Lyme Into Lemonade

Shut the front door, we have had 4 good days... like more good than bad.  I wish I could tell you specifically what caused it, but alas, this impatient mama doesn't always follow perfect scientific method.  You're supposed to change one thing at a time so you can tell what worked. But once my Buhner herbs came in the mail, I changed it all basically.  Again, note that our provider knew what my plans were and blessed it.  I don't do anything without discussing it with our care team. What for sure we added: scutellaria, salvia, licorice root, guo tang, Eleuthera, guaiacum, tryptophan, l-acetyl carnitine, extra magnesium, kali phos, and biomedic salts from Hylands.  The first 6 are tinctures.  Tryptophan, magnesium and carnitine are capsules.  The last two are homeopathic remedies. The first night, John's mood was greatly improved.  As I was helping him do his Spanish homework, we got to translating "winner, winner chicken dinner."  He got t...

Today, some of our new additions to supplements came.  While not all items from Buhner protocol have arrived, some did, and since John had a rough morning, I was ready to try them.  The things we added today are: SAM-e:  this is supposed to help all kinds of symptoms, including depression, anxiety, ADHD, and fibromyalgia. L-acetyl carnitine: this supports the mitochondria, which are our energy producing factories on the cellular level.  It is thought to give energy specifically to brain cells. Tryptophan:  heard of it before?  It's the amino acid that is responsible for making you sleepy from Thanksgiving turkey.  Tryptophan is required to make melatonin and serotonin.  In this case, we are hoping for a boost in his feel good hormones.  Some prefer 5-HTP as it's further broken down, and we've used that in the past too. If tryptophan doesn't work, we will swap it out for 5-HTP, which currently resides in my supplement graveyard. CoQ10,...

First, a small update.   I don't think the mat is doing enough to justify its cost.  We still have a few weeks to decide, but John has equated it to a glorified heating pad.  Paul has fallen asleep on it, and thinks it's comfy.  John said he can't sleep on the rocks because it's uncomfy.  For sure, it's warm, but  I'm not sure it brings any other noticeable advantages.  LDN has been rough the last 2 days.  John's noticed increased depression, and a lack of sleep no matter when we take it.  We discussed with Dr. K and she says to forget it for now.  Back it goes to the supplement graveyard with all the other things that aren't working now. And... drum roll please!!!  John's Paleo diet is either helping, or he's having a growth spurt.  He weighed 69 lbs. this morning.  This is up 7 lbs.  since July 31, and despite some gut issues.  Woot, woot!  We will take it. Anyway... I feel like I have Lyme ADHD. ...

Y'all know we are struggling over here.  As the days march on towards the end of our 90 day commitment to healing, we have decided to change things up.  Smoothies have always been a problem for John.  The hyperthermia has been no picnic either lately.  Matt at the FAR Clinic told us to change the goal temperature to 101, but it hasn't done a bit of good.  Something had to give.  It was the smoothie. Instead of suffering through this barely drinkable delight, John and I decided to put his nutrition in the old fashioned way:  through food-shaped food.  No blender.  No smoothie.  The reason why this switch was made now is: It's awful and I was afraid we wouldn't make it the next 18 days through both hyperthermia and smoothies, and hyperthermia is more important. John has been noticing increased food sensitivities to things that didn't use to bother him - right now, coconut and all things coconut are problematic, so that wipes out a lo...

My last post covered a healing PEMF mat and LDN.  Although it's rather early for both, I thought I'd report anyway. The mat is heavy.  Lugging it up the stairs to John's room was actually kind of hard because it's awkward, and it literally has over 12 lbs of gemstones in it.  He decided that sleeping on the mat while he's trying to rest is just too hard to do.  It's not comfortable, so using it overnight seems to be out for now.  He's used it intermittently otherwise, and while it's warm and toasty, the joint pain hasn't improved.  Maybe we need longer to determine a verdict, but if we don't notice any improvement in 3 weeks, it's going back.  I don't need more things that don't work. As for the LDN, he's not even one week in.  No improvements have been noted.  The blogs and experienced Lymies using LDN tell me it can take 4-6 months to really notice a difference.  OMG.  We don't have that kind of patience right now.  Poor...

I have a cousin who lives in New England who also has Lyme disease.  IV silver was the only thing that really helped her to feel better, so my aunt recommended I look into it.  Silver is a very old treatment, as some sources say it dates back to the 1000s B.C.  It is a natural anti-microbial and can be used to treat infections (it's been approved for this purpose by the FDA since the 1920s), clean wounds, and fight off general bacteria.  We have used colloidal silver on Bigdog when he was going through natural cancer treatments, and we use colloidal silver in John's smoothies per the FAR Clinic's smoothie recipe.  However, we've never used it intravenously.   Here's a website explaining how IV silver works for chronic Lyme. Our LLMD told us that now would *not* be a good time to start this.  She recommended we wait until we finish FAR Clinic's 3 month set of treatments.  The reason why is that John is already doing  a lot to kill off Lyme s...