richedie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 14689
posted
I feel like I have tried everything and still never notice any difference. In fact a friend of mine also went through Lyme and co-infections treatment and ate fairly well. Not as well as me. He even cheated often with hoagies and whole pizzas and he got better or he is almost there.
I try to do everything right and I am floundering. Dr. B says one thing, other LLMDs practicing now will say something else. I was sent to a nutritionist by my Lyme doc to check for food sensitivities and because this nutritionist is know to have cured herself of Lyme and others. She did it with a raw diet for 6-9 months and she said all her symptoms went away. She had many of my symptoms, arm pain, could not move her shoulder.
One thing I do for sure.....is eat tones of raw fruit and veggies but it never seems to make a difference.
-------------------- Mepron/Zith/Ceftin Doxy/Biaxin/Flagyl pulse. Artemisinin with Doxy/Biaxin. Period of Levaquin and Ceftin. Then Levaquin, Bactrim and Biaxin. Bactrim/Augmentin/Rifampin. Mepron/Biaxin/Artemisinin/Cat's Claw Rifampin/Bactrim/Alinia Plaquenil/Biaxin Posts: 1949 | From Pennsylvania | Registered: Feb 2008
| IP: Logged |
Dekrator48
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 18239
posted
I wish I had a miracle answer for you.
I really do find that I feel better (less pain, less itching, better sleep, less brain fog) when I avoid sugar, corn syrup and gluten.
I also avoid soy and dairy though.
I pray that you will be guided in the right direction.
-------------------- The fibromyalgia I've had for 32 years was an undiagnosed Lyme symptom.
"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". -Jeremiah 29:11 Posts: 6076 | From Pennsylvania, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged |
glm1111
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 16556
posted
Richie,
Are you taking any enzymes? They really help calm down inflammation and pain. I use Superdigestaway by Soloray with meals and in between .
I posted the ingredients on the digestive enzyme post recently. The added benefit is that the are also antiparasitic.
Gael
-------------------- PARASITES/WORMS ARE NOW RECOGNIZED AS THE NUMBER 1 CO-INFECTION IN LYME DISEASE BY ILADS* Posts: 6418 | From philadelphia pa | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- A raw foods diet is not for everyone. It can be stressful on the liver to process all raw food so you might try lightly steaming at least half or 3/4 of your vegetables so they are more easily digested. On a different aspect, you may need more protein:
THE REQUIREMENTS OF PROTEIN & AMINO ACID DURING ACUTE & CHRONIC INFECTION . . .
Anura V. Kurpad - Institute of Population Health & Clinical Research, Bangalore, India 129. Indian J Med Res 124, August 2006, pp 129-148.
Excerpt:
" . . . In general, the amount of EXTRA protein that would appear to be needed is of the order of 20-25 per cent of the recommended intake, for most infections. . . ."
- Full article at link (or google the title if it does not go through). -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Rich, I understand what you're saying. Our family is primarily on an organic diet to the extent possible, and we've done our best to eliminate sugar and simple carbs....and we had a pretty good diet to begin with. Our kids have no food allergies or sensitivities and celiac has been ruled out.
We went dairy-free for awhile, but it made no difference either. We still don't eat much dairy out of habit now, but this causes worry about lack of calcium.
Although I do believe a good diet is essential, I do not think diet alone will "cure" anyone of anything, especially Lyme disease and coinfections.
Maybe the nutritionist you went to had a very mild case of Lyme or it was caught early?? Or maybe she was taking herbals at the same time?? Or, maybe she just went into spontaneous remission.
Just because she had some of your symptoms doesn't mean she's as ill as you are.
I personally have doubts of being cured merely by eating a raw diet, and in fact think that protein is an essential nutrient when people are chronically ill.
When you're ill, because you aren't doing much activity, your muscles can atrophy. Protein helps build muscle, so I think lean protein is a must when you're fighting an illness (but I'm no doc or nutritionist...just my own opinion). I see Keebler has posted actual research on this, and it is very interesting. Gotta love Keebler.
I know you've been on a lot of abx protocols. Check out the diflucan threads started by me and neuroecclectic (prob on page 2). Ask your LLMD if it's worth a shot for you to try. Just a thought. Best of luck to you.
