posted
...is there yet any way to tell if your autoimmune disease -be it Lupus, Sjogren’s, etc.- is actually separate from your tick-borne infection(s)? Doubtful, but...
When your tick-borne disease is holding steady at about 15-20 years in (despite tons of modalities in treatment; incl. but not limited to working w/ one of the foremost LLMD’s),- is it ever an appropriate time to become ‘open-minded enough’ to at least contemplate some of the otherwise advised-against therapies for autoimmune disease (like dreaded biologics...gasp!)? JUST. NEED. SOME. RELIEF. ALREADY.
Any thoughts/opinions from those with both conditions (tick-borne infections and positive autoimmune serology) most appreciated! I hate the ‘D’ word (damage).
Thank you, in advance.
Told you...
Posts: 315 | From Negative (-) to positive (+) | Registered: Nov 2011
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Brussels
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Sorry for what's going in your spirit/ mind, Told You...
It's so common to have immune problems with lyme (and without it) that I wonder, if lyme - and chronic infections - are not extensions of a damaged immune system.
Lyme toxins can make the situation worse (more immune / allergy problems).
But it could be the other way around: food allergies, chemical sensitivities, mold, heavy metal allergies, etc damaged the immune system,
... it was already into a sort of 'auto immune' mode, then you get bitten or infected by lyme (or simply allow the dormant infection to take charge) and the whole house crashes further down in an avalanche of symptoms.
I read an article saying that everybody is suffering from allergies.
You 'become' ill when you suffer a lot, but if you just suffer a bit, you're just considered 'normal' (but still, everyone suffers from allergic reactions to a bigger or lesser extent).
When you sneeze with pollen, when you eat too much gluten, due to excess of toxins (pesticides, fungi etc), aluminum all over... some cells / tissues ALWAYS react with a sort of 'attack', repulsing what it dislikes, releasing cytokines.
I'm off lyme and lyme treatment for a bit more than 9 years now, and so is my daughter.
The thing we are still fighting are basically immune disorders: food allergies, pollen allergies, chronic low grade infections here and there, fatigue on and off, nutrient absorption problems (minerals mainly) probably due to gut inflammation.
It ALL revolves around immune problems. Even if lyme is long gone. Tick bites do not make us ill anymore, like in the past.
It probably means our immune system is a bit better, but we're still treating it.
Now, what I feel is wrong is to think that my body is fighting against itself.
The idea always appeared strange to me, illogical. How can evolution allow such a weird thing to happen? It made zero sense to me.
Dr K used to say that the body is fighting something, NOT itself: a toxin (like a heavy metal, or metal, or pesticide, glyphosate...) located in fat deposits, cell walls, ...
... OR pathogens, that are hiding somewhere, specially pathogens who are masters in acting 'low profile', creating low grade infections, just at the limit of being disclosed, discovered by the immune system.
Some, infect the white cells, and that is how they get to hide better.
Posts: 6199 | From Brussels | Registered: Oct 2007
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I know that when I take loads of binders and organ support (liver, kidney, lymph, gut), many of allergy symptoms or inflammation suddenly step down, like magic.
So in my case, I know that oxidative stress is one of the main cause for my body to react with inflammation. Therefore, my experience with Liposomal Vit C. It again confirms my thoughts.
The way my body reacts to this Lipo C experiment shows that I still have loads of parts of my body with low grade inflammation, even if they are almost imperceptible, sometimes.
The moment toxins are flushed out, it feels like the shop is closing, I can finally go home, rest, sleep in peace, my body gives me a break, full relaxation is again possible.
Same as when I'm fighting an active infection (like cold, candida): I take the right products, do the right treatments, and very fast, inflammation symptoms lower, energy return, life goes back to normal.
I still believe the body can heal, if given the right tools.
Like taking away toxins, cleaning infections, getting away from electrosmog, correcting nutrition, hormones, sleep, digestion...
But when the immune system passes down the level of normal functionality (due to too many infections, die off toxins, gluten, casein, glyphosate, aluminum.... etc), it will be a machine that I describe as 'problem creator'.
The body starts reacting to sunlight with allergies, to other people's smells, to its own hair growth, natural fibers in clothes etc etc .
It passed its own limit... It's in full degenerative phase. You can still heal, but it's much harder at this point.
I think only then, the body becomes truly autoimmune, but not only: it is attacking everything, literally.
that is why I think, the only way to treat chronic diseases is holistic.
So far, I couldn'f find any simpler treatment.
I don't know if this makes you feel better or worse, but I'm being sincere. Posts: 6199 | From Brussels | Registered: Oct 2007
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Thank you very much for taking the time to write such extensive posts (I know the energy that that requires)! It is a kind measure that I greatly appreciate.
