This is all so new to me, and I know I have alot to learn. It will be interesting to see how things progress as I continue with treatment.
It is hard for me to distinguish which symptoms are from lyme and which ones from the mold, even the mercury toxicity.
I have read where patients experience the tinnitus, cracking of joints, muscle aches, chronic fatigue, brain fog to name a few, all of which appear to be symptoms of lyme and which I have.
I can't even recall when I got bit. I never saw a bullseye rash anywhere on my body.
I am currently reading Mold Warrior, by Shoemaker. It is a great read for anyone with mold and even lyme. I recommend it. In Shoemaker' s book, he states that there is a difference between acute and chronic lyme. In chronic lyme patients, it's the chronic illness due to toxins after the antibiotics have cleared the infection.That is why some patients will remain ill with symptoms like fibromyalgia and many others. They believe they have developed fibomyalgia, when in fact, it is really a toxin.
I hope if there is anyone receiving antibiotic treatment and still not responding well, to look into reading what Dr Ritchie Shoemaker has to say.
And yes, I would like to know if anyone has seen a difference in their healing process by limiting their exposure to EMF.
Give us some feedback.
I haven't heard that antibiotics have mold in them. I know pencillin is developed from a mold, but there are others that were not. I will be getting some testing tomorrow to see if I also have markers for mold.
Your oral and facial pain sounds awful. Those sound like Lyme symptoms to me. Lyme infects the nerves, causing dental pain, jaw pain, and the other facial pain your describe. I feel lucky I didn't have that, although I did have an altered sense of taste and some choking incidents.
Once Lyme gets to your nerves, I don't think that natural remedies can take care of it. I think they can get a person to better health and possibly even to some measure of remission, but hopefully you can get to a point of health where you could take some antibiotics.
I've read a little about the EMF theory. I saw a picture of a science fair project by a teenager who put some kind of seeds next to a network router and some far away from the router. The seeds sprouting next to the router looked pathetic and the sprouts died. The sprouts far from the router looked great.
Our router and computers are on the opposite end of the house from where we sleep, and we leave cell phones in the office, so I'm hoping that's sufficient. We bought something called a Gigaset, which routes a cell phone call through to the home phone line when the cell phone is nearby. When I'm home, I can move throughout the house leaving my cell phone in the office without worrying I'll miss a call. It's handy and reduces any EMF exposure I might get from the phone itself. They also say to keep your cell phone at least an inch or two away from your body, and not to put it in a pocket. For men, a case hanging on a belt is better than in a shirt pocket. For women, a purse is good.
I've read about the preventions, but I haven't heard any testimonials that avoiding EMFs made a difference for someone. I'm curious to hear if any are out there.
Thank you for your reply.
I am working with a medical dr but does not use conventional pharmaceuticals on my mold and lyme issues. I am taking supplements and homeopaths. He has had great success with his patients and I am very excited about my outcome. The worst for me is the oral and facial pain. For some strange reason, most of my pain is in my teeth, tongue, gums and face. It is unrelenting and gets worse with each hour of the day. I cannot take antibiotics as I have mold as well, and mold is found in antibiotics. It is hard to determine what is causing my pain...is it the lyme or mold? Each are biotoxin illnesses and can produce significant pain. I also have high levels of mercury and diagnosed with chronic inflammation response syndrome.
My dr also advised me to limit my exposure to EMF. Did you all know this? I can hinder any recovery from lyme disease.
I hope I can get some relief soon. It has been a difficult journey.
I try to keep a positive attitude, but it is hard.
Thanks for your encouraging words. Take care!
It does sound like you've got some miserable symptoms. I'm so glad you have a doctor you feel good about.
It's really hard to tell what symptoms will subside first in any given patient. I have heard that joint pain is often the last to go, as it's hard to eradicate from joints. There isn't good blood flow there, which means antibodies and antibiotics don't get there as easily as other places.
I naively thought that symptoms would decline as fast as they developed. Nope. My severe rib pain went from zero to horrific in only 2 months. A year and a half after starting treatment, I still have stubborn, although low grade rib pain. Seems the antibodies and abx have trouble getting into rib cartilage, too.
My tinnitus did improve within the first several months, but then would vary in intensity. I found that it would flare up when I started a new abx. It seemed to improve with a couple days of chlorella use.
You have quite a few neuro symptoms. That's often an indicator of Bartonella. Have you been evaluated for that, too? It can cause nerve pain and the crawling sensations, too. Lots of people test false negative, so you need a doctor who is familiar with it to know when to make a clinical diagnosis. If you have undiagnosed Bartonella, your response to Lyme treatment can be slow or poor. It needs different meds than Lyme with Rifampin and Levaquin being the two I read about the most. (I took both.)
I don't seem to have a mold issue, so I don't know much about it. Sorry, but I don't think I can be of any help on that. From what I understand, you do need a doc who understands it and can treat it, as mold also interferes with Lyme treatment.
Hang in there! It will get better.
Lyme disease, like syphilis can create psychosis in people. OCD, anxiety, personality changes.
Here is a brochure about it from Ilads
http://www.ilads.org/lyme_disease/Psychiatric_Brochure_08_08.pdf
With that said ere can be other deficiencies that can cause this as well in addition to other infections etc.
I actually had the same mental symptoms you did. And oddly enough they improved with intense vitamin D treatment. I still have some brain fog and dream like state feeling going on, but without all the other debilitating features. Vit D is a hormone (largely unknown) and when critically low, like mine, it can cause unusual symptoms that we are only recently understanding. It has a play in overal health and I've even heard MS patients have found some relief when taking it.
Whether those symptoms you have are lyme based is hard to know. For me, I do think they were largely lyme based. they happened soon after a bizzare bulls eye mark and fatigue. but the Vit D just happened to rebalance some things which made my body more able to deal with what was going on. Or perhaps it was coincidence that those symptoms went away as soon as I took Vit D. I had those symptoms for close to eight years.
So, I the rambling, I am trying to say, it may very well be lyme. Or it may be a subtle combination of a few things, including lyme, which could be knocking you off mentally.
Good luck with everything.
I am new to this forum. I have mold and lyme disease. Two biotoxin illnesses. I am working with a qualified dr in Atlanta. I am just in the very beginning stages of my treatment (3 months). My symptoms are: chronic and severe nerve pain in ALL of my teeth, my tongue, gums, face, ear pain, ear ringing (constant), headaches, burning throat, chronic fatigue, muscle aches, muscle weakness, heart palipatations, excessive cracking of all of my joints, crawling sensations on my skin and more.
I am wondering about a couple of things. Has anyone who has had the ringing in the ears and cracking of joints, notice much improvement as you respond to treatment??? Also, I eat gluten free but as a mold patient and not one with celiac, what foods are good for us and can we pop our own corn (organic) as a snack food? Thank you for your help :-)