You’re Not Crazy, But the Science Is: 3 Random & Insane Things About Lyme
1) Doctor Magic – If you’ve experienced this, you’re most likely a believer. If you haven’t you’ll most likely fall in the skeptic category, and understandably so. If you have Lyme, chances are you also have a coinfection or two, let us guess, Bartonella & Babesia? Here’s a trick our Lyme guy uses to roughly gauge progress fighting this trifecta: He has Laura put her arm out while he presses down on her hand gently – she resists the pressure just fine and can keep her arm up. Then he has her hold a sample of Lyme bacteria (in a vial) and repeats the same arm up and pressure on hand – her arm falls right away with the slightest pressure applied. Then he has her hold a Babesia sample in place of the Lyme, again her arm drops with the slightest pressure. Then he interchanges the Bartonella – she maintains resistance. Diagnosis: she’s beating the Bartonella, and still getting beat by the Lyme and Babesia. Apparently it all has to do with energy fields.. Unbelievable, I know, but we’ve seen the same thing over and over in that office. Prior to the last visit, all 3 samples resulted in a fallen arm. But that’s not all. He has her hold a Bicillin sample along with the Lyme sample – remember her arm just fell with just the Lyme sample. This time, she can maintain resistance no problem. The Bicillin energy field is offsetting the Lyme! It seems nuts. And it is. But it’s been repeated time and again in that office. I’m a Lawyer, not a medical doctor, but this feat seems crazy to me and I can barely comprehend what scientific explanation there might be for this. But that’s the crazy thing about Lyme – it seems to defy modern medicine. Effective treatment of it seems to lie somewhere between Western traditional medicine and sort of out-there holistic or herbal medicine. Anyone with Lyme can attest to the variety of things that are supposed to work – the supplements, the extracts, the oils, the herbal this-and-thats.. Our bathrooms look like the vitamin aisle at Whole Foods.. If you haven’t seen this trick in practice or over the course of your treatment, ask about it, and see if it’s the same for you. It is absolutely crazy.
2) Chemically induced panic attack – this is awesome. Imagine being a cool customer, with a good head on your shoulders, reserved, mature, and always in control. Now imagine you’re at the ER with heart palpitations, cold sweats, and hooked up to an EKG with all indications of an acute panic attack. This was our experience. Out of the blue, out of the shower. No details of the day any different than all of the days previous. What caused it? Toxicity. Biotoxins, the over abundance of chemical chaos in a body wracked with Lyme and saturated with antibiotics and every other medical pill, solution, injectible, and herb. Literally, every symptom of a panic attack, the dizziness, lack of focus, claustrophobia, inability to speak, move, or even breathe.. all thanks to our friend Lyme. If this has happened to you, don’t panic… well, don’t panic about panicking. It’s not you. It’s not a reflection of mental toughness or stress-management or anything else. It’s chemistry, and your chemistry is a nightmare with Lyme and Lyme treatment.
3) The Lyme existence controversy – This actually is crazy. The CDC, insurance companies, and tons of doctors out there (some probably just due to their risk-averse or timid mindset in the face of the “medical establishment”) all downplay if not completely deny Chronic Lyme as a disease. Not only that but Tick-Associated-Poly-Organic-Syndrome, Chronic Lyme, and related terms are almost avoided systemically as diagnoses. Instead you hear: Chronic Fatigue, Depression, Anxiety, Fibromyalgia, RA, and a host of other misdiagnoses. Most importantly, for a disease that goes so often misdiagnosed, how the hell isn’t there a push for greater awareness? How about a refocus of government and private funds to increase accuracy in identifying and treating something that has at a minimum 300,000+ new cases a year? Further, how is there silence? All you hear is long term antibiotic treatment is discouraged by the medical profession. And from the CDC you hear you’ll be fine in a month if you catch Lyme. Whose experience are they referring to? No one we’ve met on the journey fighting Lyme has had an easy time of it. If you have Lyme you know how hard it is to be heard by doctors, and how hard it is to find a Lyme specialist. This needs to change. You’re not crazy, the US medical establishment is on this subject.
Yours in the Lyme fight,
Matt & Laura