreliosis must have been endemic in earlier human populations, as it appears to be amongst Northern European nomadic pastoralists today.

I'm particularly interested in finding whatever solution/s our distant ancestors employed.

But I'll try anything.

A bit about me ...

I suddenly became disabled five years ago, and was a serious cripple for 2-3 years, and lost my job (computing lecturer) and home. My health has improved a bit since then, albeit with regular setbacks. Just over a year ago I found out it was chronic Lyme disease.

It's really hard to get Lyme disease treatment on the NHS here in Britain, and even with the best treatment it can be really hard to treat.

I think I've probably had borrelia infection since birth or early childhood. I started getting terrible migraines at the age of 8, after being badly bitten by ticks on summer holiday in Wales.

I think I was reinfected at age 27 when working for the Scottish Wildlife Trust in the Highlands. One day I had 30 ticks stuck in me, each of which I removed incorrectly. I came down with a really bad fever a few months later. GP said it was Chronic Fatigue and tried to write me a 6 month sick note. The Wildlife Trust had warned us about Lyme disease though, so I insisted on at least trying tetracycline. Two weeks later I was right as rain and back at work, and never really thought about Lyme disease again, until 18 months ago.

I'd become badly crippled again, only this time I had a rash as well. This rash turned out to be an erythema migrans, diagnostic of Lyme disease. Since treating the Lyme disease, some symptoms have increased hugely, such as fatigue and dementia symptoms. This is probably due to higher levels of neurotoxins as the bacteria and other life-forms are killed off.

Other symptoms are resolving well, notably mobility - I can now walk five miles, when for years I could barely manage five metres. My sensitivity to light is decreasing. My memory and cognition are improving, but I'm still unable to perform the simplest maths tasks, not great news for a computing lecturer/programmer.

I'd completely forgotten this, but recently found a Facebook update I wrote a few weeks before becoming crippled. I'd been bitten by a tick in the local (Lincolnshire) woods. Assuming that is why the Lyme suddenly flared up again, I have now been infected in Wales, Scotland and England.

The LTT Melisa blood test can show which species of Borrelia (Lyme bacteria) your lymphocytes are responding to. Mine respond mostly to garinii, then afzelii, then burgdorferii, but there is a quantifiable response to each. I mention this because it's possible that herbs etc may have a different effect on different Borrelia species. Garinii mostly attacks the central nervous system, afzelii connective tissue and burgdorferii joints.

In addition to the Borrelia, the chances are very high of also having a co-infection. Ticks are called "nature's dirty needles" because they carry so many vile things. The most common co-infections are bartonella, babesia, mycoplasma and ehrlichia, but there could be anything using you as a eco-system, even things that aren't even known to science. Fortunately you can kill these off without necessarily knowing what they are.

As you might have guessed, overcoming Lyme disease (and other associated conditions) isn't necessarily an exact science. Pragmatism is the order of the day, trying almost anything and sticking with what works. Often, the only way to tell whether something is actually working is if it makes you feel worse. This is because as many of these infections are attacked and killed, neurotoxins are created, which is what often makes you feel ill. Sometimes a treatment will make you feel better right away, but for me at least, this is very much the exception.

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