Lyme Into Lemonade

A common symptom of Lyme and co-infections includes food sensitivities.  When John was first diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, I already knew dairy-free and gluten-free cooking and baking was my future.  I had been DF and GF for myself already when he was diagnosed.  But what has followed has really challenged my abilities in the kitchen.  My current ingredient restrictions and the reasons why are as follows... These are pretty much always an issue for John: dairy (causes upset stomach, loose stools, and it binds to the methylfolate receptors, slowing down all methylation processes) gluten (confuses the thyroid into attacking itself, plus American wheat is laced with glyphosphate/Round-up, which is known to cause destruction in the gut) eggs (causes gas and loose stools - this one kills me... hard to bake with gluten and dairy, let alone eggs.  I'd really like this sensitivity to go away as the nutrition in eggs would be useful) corn (causes extrem...

Remember that Meatloaf song, "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad"... well, that's kind of where we are at right now.  We seem to have both the fatigue and depression mostly under control.  The last hold out is the pain.  We've tried CBD oil (doctor recommended), Kudzu root as recommended from the Buhner book, lemon balm tincture, and one more tincture I can't remember.  We have tried Hypericum 30C, a homeopathic remedy given to us by our LLMD's homeopath.  Nothing seems to help the pain, and when I added andographis this week, the pain increased. That's the frustrating thing about Lyme.  You take something that is supposed to help, and you feel worse.  It could be a Herx reaction.  It can be an allergic reaction.  It can be maybe just weird timing and you feel worse because you're coming down with a cold.  Good think John knows the difference between them all, because a casual observer could never tell the difference. Today, John's at a frie...

I'm typically the one who does all the care taking around here.  Paul works, and we need him to concentrate on that so we can pay the bills and such.  But this week has been TOUGH.  Paul is out of town on business, so that leaves me single-parenting for the week.  But then... what seemed like a little annoying post-nasal drip for me turned into a full blown sinus infection that started hitting me hard on Tuesday.  It totally kicked my butt.  I had the highest fever I ever remember at 103.4.  I had to take a hot bath to stay warm.  My head felt so heavy and dumb, which isn't a good state as the primary caregiver of a chronically ill family member. I literally didn't have the energy to drive myself to a minute clinic.  I whipped out my at-home rapid strep test.  My throat was so raw I figured it was worth testing, but the test showed negative.  I looked in the mirror and saw stuff in the back of my throat.  I slept on and off f...

My mental gears have been turning lately over ammonia, and its relationship to Lyme.  Two articles that have my attention lately are: The Alkaline Brain Detox the Die-off I don't have much to say yet, because I don't know much what to do with this information.  I do know, however, that the first article specifically names L-arginine as a supplement to avoid.  The FAR Clinic used L-arginine in their medical smoothies.  Being that my son did NOT get better with the smoothies, or anything FAR Clinic related, we are avoiding L-arginine with the info above.

Last I wrote, John had a string of good days using Buhner herbs.  A day or two after that, the wheels came off.  This is pretty normal for us, but still discouraging.  He got a lot of pain and was having issues sleeping.  So, we had to pull back.  I was headed to Detroit for a hockey tournament with his brother anyway, making it a reasonable time to focus on detox.  In the past, a few days of detox usually helped things a bit.  But this time, I returned home to a kid that was no better. We started Buhner herbs up slowly again.  First item added was Japanese Knotweed.  This plant is a bamboo like weed that's considered invasive in some areas.  Similar to our hard to get rid of dandelion, the knotweed is a tough weed to irradiate.  The roots of this plant are known to be a strong anti-microbial that is effective in treating Lyme because it gets to the spirochete.  Japanese knotweed is high in resveratrol, the same antioxidant t...

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,...