My Lyme Therapy

I have been in Lyme Disease treatment since the end of February 2007. For most of the time, I was doing a fairly traditional treatment using oral antibiotics and some nutritional IV treatment (which is somewhat experimental). I could list the different orals I was using, but that would just bore you. I did start off with the most traditional treatment there is with Doxycycline. This particular drug is very tough to tolerate when you have Lyme Disease. What happens is it kills parts of the bacteria and then leaves you with toxins. Those toxins make you feel very lousy. For me, it caused major nausea, vomiting and loose stools. I was on generally 3 or 4 antibiotics at a time. Lyme Disease has different "forms." and each antibiotic killed the different forms. It also targeted other tick borne illnesses too.

Well after over a year of oral antibiotics and some nutritional IV treatment, I was not getting well. In fact in some ways, I was worse than when I started treatment. There were many things that improved though. One day back in April of 08, I began to feel very sick again. I was hallucinating (sounds and visual), feeling dizzy, passing out, and other things that I am having trouble remembering. It was a very low point for me. My husband rushed me to my Lyme Physician so he could see how very badly I was feeling.

It was at this point that we all knew that we had to do something different. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I was presented with an experimental option that my physician had just started after he had seen success with another patient. He told me to sleep on it, pray on it, research it and do whatever I had to do in order to make this decision of whether I wanted to do this treatment.

I made a phone call to this patient of his, googled until my fingers felt like they were going to fall off, but most importantly ... I dug deep within my soul and prayed like I had never prayed before. I had a decision to make and though it did not have to be immediately, I felt like I needed answers. How could I make a decision about a treatment that I couldn't even find on google? How could I decide that I wanted to place my life in the hands of a doctor that I didn't even know existed two years before? So I did what I was taught when I was little .. I opened up the red book with gold edges that had my maiden name written on the front from 1987. I opened up the Word of God, took a deep breath and prayed that my answers would be found in the depths of the Bible.

I flipped with my eyes closed ... I opened to one page and like a kid with a map .. put my finger down. I discovered this:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."- Philippians 4:6-8

I focused on the first line: "Do not be anxious about anything." I knew my answer. I had to do this treatment. I am doing what is known as the Antimicrobial Therapy. I started off going twice a week to get this treatment and then it went to once a week. Now I am going once every three weeks. The treatment is difficult. The first treatment my husband had to carry me out of the office to the car. I don't remember. I sleep for most of the day which is probably good because if I were awake I probably wouldn't feel so good.

This treatment is killing Lyme, Bartonella, Candida, and other things that I probably have that I just don't know about yet. I have had 9 treatments so far. How is it working? I will tell you that last weekend was the best weekend I have had in years. I know it is doing it's job and I just have to tough it out. Today is one of those treatments for me. I will be starting around 9am.

The nurse gets all the bags ready (3 in all) and infuses them into my PICC line. Now that I have the PICC Line (an IV that stays in my arm until I finish the treatments), life is much easier and harder at the same time. It's easier because it takes 2 hours to do the treatment. It no longer burns my arms and it goes straight to my heart. It's harder because my day to day life is much more difficult with the catheter. However in the end, it will be worth it.

Stay tuned: for PICC: the good, the bad and the ugly.