The Latest on Lyme

Lyme Disease strikes fear into every New Englander, but not just New Englanders!  It's reaching populations across the country and around the world.  With more and more visitors coming to New England to enjoy our seashore, our forests, our mountains and our history, Lyme is making its way from sea to shining sea. It's time to really take a holistic perspective in looking at Lyme because the conventional approach of massive amounts of antibiotics over and over, isn't solving the problem and often isn't resolving the symptoms.  The fact is that Lyme is a camouflage disease depleting the body resources and challenging our immune system in such a way that it opens the door for myriad other opportunistic infections.

Another issue with Lyme is that everyone is convinced they have it.  Every mystery group of unresolved symptoms are leading patients everywhere to demand massive antibiotics and treatments that are increasingly more destructive than the original infection.  So what's the solution?  Unravel the mystery.

Lyme Disease is initially a bacterial infection that creates a massive allergic reaction in tissues leading to inflammation throughout the body following the path of the bacteria that is the result of a tick bite.  Not all ticks carry this bacteria, nor are all tick bites infectious.  But as with any bacterial infection over time, the longer it is present, the more destruction can occur and the more debilitated the systems become.

The trick is to follow the trail of the infection.  Once you pass the first week after infection, antibiotics will not be quite as effective and the further out from that point you go and the more chronic the symptoms, the less effective they will be.  But remember that this is the only option provided by conventional medicine.  Instead you follow the symptoms and evaluate the illness at the point where treatment is begun.

In most chronic Lyme cases, addressing Lyme with natural antibiotics will rarely work if conventional antibiotics haven't.  So instead look at the infection from a different perspective.  Are the current symptoms viral, fungal or parasitic in nature?  Consider natural treatments that address all three conditions, such as Cat's Claw, Andrographis or Echinacea Purpurea.  Think of it as an autoimmune condition that requires Rehmannia, Echinacea and immune balancing.  Then change the treatment every two weeks based on the changes in the symptoms.

Gradually you will be able to work your way back through the tracing of the illness to the point where symptoms will abate, and the body systems will begin to function again.  Then it's simply identifying the tissues and organs that have sustained damage from the presence of the chronic infection and begin the actual process of healing and convalescence.

One of the biggest challenges for chronic Lyme sufferers is time.  Many people have already used more than all their sick time, lost their jobs, exhausted their families and their resources and so time feels like it is a precious commodity.  But time is what is needed to truly resolve Lyme.

Once you are free of the effects of Lyme, it does not mean that you will not be infected again, but now your body is familiar and your immune reaction will be stronger initially giving you fair warning that you've been exposed.

If you need help with your Lyme symptoms, explore a natural route.  It will make the path much easier to navigate back to health.