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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"

About the book:

443 Pages - $39.95
Published August, 2009
Written by Connie Strasheim
Learn More - Bulk Orders - Table of Contents














Friday, April 09, 2010

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!

7 comments:

Suzanne Lerner said...

Hi Connie, congrats on finishing your book, and also getting to such a better place in your healing. I had a question about prolotherapy. It sounded gret to me, as my joints and ligaments have really suffered. but then I saw that they are injecting dextrose, a form of sugar. If we are still with Spirochetes, isn't that like holding a banquet for them? I don't know...Do you know other Lymies who have been helped by prolotherapy? I'd love to know more.

heather said...

hi connie,

so glad you're progressing so beautifully, and congratulations on completing your newest writing project. :)

questions: in retrospect, do you wish you'd done longterm abx earlier, in conjunction with your natural treatments? or did the alternative treatments prepare your body for the abx? also, what types of detoxification strategies did you employ when you were herxing more regularly? what you listed in this entry is about what i do; i'm wondering if i should get more aggressive with my detox.

thanks, and much love to you!

Connie Strasheim said...

Hi Suzanne,

I don't know about whether injecting dextrose has the same effect upon spirochetes as ingesting it. My LLMD does prolotherapy and doesn't seem to be concerned about that (although I think he may use testosterone instead of dextrose). More important might be the inflammation issue. Prolotherapy doesn't work as well on those with lots of inflammation or who have a weak immune system. I know of one person with Lyme who did prolo and it didn't help him much. But the success depends on a lot of factors including the competency of the practitioner, number of injections and reason for getting the injections. Hope this helps, I will let you know how it goes for me. I will likely start the injections in June.

Thanks, Connie

Connie Strasheim said...

Hi Heather,

Thanks for your questions. I don't know whether I would have done antibiotics sooner. My body may not have handled them very well a few years ago. I definitely think that doing alternative remedies for 3-4 years better prepared me to do abx; however, I did waste a lot of time pursuing treatments that didn't really help me, such as salt/C and Rife machines (granted these do help some). Abx are very harmful to the body so I chose to do them as a last resort--however, my current thinking is that combining alternative remedies with abx is most effective. Some people can't handle a lot of therapy right away, but I think it's important to be as aggressive with this thing as possible.

An example of an aggressive detox protocol which I have used in the past includes: toxin binders such as chlorella, glutathione and bentonite clay; homeopathic drainage remedies for the kidneys, liver and lymphatic system; saunas, exercise, body brushing, coffee enemas, juicing, liver support supplements such as milk thistle; an alkaline diet with lots of veggies, which also includes anti-inflammatory foods and supplements. There are a number of approaches to detox and you have to find a good balance between supporting the body and not overburdening it with too much stuff.
Hope this helps! :)

Blessings, Connie

Unknown said...

Connie
Do you think you have gotten any benefit with the Bionic 880?
And how much time did you use it for?
I assume you have your own machine?
I'm interested in trying a PE1 but can't seem to find many positive testimonials and would like some more encouragement before I shell out the cash.
also, who showed you how to use the Bionic?
thanks
charlotte

Connie Strasheim said...

Hi Charlotte,

The Bionic 880 helped me but did not cure me (like all things so far). I did monthly sessions on it for about 9 months. It is very powerful, though, and quite effective for borrelia. I think it may be less effective for other infections as that has been my experience so far but I can't say for sure. It may be that I need to use it for a longer period of time, just like antibiotics or other remedies. I think the machine was about 8 K. I don't know about the results of the PE-1. It is certainly cheaper but I'm a bit wary of stuff that doesn't have a track record behind it and as far as I know, it hasn't been used for long in the Lyme community.

Thanks,

Connie

David said...

Hearing you say that you really feel you may get totally well made me feel it for juuuuust a tiny instant...I am almost done with all alternative therapies I want to try and am going back to my LLMD in 1 week to presumably start antibiotics. I have done a lot of prolotherapy, and it really works. If you are still infected badly, the results will recede a little as the bugs mess things up again. But after killing the bugs, I believe 100% that prolotherapy can potentially cure most any musculoskeletal problem, if done with tremendous skill. Sugar is typically not a huge amount. You can expect about 15 grams per 100cc's injected into you ("15% dextrose). That would require 5, 20cc syringes, which is more than most people get in a treatment.