Approaches To Medicine: Why Do We Sit On Different Sides Of The Fence?

Have you ever wondered how character and experience factor into how people approach healing? Personally, when it comes to Lyme disease, I think there are three kinds of people: the hard-core critter killers, the middle-of-the road pickers n' choosers, and finally, the lite-lunch naturalistic types. Maybe this is a narrow way of seeing things, but have a little fun with me and humor me in my stereotyping for a moment. C'mon, you gotta admit, there is a grain of truth to stereotypes, isn't there? I think we can learn from them, anyway.

First, (with a big IMHO!) it seems that hard-core critter killers tend to like antibiotics or heavy-handed ingestants such as MMS, and the more, the merrier. They go for strategies that carpet-bomb the infections and nuke borrelia like the missile it has never seen before. They have a high tolerance for pain and their motto may even be; no herxheimer, no gain. They do well working with M.D.'s, who prefer antibiotic strategies, but especially those who believe in high doses of the stuff. So what causes people to choose this approach? They might be type-A personalities, who think: just get it done, fast, quickly and efficiently, and when you hit 'em, make sure you hit 'em good, or they won't die! I've seen more men fall into this category than women. I think guys like to "tough it out," but they may also have a higher tolerance than women for hard-core strategies that massively tax the body. These hypotheses are just for starters; you can draw your own conclusions here.

The gentle, lite-lunch naturalistic types live by the naturopathic motto of "do no harm to the body," (no matter that no harm might be done to borrelia, either!). They adhere to strategies that won't cause their bodies to freak out in any way, shape or form. Indeed, any sign of a herx is reason to run and hide from a treatment. Anything that upsets homeostasis and isn't found in nature is a no-go. Light doses of herbs, gentle cleanses, and non-threatening strategies such as low doses of salt/C, cat's claw, or two minutes on a Rife machine, are perfect for them. They tend to stay away from antibiotics and heavy-handed borrelia tactics such as MMS. So what's up with the wuss crowd? Their beliefs have been shaped by the extreme damage done to them by docs who have fed them too many drugs or by a belief that the body shouldn't have to suffer in order for it to heal. The latter is a very eastern way of thinking. Don't invade, bust or break it in order to get it to do what it's supposed to. Be gentle. They may be very patient folk, who don't mind waiting ten or twenty years to get better. They would prefer to take it slow than to get to the end fast and suffer for it. I see more women in this category than men. (But I am not saying that women are weaker. No way, Jose Jalapeno!). Still some may prefer the philosophy that every little creature has the right to live, and it's better to try live in harmony with the bugs instead of trying to get rid of them all.

Finally, there are the middle-of-road types. These people pick n' choose strategies from a large bag of bug-killers. They may try antibiotics, but won't allow themselves to be barfing and bedridden by them. Still, they tend to believe that one medication won't do the job, and will suck it up and suffer a little in order to be able to take two, and rarely, three drugs. Others may believe that antibiotics work, but prefer strategies found in eastern medicine, such as effective doses of herbs and energy therapies. They try to keep an open mind when it comes to finding an appropriate treatment plan, and believe that while it isn't healthy to burden the body with heavy-handed herxheimer reactions, neither will the bugs succumb to little-of-this, little-of-that strategies, that tread lightly upon the body so as not to exacerbate symptoms. They realize that a little symptom exaggeration may be necessary in order to find healing, but that it shouldn't be excessive. What kind of people are they? Balanced, well-read healing warriors of both genders who haven't been adversely affected by allopathic healing strategies but who also haven't found healing in lite-touch approaches.

Personally, I feel that the middle-of-the-road approach is most conducive to healing, but people sit on all sides, as well as on all kinds, of fences here. Some adopt strategies based on what has worked for them or others in the past, but belief systems and personality traits play into it, too. I have found that, while I am more type-A and just want to get the bugs out of my body in the fastest manner possible, no matter the suffering required, I have found that the hard-core strategies have knocked me for a loop, and that my body hasn't been able to cope with the massive toxins generated by these. On the other hand, I know how tenacious and intelligent borrelia and its co-infections are and don't believe that the butterfly-barely-graze the-surface-of-the-body approaches always work, either. So I sit in the middle, believing in the power of both eastern and western medicine (but especially eastern, because I lean towards the philosophy of not doing harm to the body) and in approaches that are aggressive, or intelligent enough, to kill infections, but not so hard on the body that they weaken the immune system so that it cannot cope with the massive amount of neurotoxins generated by the die-off.