Treatment update

Carolina Beach

It's been a while since I've updated. August was a busy month. We went on vacation to Carolina Beach, then came home and went to 3 rock concerts within one week. Just prior to leaving on vacation, I started noticing symptoms ramping up. My face began breaking out badly and I had a lot of shortness of breath. By the time we went to the concerts, I had full-out anxiety, increased heart rate, insomnia, and was losing about a pound a day. I finally made the connection that my thyroid was over-medicated and I had gone full hyperthyroid. It took a few days but I began to feel better, although it took weeks for my body to fully adjust. I'm now at 1/2 pill daily of naturethroid, and will re-test in a couple of weeks. I see this as a good sign - my hypothyroidism seems to be slowly going into remission.

It's now been 3.5 months since I quit antibiotics. A few weeks ago I had my first follow-up with my herbalist. We went over symptoms and she made some adjustments to my tinctures. She also added some lyme herbs to Justin's tinctures. He had a headache daily for a few days but it slowly became less severe each day. When he tried antibiotics he got nasty headaches, so it definitely was a herx reaction, which is a good sign - the herbs are working.

Speaking of herx...the last week or two I've definitely been dealing with some symptoms. Insomnia mostly, and then this last week also joint pain in my elbows and knees and just feeling "off" which is typical for me when I herx. Yesterday I was out most of the day and forgot my herbs, and I felt great all day. So I know it was definitely a herx, and I'm waiting to see if my herbalist wants me to back off on the dose or push through.

Left was mid-June, right is from mid-August

Intermittent fasting has been going great. I'm down almost 24 lbs now, and it's been so surreal to lose it so quickly. Clothes I bought a month ago are too big now, and I'm no longer getting depressed when I get dressed in the morning. 23 lbs came off in the first two months. With my thyroid going all whacky in August, I didn't end up losing much (I lost super quickly when I went hyperthyroid, then gained some back when my thyroid adjusted, then lost it again) but I'm back to feeling normal and seeing the scale move, although slowly. I'm also building muscle so I figure that's part of it. I've been rocking my workouts lately, and it feels great.

Overall, my symptoms have been staying away since getting of antibiotics. Some of the remaining symptoms that wax and wane include shortness of breath, stiffness in my hands and fingers, insomnia, and hip flexor pain. I do sometimes still get heart palpitations when I exercise but it's only happening maybe 30% of the time now. I re-took Dr. Horowitz's Lyme questionaire today, just out of curiosity. The first time I took it, I scored 100. This time, I scored 35. It gives me better insight into just how far I've come, and how many symptoms have gone away.

I'll list my current medications below, since after quitting antibiotics the amount of pills I take has been drastically reduced (thankfully)

Nature-throid - for Lyme-induced hypothyroidism
Low dose naltrexone - immune modulator
Monolaurin - immune system
Fish oil - inflammation
Probiotics - gut health
Milk thistle - detox
Glutathione - taken during a herx for detox
Red root - used as-needed when lymph nodes are swollen
Herbal tinctures - I take a core support tincture, as well as an antimicrobial tincture. 3 droppers each, 3 times a day
Digestive bitters - digestive health