I do wholly subscribe to what you reported, and have spent considerable time -albeit more in my past- trying to eliminate many sources of offending contaminants within my body (atop of the bacterial load; the parasites, viruses, mold, metals, etc.). I used to have significant issues with allergies -at one time my total IgE count was a full 5-fold (5X) higher than it should be,- however, that number did finally return to more closer to normal levels over many years of treatment. Still; I remain very allergic/sensitive/reactive to so many foods/environmental allergens. Of course, a compromised gut will never allow any level of healing, and, this is where I likely could use some work. The high grade probiotics that I’ve spent significant time taking could not compete with the everyday polluted foods/water, air, soil, etc. in our collective environment. Too, I never did myself any favors by taking things like EMF seriously enough.
Still, I am unsure what this means for me now...for going forward. I just don’t know where to re-start as far as doing the most helpful things to promote any additional healing. I am so glad to hear that you have been off of treatment for tick-borne infections for so many years, now. Would you be willing to detail the healthy things/ways of living (ie dietary choices, chemical/environmental avoidance measures, etc.) that you practice on the regular so that I can maybe see if there is something that may be helpful to me (something that I am missing)? If you are willing/able to do so, that would be wonderful (if a PM would work better for you, that would be just as helpful).
Well, again, many thanks for sharing your thoughts/wisdom/etc. on this tbd v. autoimmune issue. It of course still has even the best of the LLMD’s and Lyme researchers’ minds up in the air.
Take good care, Told you...
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Thank you for your nice answer, ToldYou.
Have you seen the post on mold by WPinVA?
I see each person's chronic illness as made of layers:
- diet: what people eat and drink daily like too many hard to digest foods like oily, fried, too much gluten, too much of the same thing) + poor nutrition (cooked only, not fresh, dead foods) + excess of anti-food (like white sugar, glucose syrup for example)
- bad nutrition alone is a big promoter of acidity: too many proteins and small amount of veggie + fruits cause acidity on its own (it's simple chemistry)
- aggressive toxins, chemicals, heavy metals: what people breathe, wear, cosmetics, eat, smoke, etc
- drugs: and their multitude side effects, poisoning
- bad thoughts / feelings / society we are in daily contact: they do influence the immune system in very deep ways
- electrosmog is unfortunately a biggie : it damages most proteins in the body permanently (like hormones, enzymes for example).
- environment: mold environments, new house smells (chemical toxins leaching), new carpet, new car, new bed materials (new mattress, new duvet, new pillows)..
- lack of supplementation (nutrition) to compensate what we lack in poor nutrition, and to compensate for all toxins around us
- lack of binders: this is a biggie too
- lack of organ support: another biggie
- chronic infections need to be treated WITH binders
- such as hidden infections in the mouth (teeth, roots...)
- meridians get 'broken', energy pathways get blocked (need correction, feeding the meridians)
- lack of grounding / earthing / electrons: cell wall potential goes low, cells starve, mitochondria can't function well, more accumulation of toxins, more malnutrition
- heavy metals must be addressed at a certain point
I'm sure I forgot many items that add to layers of problems...
But the main idea is this: take off layers, one by one, until you reach the tipping point.
From the tipping point, your body will gain strength and correct itself, then you need less and less treatments.
Once the body's intelligence got damaged, overwhelmed, acupuncture meridians get damaged, most bodily systems get damaged, the only way back in my opinion, is to deal with the body's intelligence AT THE SAME TIME you clean the layers above.
Posts: 6199 | From Brussels | Registered: Oct 2007
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You don't have to clean all layers 100%.
It's really a matter of taking one stone after another, so that you become able again to walk with the stones that remain, in your back pack.
You gotta clean some layers, one by one, as much as you can.
Picture the scene as : how many stones can I carry and still walk?
How many is too many, that I can't even walk 10 steps without having back pain or collapsing?
In my opinion, I don't know how people get better in a reasonable acceptable time without intelligent medicine, such as homeopathy or energy treatments...
I'm sure that only addressing physical layers is already good, that some people will heal with only that.
But if you are in real bad shape, for years, decades, and the inner intelligence of the body already forgot how it is to be healthy... it may take more than one life-time for the body to remember, heal, JUST by taking bad physical layers away.
How to show again the body how the Krebs cycle should function again without stuff like Coenzyme compositum + Ubichinon + meridian treatment?
How to teach the liver to work again without homeopathic liver remedies and acupressure / acupuncture?
I know herbs work, supplements work, but when one reaches the bottom line, when the body's intelligence is so damaged...
When you suffer too long, and go through incredible ordeals psychologically, traumas, and feel like garbage sometimes, how can you inspire your immune system to work again well?
The immune system is totally dependent on your mood. Like sleeping deeply, relaxing: these are also totally dependent on your mood, state of mind.
