Refuse to sink - My journey battling Lyme disease

2019 sparked the beginning of a beautiful journey. A journey deep within myself, to places I had long forgotten existed. I saw, for the first time, how much of my life was lived for others. For their approval, their validation, their amusement. My decades-long tendency toward people-pleasing had left me imprisoned in a cell of my own making. This year, I began to tear those walls down. For the first time, I asked myself - Who am I? What do I want? What do I believe? What do I want out of life? I stripped away the things that did not fit me and opened myself up to the things that did. Every belief I held was examined, every desire, every dream...I left no stone unturned. It has been a journey of transformation, and, like the process of transformation always is, it was fraught with pain, frustration, and difficulty. Working on your inner shit isn't for the faint of heart. We spend so long running from our pain, it rarely occurs to us to turn around and embrace it. But in order to m

I realized today that it's been over two months since I last updated. I created this blog as a way to keep track of my healing journey, so I don't write with the expectation that it will be read by many. But I still try to update regularly and be transparent about what I'm going through. The last month-and-a-half has been incredibly stressful.  At the very end of October, I had my first appointment with my new primary care doctor. Ever since what I went through with trying to get diagnosed with Lyme, I have struggled with trust issues with doctors. It took a few months to make the appointment because of that fear and anxiety, but I started having symptoms I felt were indicative of a thyroid issue or hormonal imbalance. I went to a doctor I had heard good things about, who is an MD but also very naturally-minded. I handled the visit well, and absolutely loved my new doctor, she was very knowledgable about Lyme and eager to hear my entire story from the time I started ge

"Healing is not linear" has been my mantra. It's a reminder that whatever health struggles I'm having, doesn't necessarily mean I'm going backwards. Treating Lyme disease is most definitely an exercise in patience. It's been almost 2 1/2 years, and remission still eludes me. It's hard to not become frustrated and discouraged, but I'm doing my best to remain optimistic and focus on how far I've come. Theoretically, the further along in treatment you are, the less you experience herxheimer reactions. For some reason, that hasn't proven true in my case. I spent the second half of October and a good part of September herxing nearly non-stop, the same symptoms I've been dealing with since January - shoulder, neck and jaw pain, but mostly centered in the shoulders. It became so bad that it started affecting me emotionally, so I finally decided to go down to the lowest dose of herbs 3 times a day, and then slowly work my way back up. I a

The summer has been flying by, and I've been out living my life. I'm not to remission yet, but I'm very close. I'm still dealing with some intermittent symptoms: air hunger, hip and knee pain, shoulder and jaw tightness. I also occasionally experience rib soreness and some slight joint pain in my fingers. I have days and weeks where I do not have any symptoms at all. The air hunger is slowly phasing out I've noticed. I'll have it for 4 or 5 days, then a week or two without it, which is wonderful because I really hate that symptom. Gasping for breath constantly isn't fun. Right now, I'm feeling stuck. I started my new herbs last week and have again been dealing with the shoulder pain & tightness that extends up into my jaw. I've been seeing the chiropractor and felt that we were solving this issue, but now that it's returned I'm started to wonder why I'm stuck at this point. I first experienced these symptoms in January, when my

Two years ago on this day, I began treatment for Lyme disease, Bartonella & Babesia. They've been two of the hardest years of my life. I cried so many tears, I had days of debilitating depression and anxiety, I experienced loss of emotions (I felt very flat, emotionally speaking) and the pain...so much pain. Taking 30+ pills a day and spending hundreds every month in the hopes of getting rid of the more than 40 symptoms I was dealing with. I lost friends, I stayed home like a recluse, I wondered a million times if I was going crazy. And yet when I look back, I see a time of tremendous personal growth. I look at who I am now and know without a doubt I wouldn't be here if it weren't for getting sick. They say pain is a gift, and I tend to agree. No one escapes pain, it's part of life. But it's in our pain and dark times that we discover our inner strength, and who really are. These things aren't learned by life being easy. Seeing how far I've come s

During my last consult, after talking about the constant pain and tightness in my shoulders, neck and jaw, my herbalist suggested I see a chiropractor to make sure nothing "mechanical" is going on. It worked out that Justin had just started seeing one so I made an appointment with him and saw him last week for the first time. He confirmed that everything from my mid-upper back and up was very tight. He said all of the muscles in my shoulders, neck, and chest are working together very hard just to hold my head up. This makes a lot of sense, because I have so much muscle weakness in my shoulders. He adjusted me and gave me some ideas on how to stretch certain muscles and how to fix my posture. I'm honestly feeling relieved and encouraged after seeing him. With Lyme, you get so used to doctors not finding anything wrong (even though you know things aren't right) that it is actually nice to how concrete proof of what's causing your pain. I'm wondering if all thi