My Treatment Update

Life has been incredibly busy lately. Below is an update on my progress with treatments, as well as what I have been doing over the past few months.

Yesterday I finished writing my third book on healing. Unlike my first two books, this one goes beyond medicine in its approach to healing from Lyme disease and chronic illness. It focuses upon the power of God to heal the body, mind and spirit supernaturally, and ultimately suggests that God is able and willing to do this, more often than we may believe. It is based upon Jesus' promises in the Bible, and the power of the Holy Spirit to heal, when medicine has failed to provide a complete recovery.

Over the past few months, I have been attending healing conferences, as well as a four-day healing school, to learn more about this subject. My experiences at these conferences have been life-changing. As I have learned more about God's amazing willingness to heal, and His great love for humanity, I have witnessed literally hundreds of healing miracles.

In the process, I have received healing, too, in my body, mind and spirit (and been used to heal others!), as God's Spirit has touched me in profound ways. As a result of these conferences and my current antibiotic regimen, I have felt about 80% healed in my physical body over the past month, and believe that I will continue to improve. Through these conferences, I have learned that God's miracles can be instantaneous, but often, they manifest over time, and especially in cases of chronic illness. The latter seems to be His preferred method for healing me. While not always instantaneous, God's healing is usually faster than what we would accomplish through medicine alone.

I don't know when my current book will be published, but my hope is that it will be released before the end of the year. In the meantime, I am working on another writing project, which I will share more about in a couple of months.

As I begin my fourth month on antibiotics, I am optimistic about my recovery. This week I tested negative for Bartonella via ART (autonomic response testing), and the only two other infections which seem to remain are Borrelia and Babesia.
Viruses and other pathogens are apparently no longer a problem.

My regimen this month includes Mepron, Zithromax, Ceftin, samento, quina and artemisia. As I have mentioned in previous posts, my doctor muscle tests me monthly for the medications that I need, so my regimen gets switched regularly. I believe this to be a highly beneficial strategy in the treatment of Lyme, since organisms adapt so rapidly to medications. Also, ART (or muscle testing) allows my doctor to discern exactly what I need at any given point in time, so my regimen is tailored precisely to my needs.

I have also been doing treatments for several strains of Babesia using the Bionic 880 machine and nosodes from a pharmacy in Belgium. Ironically, I have not experienced any reaction from these treatments that I am aware of. I don't know if this is because my pathogen load is so low, because the nosodes don't match my precise strains of Babesia, or the machine is less effective for treating this organism. Using my blood as a nosode (which I did repeatedly last year) may have been more effective than using the Babesia nosodes, but I'm not sure why.

I have not experienced a Herxheimer reaction for over a month now, and surmise that my pathogen load may be low enough to where I won't suffer from these anymore. Consequently, my detoxification regimen these days is pretty bare bones, comprised of green drinks, bentonite clay baths, chlorella, lemon juice and coffee enemas.

My supportive therapies include Rechts-regulat, to address biofilm and hypercoagulation; Tri-Guard plus, which is anti-fungal comprised of tea tree oil and grapefruit seed extract; Udo's probiotics, milk thistle (for liver support) magnesium and fish oil.

I continue to take thyroid hormone and 5-10 mg of hydrocortisone, as well as melatonin and amitryptyline for sleep. I wish that I could wean off of these substances, but I am realizing that, unless God supernaturally heals all of the damage that Lyme has done to my body (and indeed I believe He may!), I may need to take these hormones and sleep remedies for life. I suppose it's a small price to pay for functionality.

In addition, I have been attending Pilate's classes to strengthen my lower back and the core of my body. I continue to suffer from hip and pelvic pain, so these classes are important for keeping the pain at a manageable level. When I return from a much-needed vacation in mid-May, I will be doing prolotherapy injections, which serve to strengthen the body's ligaments and consequently, hold its structure better. While painful, prolotherapy is extremely effective for those who have pain due to ligament laxity and, I suspect, damage to cartilaginous tissue as a result of Lyme.

Within the Lyme disease community, I have noticed that some wrongly assume that if a person still has pain and stiffness after treatments, that this means that Lyme is still present. I don't believe this is true. Much of the population suffers from musculoskeletal problems and many reasons exist for this type of pain. Also, Lyme damages the body and sometimes, pain is the result of damage done to cartilaginous tissue. If you do treatments and experience no changes in your pain levels over time, it may be that the bugs aren't the reason for your pain.

It is my hope that my experiences provide valuable insights for others healing from Lyme disease. As some of you know, I pursued alternative treatments for four years prior to taking antibiotics (which have been my last resort). I don't believe that most alternative treatments, in and of themselves, can cure Lyme any more than a regimen of pure antibiotics. Most effective is some combination of the two, and different strategies are effective for different people. Rife machines, for example, don't help everyone, but they help some, and especially when used with antibiotics. The same is true of herbs, hyperbaric oxygen, and other remedies.

My advice to anyone who is starting out on their healing journey would be to stick to treatments that are tried and true. Be careful of pursuing the "latest and greatest" remedies with no track record of long-term effectiveness. Also, the more I learn about Lyme, the more I believe that we must be aggressive with treatments. Taking a little samento here, a little doxycycline there, is rarely sufficient to beat the infections.

And don't forget prayer, and the power of God to do above and beyond all that we can accomplish through medicine!