Refuse to sink - My journey battling Lyme disease

The biggest super moon of the year just passed by. I was extremely surprised at how well I fared; typically in the week leading up to a full moon, I feel off and have an increase in symptoms, especially air hunger. This time, I had one night of insomnia plus felt a bit off the following day. This is really exciting to me because it shows tangible proof of how much I've improved.  I recently watched a documentary on Netflix called "Heal." I highly recommend it to everyone, especially those dealing with illness. It was about the mind-body connection and how our bodies desire to heal themselves, but our minds often get in the way. One of the women they interviewed spoke of 9 common healing factors they found people with cancer had in common. Here they are: It was absolutely crazy to me as these are all things I have naturally adopted in my Lyme journey. When I started doing these, I really began to see things turn around. It was really quite incredible to hear tha...

As of this month, I've been treating for 20 months. Almost two years already! I remember about 3 months into treatment, I had a couple good weeks. I thought to myself, wow! Looks like I'm already healing! I laugh at that now, because that was just the beginning. Healing isn't quick, and it isn't predictable. The only predictable part, is the unpredictability. No two healing journeys are the same. Almost two years, and I've not yet made it to remission. I'm honestly not bothered by that, because I know I'll get there. The year of antibiotics put me in a place where I was much more functional. I don't care if the herbs take a while, because I am already in such a better place. Here is my master list of symptoms. I know there are likely some that never made it on here, but this is most of them. Symptoms in bold I still currently have, but none of them are 100% constant. Symptoms in italics are intermittent. I don't have them more often than I have...

I've been dealing with some disappointment the last few days. I've had worsening muscle weakness, mostly concentrated in my shoulders. Emily believes the new herb she added into my treatment has reached spots where the lyme was hiding - primarily my neck, shoulders and jaw. These are all areas I haven't previously had many issues with. Since starting the new herb in the beginning of January, I get extreme tightness in my shoulder and neck muscles, and aching pain in my jaw. Sometimes (like today) my jaw gets tired just chewing my food. My shoulder muscles burn just by lifting my arms even a little bit; sometimes they burn even if I'm not using my arms at all. Pain meds don't help, so I'm trying to use the hot tub as much as I can. Emily asked me to take a few days off from doing yoga to give my muscles a break. I felt off without my daily yoga so after two days, I decided to add it back in but I'm careful to keep it very low-impact. I also went to Pound Mo...

Good news to report - my air hunger improved by about 90% this month! This is a big deal. If you've never experienced air hunger, basically it constantly feels like you can't get a deep enough breath. I was constantly gasping for breath, and some days it was so bad I was literally aware of it every.single.time I breathed. Do you know how many breaths you take in a day? A LOT. Imagine noticing each one because you don't ever feel like you have enough air. Yeah, it's not fun. That is one of my major symptoms left. It did flare a bit during this full moon (babesia is a parasitic infection, and parasites are more active during full moons) but only a couple days instead of an entire week. So that is good news. The pain in my hip flexors and the muscle weakness both came back in December and still remain. For the most part, that's all I have left for symptoms, so I am not complaining. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on with my thyroid and hormones. I...

I always feel so inspired when I hear stories of people overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds. Amputees running marathons, people born without limbs learning to skateboard and live a normal life, people struck by a life-ending diagnosis that spend the rest of their time on earth helping others instead of wallowing in self-pity. Those people, no doubt, have had the victim mentality at one time or another. They just made the choice to not live that way.  Those with chronic illnesses will go through the 7 stages of grief in the aftermath of their diagnosis. The 7 stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, & acceptance. Unfortunately, many people get stuck and cycle through the same stages over and over again, sometimes never reaching acceptance. Each stage is important to overcoming the diagnosis, but remaining stagnant in one stage can inhibit your emotional & physical healing, and lead you to believe you are a victim. When someone is overcome with the v...

2019 didn't start off the way I hoped, but I'm continuing my positive mindset. After flaring out of nowhere in December, then the full moon hitting...I started this month's tinctures last Monday night. Tuesday afternoon, I began with strange symptoms I've never had before - tension/muscle pain in my shoulders, neck, and jaw. It feels like my muscles are in knots. It's been happening every day for a week now, despite detoxing and even lowering my dose of antimicrobials slightly. She adds in the sida acuda every other month so it's typical to herx on the month it's in there, but she also added a new herb which is what I think is causing these strange herxes. Otherwise, for symptoms, I've been having headaches on and off, some insomnia has come back, muscle weakness, and I've been waking up with the rib soreness again. All in all, I'm still doing alright, but really hoping to reverse a lot of this. I woke up today after a mostly sleepless night ...

My annual tradition is to use the last few days of the year to reflect on the passed year, and put into place goals for the coming year. At the close of 2017, I promised to focus my energy on doing what's best for myself and my body in 2018, and overall I am extremely happy and thankful for how this year went. Physical health... I went into 2018 still on several antibiotics and pills, which got me to about 70% better. In June, I made the decision to get off of all antibiotics and switch to seeing an herbalist and treating with herbs. It was truly one of the best decisions I've ever made, though a bit scary. I met with Emily at the beginning of July. By November, I considered myself 90% better. Unfortunately, December has been a highly stressful month, and I've regressed and flared a bit. But I'm staying positive and moving forward, remembering that healing isn't linear. I've continued to lower my thyroid meds, and hope to soon have my hypothyroidism comple...