How many years one will have to treat with herbs + supplements + drugs ONLY (all merely on the physical level) until the body regains again its intelligence back and can function again?
It's always been a puzzle to me, that so few people use homeopathy and meridian treatments (tapping, acupuncture)or energy treatments.
Fortunately, more people are doing meditations, frequency treatments (rife, PEMF, pulsed light, etc), some positive thinking, yoga / taichi / chikong...
I think the body is way too complex to be dealt with only at the physical level.
If you are addressing already the layers above, slowly but surely, it's already great.
Now if you'd like to give a boost, and go a bit faster in healing instead of waiting years, decades for the body to 'remember' (after layers of burdens have been taken away), think about what to do to address the body's intelligence.
I'm sure there are other modalities than homeopathy or psychokinesiology /EFT / Mental Field Therapy, but these were the two things I did that I felt helped me most on that side (intelligence).
Like fasting, for example, it really reboots part of the detox and immune system in amazingly short time! This is an easy-to-do modality that does address the body's intelligence too!
I hope it's all not too confusing! Posts: 6199 | From Brussels | Registered: Oct 2007
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Haley
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Brussels-
I have always wanted to fast, it makes sense to me that everything will reset, but I am very thin.
What type of fasting have you done? What about intermittent fasting?
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Haley, I'm extremely thin too (92 pounds). I was even thinner during lyme (and after it).
I know it sounds scary, to fast. But I was losing weight (even after lyme was gone), surely, for years...
During lyme it was pretty fast. Scary.
I would NEVER had fasted before, if I pondered about the thing. The fact was that I felt so ill at a certain point, that any food made me feel worse.
So I decided to take a break of ONE meal. Evening meal = cancelled.
Then next morning, I felt better. So I decided to skip breakfast.
By lunch time, my mind started to feel clearer. So I decided to skip that one. And so on.
By the 3rd day, I felt so good, that I decided to jog!! Bad idea. No strong physical activity is recommended during a fast.
I knew nothing about fasting, because, like you, I thought it would be too dangerous.
Odds were, I was anyway losing weight, despite eating. I was feeling awful after a meal or any food. So I stopped just meal by meal, just to see.
It was an incredible experience. After jogging, I got hypoglycemia, so I decided to eat a pear. Then I felt better again. Then I went to study about fasting.
3rd day is the point where people either give up (due to many toxins that start to be released) or people get better (like me, due to toxins that finally arrive to leave my body).
Until then, for decades, my urine had been almost clear as water. Since that first fasting experience (I ate 1 pear a day for the whole week, total 10 days of 'partial' fasting then, due to the single pear a day...).
By the 10th day, my energy was so good, my mind clear, all my left over symptoms had practically disappeared. I do believe my lyme entered remission in these 10 days.
BUT, I can't remain without food for long. Too thin to continue. So I started eating.
Then my symptoms returned, but much smaller than before fasting.
And my urine, since that first fasting, always is yellow, stinks, etc. meaning, that it rebooted my detox system!!, at least from the lymph / kidney point of view.
Some people fast just this way: eat only once a day, a good meal, with veggies, fruits, light (if you can't give up meat, even eat meat). But the rule: just ONCE A DAY. The rest of the day, eat nothing.
Just drink.
This way, you get a partial fasting, some benefits, I believe will be there too.
Or go on JUICE FASTING. This is also excellent, and you don't starve!
Or go on RAW diet only, no fasting. This is TRULY AMAZING, if you have the bacteria to digest the raw food (not everyone has that, as they are not used to eat raw veggies, leaves, etc).
So whatever fits you. My best type of fasting was raw food (it is NOT FASTING, but it feels EXACTLY like fasting, with only advantages, as you don't starve!!).
The limit of fasting is time. You have to stop at a point.
But it was truly amazing.
After that, I did every year, before winter, about 7 days of fasting. Eating nothing, just my one fruit a day.
But last year, I did the raw diet (once, for a couple of months), and it was THE BEST for me (but I digest the raw stuff, no problem).
Hope you find something that fits you!
Posts: 6199 | From Brussels | Registered: Oct 2007
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WPinVA
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I have both too.
I did need steroids to stabilize the AI stuff. I was not heading in a good direction and needed to stabilize. Nothing is absolute, we are all different. I'm down to a low dose now, numbers are improving and I hope to be able to go off completely at some point. We'll see.
I had one AI marker even pre-Lyme, then I'm sure Lyme exacerbated it, but AI issues run in my family, so we'll see.
I credit my doctor a lot - she is a holistic rheumy.
But I also changed my diet. I eat Paleo now and I'm convinced that helped too. I was reading about the Autoimmune Paleo diet but never got all the way there.
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