Posts: 214 | From where ticks flourish | Registered: Dec 2007
| IP: Logged |
richedie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 14689
posted
Alana, I was in school to be a nutritionist for two years and I have over 25 books on human nutrition. Humans DO NOT need milk to get calcium. In fact populations that do not consume dairy have much, much lower rates of osteoporosis.
It is sad to hear people buy into the milk myth. Every nutrition test book I have says milk is meant for baby calves, not humans. Duh! LOL! That was not pointed at you.
Do you realize how much calcium is in leafy greens? Kale and spinach are LOADED with calcium and it is more bioavailable to the human body! Please, so not worry my friend.
Gael, as far as enzymes, I say Transformational Enzymes is the best product I have seen.
-------------------- Mepron/Zith/Ceftin Doxy/Biaxin/Flagyl pulse. Artemisinin with Doxy/Biaxin. Period of Levaquin and Ceftin. Then Levaquin, Bactrim and Biaxin. Bactrim/Augmentin/Rifampin. Mepron/Biaxin/Artemisinin/Cat's Claw Rifampin/Bactrim/Alinia Plaquenil/Biaxin Posts: 1949 | From Pennsylvania | Registered: Feb 2008
| IP: Logged |
Not to worry...I know you're not pointing at me (but I'm ducking anyway lol).
I've read that cow's milk is meant for calves, not humans. It really does make sense ... afterall women don't breastfeed calves!
But...cheese...not sure I can do without it personally (eventhough I deprived the entire family of it for so long). I have since given in lately and bought cheese. We are now one big happy cheesy family.
I'm just a bit old school having grown up with yogurt, cheese, ice-cream and milk, along with a good dose of sunshine, and my old bones are in reasonable shape, considering my age and all the demineralizing meds I've been taking for decades.
I know calcium is in kale and other leafy greens but really, ....ewwww! I can cook, but what the heck do you do with kale??? It's not even appealing as a salad green! I thought it was something you popped into a planter for a fall decoration!
We all supplement with D3, which I think is so critical for our bones. And there are plenty of good calcium supplements out there now too.
Transformational Enzymes... don't know much about enzymes at all, but think I need to look into this.
Posts: 214 | From where ticks flourish | Registered: Dec 2007
| IP: Logged |
gwb
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7273
posted
A diet high in protein and low in refined carbs is supposed to reduce systemic inflammation, which it was successfully doing for me, verified by my local doctor, before I had Lyme.
I have asthma, which used to give me serious bronchitis for months every winter. I finally figured out it was related to or triggered by inflammation.
A low carb diet (mostly protein and vegetables) also reduces insulin resistance, stabilizes blood sugar, and can lead to weight loss. I lost 35 pounds on a low carb, high protein diet, and I still have more to lose, so that was a good thing.
A person who needs to gain weight or avoid losing any more would need more carbs.
If you have hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), then you have to learn when to eat different kinds of carbs that raise your blood sugar at different rates in order to keep it stable and high enough.
Since I changed my diet in the right direction (even though I still cheat, and am working on improving it), the last two winters, I did not get bronchitis, and my c-reactive protein was lower.
C-reactive protein is a marker for inflammation.
Inflammation can be a contributor to Lyme symptoms, so if you reduce it, presumably it could reduce the severity of the symptoms.
I have not (so far) had very severe Lyme symptoms, but I don't know whether my diet is part of the reason or not.
Gluten-free eliminates certain grains that many people are sensitive to.
The difficulty of eliminating gluten leads people to eat more real food and whole grains, and less processed or refined stuff, so it probably has a similar inflammation-reducing effect for everyone, as well as preventing the gluten sensitivity reaction in those who are sensitive to it.
Lyme may make us all more sensitive to gluten than we were pre-Lyme, so it is worth trying to avoid even if you don't know whether it is a problem for you. If you don't want to give up all grains, then switch to whole grains and avoid wheat and gluten.
One key to systemic inflammation, or lack of it, is the ratio of omega-6 fats to omega-3's. This imbalance contributes to a lot of diseases.
It can be improved by taking fish oil, eating grass fed meat, and eliminating refined carbs and grain-fed meat.
I have never tried the raw food diet. Lots of veggies and fruits are full of antioxidants, though, and those help the immune system in various ways. Many foods have helpful chemicals in them that are destroyed by cooking, such as the allicin in garlic.
Nutrients are better absorbed and used from food than from supplements, so if you can get your antioxidants, minerals and vitamins that way, it's better for you and usually cheaper too.
