Hide and Go Seek

It has been a busy couple of weeks, in a good way. My family and I have been super busy. We took an overnight trip out of town, celebrated a birthday, and celebrated Thanksgiving at my house. It has been fun. The best part about it all is that for the most part I have been able to keep up. I have been careful not to overdo it, but the fact that I have kept up pretty much without incident is a huge milestone. My struggle right now is mental. I want to celebrate and be excited, but I have thought I had beaten this so many times before only to be sorely disappointed. It is hard to explain even to myself who is trying really hard to be excited with each passing day. I wonder at what point I will truly believe that this is winding down.

The test results are in. Part of the difficulty is that my last appointment with the Naturopath was a phone visit. It is just not the same. I was not able to look at the results with her as we were discussing them. I just had to take her word for it.

Here is what a very bad explanation of the test and the results. Your cells react to foreign matter, whether it is bacteria, virus, or any other foreign matter that enter your blood stream. They react by sending out a response cell.. What this blood test did was expose my blood to lots of different possibilities of what could be floating around in my body including viruses and bacteria to see what their response was. If it reacts to the item, that mean the cells already recognizes it and knew how to fight it. That is not a good thing. They also have a scale of how aggressively they attack the foreign matter. If it sends on a full out attack, that it a sign that your cells are actively battling that thing. If you get a small reaction it means you cells recognize as a foreign object, but are not familiar with it so they don’t panic. That is how a healthy person’s blood would react.

Now for the result, this is even more confusing. The test showed that when exposed to certain strains of bacteria it sent out a full on attack (The family that Lyme disease falls under was one of the bacteria’s tested). It also showed that when it was exposed to certain viruses it sent on a full on attack. When it was exposed to the control, or basically something benign, it sent a full on attack.

Here is what the results mean to me. My body is actively fighting a virus, and bacteria. The fact that it reacted when it should not have is an indication that my body has been fighting these for a long time. For lack of a better explanation my blood cells have been waging the war for so long they treat everything as a threat. (I am still wondering what a long time means. Months, years?)

That leads me to my next science lesson. Biofilms. That is what viruses and bacteria hid in to save themselves from destruction. They hide and every once in a while one will come out and if conditions are right for them they will send a little message to their friends inviting them to come out and party with them. If the conditions are not right then they die and never get to tell their friends to come out so they sit and wait. How does this all relate. Apparently with all the hard work we have done to get my body heathy, my body is no longer a good environment for them to thrive. YIPEE. The bad thing is that because the test results it proves that whatever made me ill in the first place is still in there. My body just kills them before they can tell their friends. Basically it is a set up for failure. If conditions are not kept perfect, I will become ill again. So what is the plan? This is the part I don’t like…

We have to expose them. EEEWWWW!

That our course of action. I am taking an enzyme that is going to eat away the biofilm and expose them (not my first choice!) The hope is that I have enough support with supplements and my immune system to take care of them. We are doing it very slowly so that I don’t feel the effects of this war. So far it is not too bad. I have had a few symptoms here are there but I try not to freak out and I just try to imaging that they bad guys that have been exposed and are now being destroyed. I really do have a picture in my head of the battle. It is quite comical. Good thing no one can see it.

So what about the diagnosis of Lyme? There is still a good chance that is the bacterial part of the fight, but it really does not matter. (Besides the lab test is well out of my price range) What matters is that we take care of everything that is hiding under a biofilm and annihilate them. I guess we are playing a game of shoot to kill not questions asked! How cool is that, I am now a walking war game;-)

Back to Lyme?

I just can’t help myself. The other day I got a statement from the company that we are waiting for the last lab test from. It said the name of the test. I could not help myself I Googled it. It was scary, but with I put the word naturopath with the test name this is the article that came up. I know it is really long. I thought that because I had felt so much better when I changed my diet that I could rule out Lyme. The change of diet may have been the final straw that tipped the scale in my favor.

