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April, 2014- HELLO ALL! I am no longer posting to this blog. For the latest on me and my work, I invite you to subscribe to my NEW blog: www.conniestrasheim.blogspot.com where I share my latest findings on how to heal from chronic illness involving Lyme and other conditions. Thanks!

Greetings and welcome to my Lyme disease blog, a comfy cozy (and sometimes crazy!) place for cutting-edge information, encouragement and insight into the fastest-growing epidemic disease in the United States. In this blog you will find everything from bug-killing strategies to immune system and hormone help, as well as lifestyle and spiritual suggestions for healing from chronic illness involving Lyme disease. The information contained within this blog is based upon my own healing journey and what I have learned over the past eight years as I have been diligently digging and researching my way back to a better state of health. May you find it to be a source of hope, inspiration and wisdom in your own journey towards wellness.

About "Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment"

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443 Pages - $39.95
Published August, 2009
Written by Connie Strasheim
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Thursday, January 07, 2010

Persevere, Persevere...

Lately, I've been hearing from people who are giving up on their doctors. They aren't seeing improvement, so they want recommendations for new healing strategies, better physicians, or just something.

While some Lyme-literate doctors are probably more adept at treating Lyme than others, it may not be a good idea to fire your doctor, just because you aren't improving much on your current treatment regimen. Because the doctor may not be the reason why your progress is slow.

Healing from Lyme disease is very much a patient participation thing. Doctors can't carry the responsibility for your wellness; you must help them. In a big way. Because they may know the proper medication for Borrelia, but they might not know how to balance your hormones, (in which case, you also need to enlist the help of an endocrinologist or naturopath, since balancing the hormones is an integral part of healing).

Also, if you aren't completely following their protocol for you, this may impede your progress. Yes, sometimes our intuition is better than the doctor's recommendations, but not always. For instance, if your doctor tells you to avoid bread and pasta in your diet, and you don't do this, then you may not heal, no matter which doctor you see.

In addition, if you are really sick from Lyme disease, you may not see improvements in your symptoms for a long, long time. Little positive changes may emerge, but major changes in your well-being may not happen for a year or two. The healing process is extremely slow for the really sick and winning the game requires a hefty dose of perseverence. Don't switch your doctor because you aren't running around on a playground after six months of treatment. I have known people who have been on antibiotics for five to seven years, and who are now mostly well. I doubt they felt stellar after the first year on a regimen. But they hung in there and reaped the rewards. Personally, I don't think that I could do a regimen for a couple of years without seeing major results. I am too impatient, but I do believe that's necessary to stick with any protocol for at least six months to a year to know whether it's even going to work for you.

In your desperation, you may want to run to the next thing or the next doctor, but think carefully before you do Yes, I know people who stay on regimens for years with little progress, and I believe that this is just as unwise as jumping from treatment to treatment every few months, but more often, people don't give their current protocol a chance.

Finally, treatment failure may not be due to the fact that your doctor is incompetent. It may be that your case is complicated, and that you are a challenge, even for the best of the best. But don't despair--if this is the case, try to work with your doctor to discover what might be blocking you in your healing (if he or she is willing to explore the possibilities), and if you are unable, only then may you want to consider moving on to a different health care provider or treatment regimen.

1 comment:

myheartsingz said...

Hi Connie,
I am relatively new to the Lyme world. I started to have pretty intense migratory polyarthritis, Nov. 2009. But definitely have had other things, exhaustion, that I thought were "perimenopause" but may have been Lymes. So, I'm thinking I'm in stage 2, was probably bit a year to 6 months ago.
ANTIBIOTICS?!?!?! When I read that no one is in remission 10 years, and if you go off antibiotics the symptoms come back, and massive candida, which I already tend towards, and I have mercury fillings I can't afford to replace, and the side effects of antibiotics, I want to avoid taking the antibiotics and just choose a more natural route. But I am afraid I am being stupid and avoidant, and antibiotics may not be great, but they are better than nothing. But I'm tempted to just try herbals 1st (Dr. Cowden or Stephen Bruhner or Dr Zhang)
Yet I know that my joints are being really damaged, and I want to stop the progression. My muscles are "wasting" I've lost 20 pounds in the last 2 months, with almost no exercise. That's scary, and I just want to "throw antibiotics" at my symptoms. Sometimes, I think that it is like organic gardening, it is tempting to use DDT and pesticides, to get immediate results, but it may be the less dramatic, longer term solutions (herbal) may be better for greater overall health.
There is no answer to my question really, I just needed to share my frustration/confusion that a lot of people go through. I pray for guidance, what the right direction is for me.