Does brain ever fully come back?

Hi Sam and yes you will get your brain back. But the bad news is that you will lose it again in about 60 years. LOL! Just trying to make you laugh a little.

It is scary and you almost have to make friends with it so you don't wig out each and every day.

I do not know how many times I would start a sentence and blank out.

Forget remembering - everything was written down. I could not go to the grocery store and remember 5 things!

I still write grocery notes even though I am better, but that is because it became a new habit. But I can carry on a conversation with complete sentences now.

Hang in there. It is horrible, it will take awhile, but there is healing.

Thank you,
My doctor is a LLMD and i really like him. I think he knows his stuff pretty well. Right now I'm doing IV rocephin, IV doxy, oral rifampin, oral plaquenil, cats claw, olive leaf, grapefruit seed, charcoal, actigal, a bunch more supplements and stuff, milk thistle, elderberry, vitamins. I take a lot of stuff. I recently added Thorne 5-mthfr also after getting my genes checked through 23 & me. I am going to switch the charcoal for Cholestyramine soon. I do gluthatione as well. Apple cider vinegar. I try to take a walk outside everyday to remind myself that there's life outside Lyme even though it doesn't seem like it anymore:/

Sounds like you are doing a lot of the right things.

Here is a link for some detox methods. It is possible that your body isn't able to keep up with the toxins and that could be part of why your brain isn't functioning properly.

www.tiredoflyme.com/detox-methods.html

Your LLMD sounds great. I am glad for you. It can be very hard to find a Doctor that is knowledgable about Lyme.



**edited only to make hyperlink**

Post Edited By Moderator (Girlie) : 6/24/2016 7:31:01 PM (GMT-6)

Hi Sam--

My heart sank when I read your post. I could have written it a long time ago--16+ years before I was diagnosed.

All good info in responses already. I don't have much to add but my own experiences.

I call some of the symptoms you described as "psycho-neuro" and they are by far the worst ones for me. I'm also on IV Rocephin and IV vancomycin for Bart. The first weeks on those two were brutal. I wasn't sure I was going to make it through and I got a very good taste for what it feels like to contemplate suicide... a human being absolutely cannot live like that.

But what hasn't gone away is the zombie-like disconnectedness where your presence with the world going on around you and the daily life you're living is severed. I also can't reach emotions connected with people or my past. My personality was hijacked--it's gone. Hasn't come back yet.

I have blamed most of this on bartonella and it's a little better but not entirely although my bart tx is going well. I've been on the vancomycin for 3 mos. now. I went without 4-5 doses a few wks ago and I flared like crazy... that was scary but also reassuring that the vanco is helping.

I also have babesia but haven't really been treating it because it's kind of gone into remission since I started lyme & bart tx. It is very possible to overload your system, which I did a couple of time and had to start over.

I also have had seizures and vertigo... And yes--these could be babesia. An excellent neurologist ran several tests - ruled out all the obvious stuff. He talked a lot about so many problems caused by inflammation... And I think this is so true - I've had a lot of progress with Japanese Knotweed but I still probably have inflammation.

Also, you might get some answers by investigating neurotransmitter imbalances. I have a ton--many I was born with (genetic mutations) and some I know are caused by HPA axis imbalances (hypothalamus, pituitary--which sends info to the thyroid to tell it to function well, and adrenals--which are better but still struggle at times). And all of these functions are directly connected to GI functions.

So many of us have trouble w/ our guts and digestion and there is a very clear gut-brain link. I think you have to focus on each system, make a little progress, move on to another system and try to ratchet your level of health up notch by notch. You can't do it all at the same time and you can't make a whole lot of progress in one system and ignore the others.

I'd follow some of the great advice already shared... we cannot detox enough, really. Find better ways to control inflammation. It's very healthy to have a good cry.

Hang in there and keep posting...

-p