Iron deficiency, my theory plus audio link

Hi Friends,

I hope you all are doing well and continuing to glow and get well. Things with me have been getting better, steady and slowly. I'm still taking doxy, started zithro and some of Buhner herbs, doing detox baths, feeling really good.

The biggest difference this month is I STOPPED supplementing iron.

In the list of deficiencies I have, iron was really low. The months I supplemented, each month my period would get heavier and worse. I felt like I was working so hard to restore my iron (although my numbers barely budged) and then my moontime would come and eradicate ALL the iron I had taken the previous month. My blood pressure and heartbeats week of period would SOAR too high.

This past month I decided to stop supplementing iron. I have my moon right now and this is the best month I've had since I began treatment in July.

I have a theory that the bacteria somehow benefit and thrive better when we have "good" iron levels in our blood, so I decided to trust my natural iron this month and see what happened.

Amazing and wonderful coincidence, I heard this program today on "The People's Pharmacy". Dr. Kluger talked about the role of fever in immune system recovery in an off air extended interview. The part most interesting to me, jump to 19:30 minutes and listen for about 2 minutes of the interview, then skip to 24:30 for more info about iron. Dr. Kluger says that "Fall in iron is an adaptive response [to bacteria] .... bacteria don't grow as well in an iron deficient environment."

Woh. That was amazing to hear. While he's not talking specifically about lyme disease, he was talking about microorganisms and bacteria in general.

While there are no official studies proving this for Lyme patients, for me, it totallly makes sense.

I wanted to share this in case others who are having difficulty with iron deficiency or supplementing iron, consider taking a month off of iron and see if this helps you.

wishing you blessings and healing,

Hi MK, I should also share my serum ferritin was LOW but my Hematocrit and Hemoglobin were normal. My ferritin was an 11 and after 3 months of MAJOR supplementation--avoiding calcium at time of supplement and taking vit C which enhances absorption--my ferritin went to a whopping 14. I felt really bad during moontime. My bp was scary high that week each month, but THIS month is the first month since July that only my heartbeats are up in the 90s, my bp is pretty good. The amt of blood loss is a ton less than last month too.

I feel like this is big news to my healing esp b/c my llmd was considering procrit (iron injections) to try to elevate my ferritin. Once I get off abx and I'm still feeling good, and if my iron is still low, I may consider supplementing again, but until then, I'm going to trust my body's reaction to iron. My body is expelling the iron for some reason serving me.

I'm so glad this is helpful to you. You may find you have low ferritin too, but maybe this is a GOOD thing for us lymies? I definitely think my supplementation was counterproductive.