Waiting for Lymes diagnosis

 Hi- I just had my blood work for lyme's done today. Ten years ago I had a fairly sudden onset of fairly systemic tingling and mild numbness. It slowly dissapated over the years. Then a few months ago the symtoms came back, thoiugh this time I have more headaches, particularly at the backof my head and neck. During the ten years in which the symtoms dissapated I have has some neurological problems, icluding pretty good tinnitus, and a kind of jiggling in my vision in reponse to striaght lines or outlines. I had never heard that Lymes might cause these symptoms, but it seems it can. It sounds like it might be a little unusual for it to go into at least partial remission for ten years, but I am hoping it is Lymes at this point.

 I have been fairly unhealthy in terms of diet for most of my life, and i think it has gotten worse once I started to be uncomfortable. I am hoping to make significant changes in my diet and supplemetation whether I am found to have Lyme's or not. I have a lot of anxiety at this point, and still wonder if that might be my problem. But my present Doc thinks my anxiety is probably caused by Lymes. I will admit that I did not have the same kind of anxiety earlier in my life. I am fifty.

 My plan at this point is to get rid of amalgams first. My doc wants me to do EDTA chelation, though I am awating heavy metal tests as well. I have done the spit test for candida and it looked positive. I have significant allergies also and they have seemed to increase as I have gotten older, though I cannot correlate them to what happened ten years ago. My question is, what sequence should I treat this stuff with. Say I have significant candida, heavy metal and lymes, which should be addressed first? You have some great folks here, and i really appreciate it.

                      Matt

Razzle- It is great to talk to someone with some knowledge on this. My intuition has been close to what you have recommended. In short to get yourself cleaned up by diet and other natural de-tox processes before taking on antibiotics and EDTA. I would be interested in your thoughts on alpha lipoic for chelation. Also I don't know if your familiar with earth clinic or not, but I am initially encouraged by the info there. They, or at least their resident expert Ted from Thailand, advise Bloodroot, Boron, and sea salt to deal with Lymes. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks again
Matt

P.S I beleive they are testing for the co-infections. It seems a little odd to hope I have this thing, but my symtoms seem to be baffling the experts so far. I am scheduled for an appointment with a neurologist in about a week, and I am considering an MRI mostly to eliminate M.S. If you or Gary have information on trying to find a neuro or other type of doctor who would be on blue cross that would be a help to me. I am also considering calling Docs on my provider list to see if they consider Lymes. I know the western blot might be necessay if the cheaper test does not pick up Lyme or co-infections and it is about 600 here. Also I have a co-worker with Lymes and is just starting antibiotics, and she says thay you need to get a western blot after the course of ant-b's to make sure you have gotten rid of the bugs. Anyway if there is any chance of getting these tests covered under my plan it would be nice. I thought this disease was known to be legitimate, but apparently the mainstreams are behind in everything.

Matt,

I don't have personal experience using ALA specifically for detox/chelating...when I was on it a few years ago, it didn't seem to do anything obvious for me but I may have been on a really low dose so wouldn't necessarily have noticed anything...this was prior to being diagnosed with Lyme also.

Haven't heard of "earth clinic" - do you have their website address?

I've heard that salt is supposed to kill Lyme. Bloodroot has a lot of uses (mostly with Cancer) but suspect it would also be helpful for Lyme. Boron for Lyme - haven't heard of that either...I know boron is good for the bones...

Don't know how to help with the doctor recommendations other than to suggest contacting ILADS.org...most LLMD's are not usually covered with standard insurance, but you may get partial coverage (i.e., office visits covered but certain tests & meds not covered or only partially covered) depending on your specific insurance plan.

I wasn't diagnosed with Lyme until November 2007, although I've had symptoms for over 30 years. Started with Buhner's Core Lyme Protocol (Andrographis, Cat's Claw, Resveritrol) in 2008 and my gut freaked out and stopped working by the end of June '08 - most likely due to die-off from the herbs. Took a break from Lyme treatment then, but was put on other antibiotics due to other infections begining in early 2009, and have basically been on one abx or another ever since. I wasn't on Doxycycline until earlier this year, but recently had to stop that because my gut was shutting down again. So now I'm back on Cipro. My doctor says he thinks I'll need another couple more years of abx. at a minimum, since I have had Lyme for so long.

Take care,