One more thing...I think my adrenals need some attention. I ordered Nutramedix Adrenal Support but are there any other simple things I can do?

Selenium and Zinc are essential for a functioning immune system. They become depleted in chronic infections. Also, prior to starting medication i think it is quite important to adjust to low inflammation diet (no sugar, no gluten, light meat, lots of veggies, organic stuff, goat dairy, plenty of water, lemon). Anything that is anti-inflammatory, when you have a chronic infection, can be seen as immune booster. Inflammation is the way the body signals the need for immune attack. So if you have an inflammation from non-infection factors, like for eg gluten , your body's immune system will get confused and a confused army cannot see the real enemy and starts shooting down the trees instead..

That and some vitamins are IMHO the best preps. Don't take huge doses of B6 without checking your blood levels ! Anything above 10mg/day on long term may have toxic effects on your nerves and the sad thing is lyme toxins do the same thing to your nerves, so you will not know if you herx or got intoxicated with b6...

That being said, herbals are IMHO most of the time used as immune system boosters, so i see cat's claw as immune support

For adrenals i used Ashwagandha with great results, but if you've read my earlier thread, one has to be careful with the dosage. Later in treatment when your body gets in a better shape, you need to discontinue it or it will drive you into over-adrenaline/over-thyroid mode. I remember i felt as if i took amphetamines, it was 3am in the morning and i felt like running around the building ...

Good advice here. Thank you all so much for taking the time to respond. I am SO grateful for all of you.

Jackie - Will look into Colostrum! Brand?

mpost - Surprisingly, I am high in Zinc Plasma (136, range was 56-134), Zinc RBC was 1091 (range 822-1571) so I think I am good there. I am not taking anything with zinc so that was strange. I may have high copper due to our well water so maybe there is a link there? Selenium is a good idea. Will try and target foods with higher selenium. Cat's claw I do have and decided yesterday to start taking one capsule and then slowly work way up to Buhner's suggested dosage. I hope it will improve my CD 57. Great advice!

Georgia Hunter - I guess my big take away is that I need to fully clean up my diet. I don't think inflammation is a huge issue for me but I guess even some is not good (my ESR is 6, range 0-25). I eat primarily organic but could increase the amount of raw foods. I am skinny and have lost 10 lbs with being sick so I need to keep some meat on my bones. Probably part of the reason I am always freezing!

I am also heterozygous for MTHFR a1298c, but have decided not to take the supplement for that. My instincts tell me to hold off. My homocysteine is actually low at 5.2 (0-15 range) and I thought most with the MTHFR gene actually struggled with HIGH homocysteine. I am reading more about the CBS gene so maybe there's more to my puzzle. This detox pathway is very intriguing but hard to understand!

kyo07

What sort of adverse reactions have you heard about with the LDI?

I had that in my 'tool kit' - was thinking I might go that route at some point....

I use cat's claw and mushroom complex for my immune system.

Girlie - Some people have recently posted on LDI board about having new and worse symptoms after trying LDI. Also, one person in particular said their doc does baseline bloodwork before every dose and he was getting worse and ended up with higher inflammatory markers, anemic, elevated liver enzymes, abnormal kidney function and signs of vasculitis. I am just scared. If this was a last resort for me then I would be more comfortable.

The only new symptom I have gotten is that my jaw tremors a little. Who knows if this would have happened without LDI. I don't know for sure yet what I'm going to do. Also, Dr. V himself told he he's not really sure how it works. That makes me even more scared.

Dr. V is the guy who created it. He's in Alaska and I skyped with him a few weeks ago.

They say there is no herx with LDI because it is not killing bacteria. Only flares - and that is because it is too strong of a dose. Flares usually only last a few weeks. The person I talked about (and some of the others) are having long lasting symptoms. There really is not a lot of research on this. It does seem to help a lot of people though.

I feel like there's so much emerging in terms of antibiotic and herbal treatment that maybe I need to try to kill this crap before just turning my immune system off to it. Dr. V is of the thought that the bacteria doesn't do the harm, it's an auto-immune condition.