Sunday, December 15, 2013

My Journey with Lymes






I would like to take you back to early 2010.  I was going about my day as usual. But as I knelt down on the floor to change my newborns diaper I thought, "boy am I getting old!".  I felt like having two boys in less than two years had aged me considerably.  At the ripe old age of 27 I felt like I was 50.  The fatigue was constant but that was to be expected.  My knees ached as they hit the floor.  A vacation would be nice but I would just settle for eight full hours of sleep.  Just then my toddler ran up and trying to get my attention placed his cool hand on me. It immediately sent searing pain shooting up my arm.  Well this was new. As I grabbed a wipe, pain shot through my finger tips.  It seemed that anything cool  I touched increased the pain.  I quickly took care of the present that my loving child had made for me in his diaper and attempted to snuggle in on the couch with my little men.  It wasn't long before every part of my body hurt.  I felt as if I had just had the living daylights beat out of me.  I thought to myself, "man I wish my husband hadn't just finished a night shift!".  I must be getting the flu and I just wanted to crawl into bed.  Within the hour I was freezing and unable to get warm, this was the last thing I needed.  I have too much to do to be sick.  At this point I decided I needed to get my husband up to take care of the kids because I was miserable.  This didn't end up being the flu. In fact, it was followed by a myriad of unexplainable symptoms. 
                The numbness started on the right side of my face and moved down my right arm, only occasionally crossing to the left side.  After two MRIs to rule out MS, my  Doctor said there was nothing wrong. He thought maybe it was my wisdom teeth putting pressure on my trigeminal nerve.  I was referred to an oral surgeon to remove my wisdom teeth, but at the mention of the numbness he refused to do anything.  I thought, "Well maybe I have a pinched something", so I called my chiropractor.  During my appointment with him I explained my issues and he refused to adjust me.  It turns out numbness scares the medical community.  It took some searching but I finally found a dentist who would remove my teeth and a chiropractor who would adjust me.  Neither of these were lasting solutions. My symptoms would improve temporarily but then would come back with gale force.  I then started to get B12 injections and magnesium IV's on a regular basis.  I was told that the magnesium would help decrease my inflammatory response and the B12 would increase my energy.  It did help for a while but it's effectiveness has worn off.     In 2012 I started having vision issues.  I lost partial vision in my right eye.  At this point I finally decided to manup and go see a neurologist.   His initial impression was that  I was suffering from seizures or migraines.  I was pregnant at the time with my third child so we decided to wait until after the baby was delivered before we proceeded with more testing.   Shortly before I delivered, my vision got worse and I was unable to see color. Everything was gray.  At this point my Neurologist wanted to give me a high dose of steroids in order to keep my symptoms under control.  After talking to my husband and another physician we decided to wait it out. 
                In February 2013 I delivered a healthy 6lb 9oz baby boy. We were extremely excited because after two stays in the hospital with pre-term labor and a tear in my placenta we weren't sure how things were going to turn out. Following the delivery I added hearing loss to my list of symptoms.  At my six week checkup we started running tests to see if we could figure out what was going on.  My CD57 was extremely low so it was suspected that I had a chronic infection.  My physician ordered a Bartonella by PCR test from fry labs http://frylabs.com/.  The results showed Substantial Biofilm.  Now we knew there was something there. The questions left was what was it? We then tested for Protomyxzoa. That test came back negative.   At this point we decided to take a shot in the dark and treat the infection.   These tests are not cheap and we had to pay for most of it out of pocket.  I was put on 400mg of Hydrochloroquine daily as well as 500 mg of Zithromax day.  The Zithromax was eventually increased to 1000mg daily.  After six months of treatment there was little to no improvement.  My Physician decided it was time to run a few more tests.  This time I had a positive Western Blot. The answer we had been searching for was lymes disease.
                When I started to look at the possibility of a more long term antibiotic I decided to look into alternatives.  I wanted to make sure that what I was putting into my body would not have negative long-term effects.   This is where essential oils came into play.  My family has been using them for a few years and there is new research coming out which indicates that they can be very effective when treating lymes.  I spoke with my physician about my whishes to completely stop the antibiotic and try essential oils for three months and see what happens.  He agreed to follow my progress and at the end of three months we are going run a blood culture and see what kind of progress we have made. 
                Now here is the disclaimer: I am not a Doctor nor am I trying to tell anyone else how to treat lymes disease.  This is simply to share my story and what I have found to be helpful. 





Please remember when reading anything on my website/blog that I am not a licensed physician and can’t diagnose or prescribe medications.  The information that I am providing is meant for informational purposes only. This disclaimer acts as the explicit waiver of any liability of myself as an Independent Product Consultant or dōTERRA as a company.  Information on this website/blog has not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and products referred to are not intended to or guaranteed to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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