Hello Everyone,
Thanks so much for all of the posts and information. I too have been dealing with a Lyme co-infection called Babesia (I guess that there are 800 or so additional tick borne pathogen in addition to Borrelia). This is tick borne as well and I was super sick but in subtle non-tangible ways. Three years before, I had found an embeded tick which I didn't get concerned about but I just became increasingly ill.
I was diagnosed by a chiropractor in Bloomer Wisconsin who specializes in Lymes (Lindsley Chiropractic
https://www.midwestnaturalhealingcenter.com/ ) and he uses kinesiology. Thank goodness for him, as I had no idea what was going on, and traditional medicine was zero help. Dr. Lindsley said that he had never worked with anyone with ALS, MS or Alzheimer's who did not also test positive for some tick borne pathogen.
Though his initial diagnosis was helpful, and all of the supplements were somewhat helpful, I wasn't improving as much as I thought I should or could. Many of his supplements were in an alcohol base, and though he said they could be boiled off, that seemed counter productive. When I almost died in an airplane enroute from Minneapolis to Ireland because the glutamate he assured me was going to be helpful caused an hyper inflammatory response with overstimulation (...I had a brain injury years ago so perhaps I was more sensitive??) I decided I needed to go at this alone to navigate my way back to health.
I was able to get off the plane in Toronto and took a bus back to Western Wisconsin and because I am a bodyworker trained in cranial sacral therapy as well as other manual therapies that deal with fluid regulation including circulation, I worked on myself almost the entire time to re-establish homeostasis within my body. It was super scary. People must have thought I was so weird.
After this, I began to do my own research and the primary books that have been most helpful to me have been referred to above: Lymes Disease and Modern Chinese Medicine by Zhang and Zhang, and Natural Treatments for Lyme Coinfections, Anaplasma, Babesia and Ehrlichia by Stephan Harrod Buhner. Dr. Zhang has a clinic and a supplement product line which are very good, though a bit expensive.
https://www.hepahealth.com/ctr/web/index.jsp?action=showproducts&categoryid=5
If a person can show proof of being a health practitioner of some sort, you can receive a discount.
I found Zhangs protocols more helpful than Buhner's, but appreciated the great medical definition of the biological processes that take place in the body. Lymes and coinfections are stealth pathogens, and they are not bacteria or virus or fungi (or perhaps there are elements of all 3??). They are in the category of being a prion from what I understand. I am currently reading a book about the history of prion disease called The Family That Couldn't Sleep:
https://gustavus.edu/neuroscience/brainbooks/The%20Family%20That%20Couldn%E2%80%99t%20Sleep%20A%20medical%20mystery.pdf (free download)
I also appreciated Buhner's detailed descriptions of the cytokine storm phenomena that creates inflammation and something similar to an allergic reaction to yourself. What was not helpful were his protocols because almost everything that he recommended was in tincture form, which requires a high concentration of alcohol which can be damaging to the liver. I realize that small amounts of alcohol for healthy people is not a problem, but in my experience, the liver is one of the most affected organs and shouldn't have anything additional to stress it. Powdered herbal extracts worked best for me, which is what Zhang sells, as well as other product lines.
After I began my own protocol for healing, I felt really good. I was able to walk my dogs again, and stick to commitments for outings etc. But then about 2 months into it, I got super sick. I was pretty sure that the chronic pathogen infection had become acute, so I stuck out the high fever, sweats, vomiting/dry heaves and incapacitating focuses exhaustion for two weeks until I was becoming too weak to get out of bed. At this point I introduced colloidal silver (CS) into the mix and began quickly recovering. I had taken CS in the past but it had been only mildly helpful. I now understand that this is because the body needs to be strong enough to bring the infection to the surface so then the CS and other remedies can fight it. Buhner emphasizes the two prong approach to dealing with Lymes by both supporting the immune function organs as well as then fighting the pathogen.
This began a process of every third week being completely debilitated with another round of the same symptoms, but the primary focus of my body's healing seemed to rotate from organ to organ. It was horrible. No one wrote about a process like this... but most people seemed to think that you could only manage symptoms and not actually heal.
It was absolutely horrible for over a year. Not for the faint of heart. When the 'pandemic' hit, I noticed that hydroxychloroquine was an anti-Malarial drug... and the Babesia coinfection is also in the Maleria family (according to Buhner) so I added the Dr. Zelenko protocol (vit c, quercitin, zinc vit D) to my own and it reduced the 'every third week' symptoms to only minimal discomfort that I could easily manage. Eventually the rounds became less and less intense and now I only sometimes feel a little off. I think that I still have a ways to go, but I am fully functioning again and able to walk my dogs 10 miles and work in the greenhouse.
The primary herb that helped me was Artemesia Annua. This is also known as wormwood or Sweet Annie or Qing Hao in Chinese medicine.
If you want to grow it yourself:
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/flowers/artemisia-sweet-annie/sweet-annie-organic-artemisia-seed-1700.html
https://strictlymedicinalseeds.com/product/artemisia-annua-qing-hao-sweet-annie-potted-plant/
Some states, such as South Dakota, consider it a weed and so seeds cannot be shipped there.
The Dr Summits recently has a symposium of healing Lyme's
https://drsummits.com/healing-lyme-vip-access/
and through them I learned about a local physician who diagnoses and treats Lymes using the mail. He uses herbs as well as the Rife machine (mentioned in a thread above),
https://www.connersclinic.com/
Klinghardt institute (one on the West Coast) also specializes in Lymes and has protocols and info available for free download.
https://klinghardtinstitute.com/
And just to bring this full circle... I have flown again with no problems since the near death experience several years ago, and I wanted to pass on some links about possible origins and continued considerations of Lyme and prion disease.
https://truthstreammedia.com/?s=lyme
as well as
https://strangesounds.org/2022/02/nobel-prize-2015-for-the-artemisinin-and-ivermectin-discoveries-but-it-is-prohibited-to-use-both-against-covid-what-the-heck.html
https://files.constantcontact.com/daa02ded201/65939165-b57c-4a51-84f7-51fe8b6bee16.pdf?AID=10296303&PID=8161620&SID=ktgal3l38k02l8xl0mcu0&pn=cjaffiliate
