Lyme

I wrote two blog posts about my experiences with discovering and dealing with Lyme. I haven’t had the energy to write part 3 yet, but here are some recommendations:

Educate Yourself, Family and Friends

Lots of people including doctors are going to think you’re a wack job. There’s lots of information out there, but a really good starting point is the Under Our Skin documentary.

This year Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons was released. It’s a quick read.

Find the right doctor

Find a doctor that believes in and understands chronic Lyme. I don’t care how good you think a doctor or hospital is. If they follow the BS guidance on the CDC’s website it’s like going to a good chef to get your prized car fixed. They don’t really think that the engine needs oil, but they read somewhere that a couple of quarts of extra virgin olive oil should work. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, STOP. Read the two blog posts and the section above on educating yourself.

Lyme, Do I have it?

Lyme tests have been proven to provide false negatives, In addition, never accept a doctor simply telling you that you don’t have Lyme. If they interpret the results per the CDC they may tell you that you don’t have Lyme when the data actually indicted that you likely have it. It is not a binary test so you must insist on the data which is only a handful of metrics. In addition, you should be tested for all of the common co-infections. If you have them, you might have Lyme, If you don’t actually have Lyme, you still need to deal with any co-infections that you might have. I had three!

Lyme can cause over 100 symptoms. I didn’t have achy joints nor tinnitus and I was able to get out bed every morning. However, I had many other symptoms that can be caused by Lyme. Use this Symptom Check List to see how your symptoms match with common Lynne symptoms.

Diet

Lyme thrives on sugar. If you stay away from sugar, you prevent the bastards from thriving. When fighting chronic Lyme, this may provide better results that all of the antibiotics you’re taking. Refined sugars are obviously out, but to effectively do this you need to massively reduce your intake of anything that your body turns into glucose. A strict keto diet will have about 25 net carbs a day and I strongly recommend that you become a disciple for a few months and see what happens. A net carb is any carbohydrate that isn’t fiber. You will be shocked where you find carbs. A white onion has 10, so that’s about half your daily allowance. There is no need to go hungry! It’s about depriving Borrelia burgdorferi (a.k.a. Lyme) the fuel it wants.

Digestive system

If you’re taking or have taken lots of antibiotics your digestive system is trashed. Here’s several easy things you can do:

• Take probiotics twice per day. I use Florastor because it was recommend to me, but you could use just about any probiotic.

• Take a tablespoon of cod liver oil every morning. In the old days, Grandma knew it was good for you, but she didn’t know why. Apparently it binds to bad stuff in your digestive system and I’ll leave it to you to figure out where it winds up. I use Carlson’s and honest to God it isn’t bad. You want the one with lemon flavor. The one without lemon is awful. You could take pills, but it takes a lot more than you would think to equal one tablespoon.

• Eat bone marrow or bone broth (also use it as a basis for soup). If your system is really messed up there is a bovine-derived powder, but you need a prescription and it’s not cheap.

Stevia

Researchers at Yale found that liquid Stevia (as opposed to powder) was more effective at killing Lyme than antibiotics! While this was a lab (i.e., not human) trial, the result is astonishing. I know of six very sick Lyme patients who tried seven drops of liquid Stevia in the morning and evening. Two had a drastic reduction in symptoms. Specifically, within two weeks their tinnitus and achy joints were reduced by 80-90%. They also had a family member secretly substitute a Stevia placebo and each time they experienced an increase pain within two days. They aren’t cured and they still have other symptoms, but their quality of life was significantly improved. The remaining four, including myself, didn’t notice any change.

You might be thinking Stevia is a bunch of BS. If so, you’d probably think the ancient Egyptians practice of applying a poultice of moldy bread to infected wounds was a bunch of BS as well.

Consider that penicillin, the first true antibiotic, was inadvertently discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming. He was growing bacteria in petri dishes when he noticed colonies of bacteria growing everywhere except one area which had a blob of mold. The blob was later identified as Penicillium notatum and medicine was forever changed. Modern antibiotics are compounds produced by bacteria and fungi… maybe those ancient Egyptians actually knew what they were doing.

The graphic below is from a research study done at Yale on the effectiveness of Stiva on Lyme (the entire paper is available here). All three images show how much Borrelia burgdorferi (a.k.a. Lyme) remained after a three-day treatment. In the first two charts a smaller bar is better. You’ll note that Stevia A bar is almost imperceptible and the DoxC is about the same as the the control! In the third image, the black rectangles are magnified 200x to show how many bad guys are floating around. Less bad guys is better and the Stevia A image is almost pitch black!

Conclusion. Stevia kicked ass and the best antibiotics that modern medicine has to offer didn’t do shit. That isn’t to say that Stevia is a cure, but it’s clear that only an idiot wouldn’t try it because it’s cheap, easy, accessible and harmless. If I were bitten by a tick, I would certainly do the 1-2 month DoxC protocol because it’s proven to work. However, I would resist long-term antibiotic protocol for chronic Lyme because it destroys your digestive system and it doesn’t have a good track record.

Warfare

I’m aware of three Lyme treatments that have had good outcomes for chronic Lyme:

Hypothermia Therapy: I wrote about my hypertherm experience in my blog. It’s very effective, but you’ll have to go to Germany or Switzerland for 2-3 weeks and spend ~$20k out of pocket plus travel expenses. If you have chronic Lyme and the means, do it.

HBOT: has helped a lot of people. You can do it in the USA, but it’s not cheap, it’s not going to be covered by insurance, it takes a fair amount of time and you need to travel to a facility with a chamber. My mother did 60 “dives” and she credits that with getting her Lyme under control.

Bee Venom: Need to add info… this

EWOT