So I'll give the quick version of my story here. I'm a fit male with no history of mental illness. In 2012 I ran a Tough Mudder race and developed a rash on my forearm a few days later. The rash seemed to spread to my chest, right in my solar plexus. I went to an MD and he gave me some hydrocortisone cream etc. I thought nothing of it.
Fast forward a year and a half and my health was s quickly deteriorating: stiff joints, neck pain, migraines. By June 2014 a series of neurological symptoms came crashing down: insomnia, depression, anxiety panic attacks. It was like all of a sudden my brain stopped working properly. I quickly developed panic disorder and my MD sent me to a shrink who tried to offer me SSRI's, Benzo's and Ambien. I opted to grind it out.
By 2016 I was having suicidal ideation and one night my wife was looking at an article on the computer and said, "I think you have PANDAS or Lyme disease." I was so confused, can LYME cause all this crap?
So a few weeks later I saw a LLND who said I tested positive for Lyme but mostly bartonella. Thus began my foray into this great community. That practitioner didn't know much, but eventually I got connected to Buhner and another LLND who started me on a protocol that actually made me feel better:
July 2016 I started with Japanese Knotweed and worked up to 1/2 tsp 2x day (I make a tea out of it). The panic attacks stopped, but I was still having anxiety and depression etc.
In Jan 2017, I started taking eleuthero and red sage, about
1/2 tsp 2x/day along with the knotweed (I built up to it slowly). In June 2017 I added Andrographis powder, Teasel Powder and started seeing a bit more progress.
Last week I also added, Redroot, Houytunyia, Sida Acuta and Stephania (Tinctures) while decreasing the other herbs to 1/2 of what I was doing. When I added the Andro I got the strongest herx ever and all my symptoms came back for a few days, but now I feel slightly better than I did before and way better than when I was curled up in a ball on my living room floor.
Later this month, I have an appointment with a pretty well known LLMD here in Seattle and I am thinking about
starting prescript
ion ABX. So I have 3 questions:
1). Can Lyme really be causing all this stuff? Or is it just in my head?
2). I feel 70% better. Life is manageable. Would you risk that to get to 100%. Better for me is, I can sleep 7 hrs with low dose atypical SSRI and I mostly don't have panic attacks...but still have derealization, anxiety etc.
3). Is there something else I'm missing here? I epsom bath 3x week, I work out 3x week but that's about
it. Anything you might add if you were me?
Thanks and God Bless you if you read through all this and have some advice for me.
Post Edited (NW_Lyme_Guy) : 7/6/2017 10:56:23 AM (GMT-6)