Posted 1/22/2017 12:20 AM (GMT -5)
3 years ago in January of 2014, I had been freshly diagnosed with lyme and some coinfections and my naturopath prescribed me several months of antibiotics. That perscription caused a massive herx reaction and my knee has not been the same since. My right knee balooned to a huge size. Also my right elbow went totally out of whack. I visited with regular doctors in the summer of 2014 and they advised me to put my name on the wait list for a knee replacement, and they advised me to sign up for an elbow replacement as soon as possible. They were dubious about my lyme diagnosis. I have now limped on that right knee for 3 full years. Every step has been with acute pain but the naturopath is ever optimistic. Every 2 weeks now, he drains my knee of fluid. A week ago there were 3 cc of fluid in it. 3 weeks ago, he produced 28 cc out of my knee. Before that the common amount of fluid in the knee was about 5 to 8 cc of fluid. In the spring of 2016, he started doing a series of stem cell infusions into my knee. That caused my knee to its current size where it is about double in size when compared to my left knee. Why did not the stem cell treatment work fully. What happened. We (me, wife, and naturopath suspect that my knee is not healing because i may have a candida infection in both my feet with the one in my left foot being the worse. That foot does not hurt when I walk but it is continually swollen with what is possibly candida. For the last 4 months, I have been doing 50 drops of terpentine daily 5 days a week and then 2 off with no bad effects. The swelling in my right foot is now pretty well gone and the swelling on my left foot is slowly receding. In addition to draining the knee every 2 weeks, this naturopath is also treating me with injections of ozone into the knee. The pain seems to be changing in location some and its description but it is not subsiding. In fact it is currently a worse pain than it has ever been in the last 3 years. I get tears in my eyes when i even think of the pain that i am suffering. I wonder if i will ever walk again with no pain or as now be able to relax that leg with no pain. What to do. Yesterday, i went to my regular family doctor and i suggested that she does a test on what the fluids are in my knee that are probably contributing to the pain. She agreed to do that analysis but she has to bet the analysis kit and then take the fluid test herself to send this to a lab. This way i get some of the Canadian Health system paying for my lyme treatment. I am rambling now. Once we get the knowledge as to what is in that fluid, maybe we can then treat that knee to fight whatever they find wrong with the knee. On an aside, the cost of my battle with lyme etc,. has been an average of $30,000 Canadian a year and if you add wife's lyme bill, we are spending any income we have on this lyme battle at a rate of $50,000 per year. We live like paupers otherwise but we are surviving and i hope that there will be light at the end of the tunnel soon because it is so difficult to sustain such a big bill for this lyme and company battle. For some reason tonight i am just feeling down about all of this but at least i know i am still alive fighting this battle with a cane in hand to help me walk. I am not in a wheel chair yet thanks to my better left knee which seems to be holding up in spite of the candida in that foot. Comments please. xfmlg