There are good health arguments for and against eating meat, and several moral reasons that some people choose to be vegetarians.
If you do eat meat, try to get more of the grass-fed kind that never had antibiotics or hormones. If you don't, then make sure you get lots of protein and iron from plant sources.
Refined carbohydrates, including sugar and flour, can be major contributors to developing yeast problems, so that is another reason to avoid them while on antibiotics, either before or after the yeast problem starts--hopefully before.
Eating organic food and avoiding processed food helps you avoid putting toxic chemicals into your body, which is easier and less harmful than trying to get the chemicals back out again once they are there and possibly causing trouble.
Sticking to low glycemic-index foods (protein, vegetables, low-sugar fruits and whole grains) that raise your blood sugar slowly can prevent problems with excess insulin, diabetes, and blood sugar going too high or low.
A lot of good diet advice boils down to the idea that we should eat food as close to the way it comes from nature as we can. The human body evolved to live on natural food. I guess the raw food diet is an extension of that idea.
Unfortunately, the success of the modern food industry and demise of the family farm has made it more challenging for us to get natural, unprocessed food. There is no sustainable profit in wild game or ripe produce.
When you go to the store, shop around the edge for the produce, meat, eggs, dairy--real food directly from plants and animals. Don't buy much from the center aisles where things come with labels from a factory, listing chemical ingredients that you can't pronounce.
See if you have a health food store, where they carry many special brands of organic, gluten free, local, and other healthier kinds of food, although it is expensive.
There is something positive in many kinds of diet advice, but no diet is going to cure Lyme. A good diet can make you feel better, help your immune system, reduce your inflammation, and make your body less hospitable to Lyme and yeast.
Don't give up trying to improve your diet, but don't expect a perfect diet to be a miracle cure, either. The diet helps in combination with everything else you do to get well.
It doesn't have to be perfect to do some good for you--just an improvement over whatever you were doing before.
It makes it a little easier if you make a list of appealing foods that are good for you, and make it a goal to eat more of those at each meal, instead of focusing on the list of things that you can't have.
Once you eat all the good things, you will be full and won't have room for as much of the things we all crave that are bad for us.
Good luck! Don't give up.
-------------------- Don't forget to laugh! And when you're going through hell, keep going!
Bitten 5/25/2009 in Perry County, Indiana. Diagnosed by LLMD 12/2/2009. Posts: 756 | From Inside the tunnel | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged |
Hoosiers51
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 15759
posted
The nutrients in kale and spinach become much more bio-available when you cook them. It's a fact...look it up! Though you need to cook them until they are soft/wilted, but not more than that, because if you overcook, the nutrients will just go into the cooking liquid.
Also, you may want to cook them in a little coconut oil or something, because that will help the fat-soluble nutrients get absorbed even BETTER.
Weston A. Price has some good info, IMO.
No one diet will work for everyone. If someone was CURED from just a raw foods diet, I would find it hard to believe their symptoms were even due to raging Lyme infection. Lyme won't go away with diet alone. So ignore some of that hype.
However, diet can be VERY important in helping us heal. The better nutrition you can get, the better off you'll be.
Posts: 4590 | From Midwest | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
There is a lot of conflicting information about diet. I got REALLY sick trying some of the New-Age diets.
Some people do really well on raw, others get sicker and sicker. If you are one of the latter I would check out Weston Price because the diet is based on science & tradition. These are classic recipes used around the world for many generations. Most diet fads have been around only a few years and sooner or later are dis-proven. Most enlightened nutritionists seem to agree these days that a diet high in quality fats and proteins and low in refined carbs and sugars is the best long-term plan-- which is consistent with the traditional diet Price supports.
Posts: 19 | From Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
WildCondor
Unregistered
posted
I would say, having been through this...eat what you want within reason. Pizza is fine as long as it is in moderation and not 10 pies a week.
There are some things that should be avoided if you are on antibiotics...sugar, alcohol, white flour products (junk food)
If you can tolerate dairy then you shouldn't have to stop unless you are having GI problems.
Raw food diets are not for everyone...and extreme diets fail.
Just try to keep your carbs low (sugar) to prevent yeast and you will be fine. Bread is fine in moderation, so is meat, potatoes, veggies, just dont go crazy with fruit/juice cake, candy, etc.
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic