Here I go again. Sigh......
Obviously I've had a lot on my mind this week, and my thoughts have been swirling around, trying to make sense of this stupid relapse, and trying to access all of the methods and techniques I used during the worst days of my illness to keep myself sane!
My symptoms seem to be confined to two or three: head/body vibrations (buzzing feeling) when I try to fall asleep (causing insomnia), a rumbling tinnitus in my ear, and tiredness (which may or may not have to do with the fact that I'm back ON sleep medication.)
On the medical end of things, here's the scoop. My LLMD responded to my e-mail in a very timely manner (bless him!), and he told me to re-start my azithromycin and diflucan (for yeast). Thankfully, I had some of these meds leftover, and I was hanging onto them for just such an occasion. LOL (Perhaps I should have thrown them out when my treatment ended in November, then I wouldn't be in this mess! Not that I'm superstitious or anything.)
I also sought a second opinion from another LLMD, Dr. Marty Ross, who has a fabulous website and Facebook page called Treat Lyme and Associated Diseases. Dr. Ross will answer brief questions on his Facebook page (same name as his website). He told me that my symptoms are likely the result of a relapse, and that when the germ is not effectively killed off, then 6-8 weeks after stopping the antimicrobials, symptoms will return. (Yep, I was at the 7 week mark.) He suggested that it could also be from yeast overgrowth, which would cause an increase in cytokines, and would trigger the same sorts of symptoms as the Lyme bacteria would.
Dr. Ross suggested that my next round of treatment include "cyst busters" to deal with biofilms, for 4 months. OK...been there done that with Flagyl. That wasn't so good, as the Flagyl caused elevated liver enzymes and I had to discontinue it after 2.5 months. This time, I'm going to discuss the herbals Banderol and Samento with my LLMD, as apparently these herbals deal quite effectively with all three forms of the Lyme bacteria. You can read all about Banderol and Samento on the Treat Lyme and Associated Diseases website.
I hope and pray that my LLMD will agree with the "other opinion", so that I can have peace of mind about how to proceed. I really do feel that I need to tackle this again aggressively. I don't want to do a patch job, and end up in the same place 6 months from now.
So, that's the physical side of things. Next post, I'm going to discuss the mental/emotional side of what I'm going through.
Thinking of you all.......all of my cyber friends and strangers out there......hoping this post finds you well, or at least improving in your health.
Many blessings!