I had it all copied to word with comments and high light but it would not transfer over to the blog. Here is the original article unaltered if you are interested.

http://restormedicine.com/naturopathic-approaches-to-lyme-disease-treatment/

Finally a bad grade

The results from the IGA test are in. Here is how I did. The range they are looking for it between 51-215. My naturopath said she would likes to see it in the hundreds. I scored a whopping 15. What does it mean? Not quite sure. What little I know is it means that I have no mucus lining my gut and keeping large food particles from entering into my blood stream. Those particles are considered foreigners to my body, which triggers an immune reaction and bogs down my liver function. That would be why I feel so much better with the liver detox tea. For right now that is all I know. She is not going to change anything until the blood test results are in.

In the mean time, I seem to be plugging along. The only thing I really struggling with is starvation. I don't know how to describe it. I am always eating and always famished. It literally feels like my body is never satisfied with what I give it. I have been trying protein drinks to see if that will help. It has not. So I just keep eating and eating. It does not seem to change the scale.

What I really don't like or understand is the evolution of the whole thing. This is not part of the original symptoms, this is new. In my fairy tale once we addressed and took care of the original symptoms I should have been able to pick up my life where I left off and lived happily ever after.

That is not the case. I just keep reminding myself that I am so much better then when I could not get out of bed for days on in. If I could have seen that I was going to get this much better then I would have been happy. Now I am here and I want something more...The grass it always greener on the other side. I need to spend more time counting my blessings.

Wishful thinking

Just when I think diet will cure me, my body proves me wrong. I have been eaten just like I am supposed to. Not one piece of Halloween candy has touched my lips.

Yesterday I needed to be outside. I planted myself in the dirt around my raspberries. The crazy raspberries are producing fruit right now, but I resisted eating them. Although, 'I' ate till his heart was content. I just sat happily on the ground and weeded. I promised myself I would not over do it, one hour max. I had the older boys and my mom out working with me. I was in heaven. My hope was that if I did not bend over or get up and down I would be okay. I was euphoric sitting on the ground pulling weeds. (I know I am ill in other ways;-)) As soon as I got up I was dizzy. I felt like a little old lady sitting in the chair waiting to regain my composure. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! I was mad. I love to be out in the garden and just when I think I have figured out how to work the system, it does not work.

For about 5 days now have been feeling famished. At first it was welcome change. I soon realized it was not a good thing. I began to realize that no matter how much I ate the feeling would not go away. When I am famished I am also week and light headed. It does not seem to matter what I eat or how much I eat, I just can’t seem to appease it. My new theory is that my body is not absorbing what I am giving it. Maybe I am really feeding a parasite! Just a random thought. I have lots of those these daysJ I did pick up some protein powder just to see if it would help. It can’t hurt (I hope!)

I am suspicious that an episode is upon me. I had to drive to Auburn this morning for another blood draw. I explained to my naturopath about how I was feeling. The only thing that she could suggest at this point is that maybe the virus, or whatever you want to call it(parasite;-)), somehow got the upper hand. (I had to go off a few supplements to do the labs) That maybe my body is not really hunger, but the virus (parasite;-)) is and it is what is looking for nourishment. Would that be an invasion of the body snatches? Anyone seen the movie and can tell me what to do?

By the time I was home I was exhausted. I have not been tired like this in over a month. I was not home long before I passed out on the couch. I was sad that I was tired again. There are not words to express how nice it has been to not be tired day in and day out. That being said, I still only managed to sleep less than 10 minutes, then like magic I was awake, rested, and ready to keep going. I noticed a few other symptoms rearing their ugly heads on my drive home and a few more as I was lying down. I am disheartened that the diet did not magically cure me. I am sure it has helped tremendously. I am just really talented at convincing myself that the next thing I try will be the one that makes this all a distant memory.

Some side notes:

My insulin resistance test results were in. I am not insulin resistant. My blood sugar is a little low but still within acceptable range. That is another test that I have passed with flying colors. I still have an “A” average. WOHOOO!

I had to drive to Auburn, because the blood work I did last week at the office came with a second day delivery label instead of an overnight label. It will now be a little longer before we get the results.