new to site

Hello, I am new to this site and am amazed at the information on here, and can see there are some pretty sharp people who post.

I will tell my story real quick and I appreciate any feedback. I'll also keep everyone updated as I start my journey on treatment. I'll spare all the details about how my sickness caused my life to go downhill and caused a divorce with two kids. It happened, anyway here is a brief summary.

Diagnosed - 1 week ago in Illinois with Lyme and Co-infection of mycoplasma pneumonia, believe my doctor is good but not an LLMD. Am in treatment now with him, will summarize treatment below. Tested on Igenex IgM Lyme positive with antibodies at 80. Igg negative. Western Blot CDC negative, but Igenex positive. All other tests negative, ie. PCR tests (seems weird?) Confused how IgM shows recent infection but had this a long time.

Symptoms - Have had for 17 years, remember when they started. Very much struggled with depression. Brain fog, work as an engineer, concentration is everything, yet struggle to focus. Snapping at people, irritated by things that happened a long time ago. Very bad hairloss globally on scalp (not just top of head in male pattern area). feeling that i have a lack of intelligent thoughts and statements. nervous. Had a very bad intestinal yeast infection, got rid of it about 3 years ago after a Genova stool test detected it. Felt about 40-50% better. Felt a need to pursue more healing. Still feel foggy and overall unhappy. Joint problems started kicking in and I quit sports and lifting weights a year ago. Noticed after detoxing that if I eat meat the room spins and don't feel very good, I am thinking that has to do with ammonia from what I've read? One thing that really bothers me is my hairloss, I have determined that liver assisting supplements (such as Metagenics Ultra Clear) lower how much hair i lose. I have determined that there are toxins getting through my skin and irritating the follicles. My liver on its own apparently cannot process the toxins and it discharges them through the skin, the skin being a detox organ by itself as we know. How convenient it chose my scalp to do so. That's where I am today.


Treatment - abx doxy 2 x a day, colloidal silver, bolouke for biofilms, liver supp (glutathione, metagenics ultra clear), kidney support supp, Transfer factors for both mycoplasma and lyme. Regimen prescribed for 6 weeks, 5 weeks remains. Not "herxing" that bad, was much worse when killing off yeast in the gut 3 years ago. I feel spacey and a little tired. Skin is getting a little worse too. But this is manageable so far.

Wrap up - I am going to explore the regimen protocol recommended by Dr. Jernigan. I already ordered Anti-tox, it sounds great from posts I've read. would love to manage the toxins better, i think that will help, that is what is causing symptoms in most of us I think. Does it help with ammonia detoxing? Would love to bounce this off some experienced people and see if I should take a new course or "wait and see" after 5 weeks. Or maybe if I should add something new to my regimen. I have not explored epsom salt baths, skin brushing, coffee enemas....etc.... Thanks.....feels good to write my story.

Welcome to the forum! Sorry you are having these problems but this is the best place to be for support. We all understand and can relate.

Sounds like you need a LLMD to be treated long enough to get feeling better. You can start a new post entitled "looking for a LLMD and your city, state". Or you can go the herbal route and self treat after your current doctor is done treating.

It took me 15 yrs to get diagnosed and I've been in treatment for over a year. Still not 100%.

You mentioned that eating meat makes you I'll, did you have a problem with meat before the infection? Ni believe there is a certain infection that the meat makes you sick but somebody with more knowledge hopefully will chime in.

I don't ever have the ammonia issue either so can't help there. I use Nutramedics parsley, Burbur and Pinella for detoxing and it works wonders. Also a ton of other things mentioned in the first post, New to Lyme.

Good luck with treatment and hope you feel better soon.

Hi Lymeassasin!
Welcome to our community!! I'm so glad you found us!

If you haven't yet, please do read through our "New to Lyme?Start Here!" thread that sits at the top of the forum as Girlie has suggested. It's packed with important information that will help you heal.

The red meat reaction is quite typical of Rickettsia infection like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever - there's even a 'spotless' (no rash) version. Here is an article on it: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1863-2378.2012.01475.x/full

Usually, from what I understand, once the infection is properly treated, the 'allergy' goes away.

Many here take milk thistle to help protect their liver from all of the toxins that it has to process. I'm one of the ones that can't take it due to a rag weed allergy. Not all that have a rag weed allergy are sensitive to milk thistle though, so it's worth trying.

What dosage of Doxy are you taking? We like to make sure that our members are taking a high enough dose to actually kill the bacteria, rather than just keeping them from reproducing - and 6 weeks is the bare minimum treatment time (even on the proper dose) for brand new infections without symptoms. So I would encourage you to either find out if your doc will continue treatments, or find a doc that you know will!! Under treatment of these infections is a major problem and why these forums are so full!!

I can't stress enough (obvious in all of my posts!! LOL!) the need for detoxing. Detoxing in as many ways you can possibly fit into your daily routine or that the body will handle is incredibly important. I would encourage you to looking into more ways to detox!

We are here to support you and to make suggestions on things you can do to help your body heal!!

Welcome the to forum!

Some other things to look into would be the genetic mutation testing, specifically for the MTHFR mutations. If you have any of these, it can interfere with your methylation cycle and detoxing ability.

You can order the tests through 23andme.com or through your doctor.

Activated charcoal is used in detoxing ammonia. Amy Yasko mentions this on her site. I just spent the better half of yesterday reading chapter 6 on her site regarding the methylation cycle. There is a wealth of info on her site, thought my brain was going to explode, ha!

http://www.dramyyasko.com/resources/autism-pathways-to-recovery/chapter-6/

I LOVE your name LymeAssassin!!

You need to be treated for much longer than 6 weeks! Hopefully your doctor means that they will reevaluate at that time!

Actually, with the very small amount of blood that is used for testing, the bacteria can be missed fairly easily, even when doing a PCR. The bacteria pieces have to be captured in that vial for it to test positive - and they have to be looking for more than just 3 - 5 strains of the bacteria. There are over 100 strains known to cause human illness. Much of the other 200 known strains are not known if they cause human illness or not yet!

The LLMD should check out other possibilities of what you are dealing with - but with having positive WB from Igenex, that's really all you need to know that you have Lyme. The antibodies to the bacteria are in your blood, meaning that the bacteria is in your body, so you have Lyme. You don't have to have Neuro symptoms- or any other specific set of symptoms - to have Lyme. Any combination will do!