Some little-known stuff about lyme, heavy metals & such...

Good morning.... it's a beautiful day up here on Whidbey. This time of year brings out the bald eagles, who are nesting, and bunnies galore. At any given time I look out a window and see a bunny or two. I always say that nature is the great healer, and our beautiful sanctuary in the woods is the perfect spot for healing and peace of mind. My Reiki clients and students love it here, too. There is some powerful good ju-ju around....

I have a couple of intentions for this blog.... There are lots of blogs written by people with Lyme. I want to specifically talk about the Salt/C protocol and how it works for me, for if this treatments works as well as it is being reported to work(and so far with no known major side effects/dangers), it could easily transform the healing process of the Lyme sufferer. I want to do my part to help educate people so that they don't have to go through months or years of expensive therapies that may not work and may even hurt them (such as the overuse of antibiotics). The next issue will be to tackle why it takes so long for folks to get a correct diagnosis. I would say that's largely due to fear and people giving up their power to the medical establishment. There are ways of dealing with things that are healthy and supportive to life. While medications and surgeries are definately useful for certain kinds of life-threatening situations, they are often not necessary. Unfortunately, there are only a couple of tests out there that can accurately assess whether someone has lyme, and even they tend to have false negatives, meaning people walk away thinking they don't have it, when in fact, they may. The test that showed me positive on several indicators is called The Western Blot. Expensive..... but it was important to confirm that what I was dealing with was the lyme bacteria. That doesn't mean I'm not dealing with others things.... there may even be some things undiscovered as of yet. But in my heart I feel that the lyme bacteria are primarily what are causing pain for me. The heavy metals don't help, either....

The other reason for the blog is to share my experiences and learnings with friends and family. People are constantly asking me questions trying to understand how the heck I ended up with Lyme, how I'm sure it's not something else, what my treatment/healing process looks like, etc. Hopefully, this will help to answer some of those questions for people.... not that I mind explaining things in person. But there is a lot of info to impart, and it's easy to log-in from time to time and just expound upon a particular thing, and then go on my merry way. I find the blog to be rather liberating. A few years ago I wrote and edited a book, The Ways of Spirit: 30 Visionaries Share Philosophies, Paths and Practices, and that was a huge, all-consuming project that had me up at 5 am most mornings working obsessively on the manuscript until I went to work at 8 am. These days I just roll out of bed when I feel like it (usually around 7 am; I LOVE having NO alarm clock anymore), and sit down at the computer for a few minutes when the mood strikes. Ya gotta love that.

I think most people have heard that Lyme disease is transmitted via tick bites, and that is true in probably most cases. They are also saying mosquitos may carry it, and there are a few various other opinions out there about how it is transmitted, but I'm not going to touch on those at this moment. Infected ticks transmit all sorts of cooties - various bacterias and possibly funky worms (all of them microscopic, of course. You want to see some strange photos of these critters, go to www.lymephotos.com). The common perception is that if a person is infected with lyme bacteria from a tick, they will experience a red "bulls-eye" rash/pattern on their body. In truth, less than half of people who get lyme from ticks ever experience a bulls-eye rash; I never did, and I had tick bites at ages 17 and 38. After that second bite, though, I did suddenly have a raging eye infection, and my left eye has never been the same since then. I have to think the little borrelia buglets have something to do with that.

The bacteria can hang-out in a fairly dormant state for year's in a person's body. I had a number of symptoms all along, but they weren't noticeable enough for me to become overly concerned. I've always been fairly robust and healthy, and so "little things" never really bothered me much and I just figured they would go away eventually, which most of them do. With lyme disease, symptoms come and go all the time.... The joint pains are interesting because they migrate around - some days my shoulders and knees are screaming, some days my hips and "sit bones" are killing me. The insides of my elbows get really inflamed many days. Some days I feel so good I can almost forget about it until I try to squat down or climb stairs or lift something heavy, and then I am reminded that my knees and arms don't want to do that.I'm becoming very good at listening to my body and doing what is wants to do, or doesn't want to do...

So in my case, the bacteria were around, but they weren't overwhelming until triggered by some emotional factors which occured last spring when I was feeling unwell and stressed-out at work, and when my daughter decided to move back to California. Suddenly, I could hardly move - my body was racked with pain. Lots of "lymies" are told that this is all in their heads, and you can kind of understand why that is so, for strong emotions can trigger major episodes. But they trigger very real responses that allow the bacteria to take hold and proliferate, overwhelming the immune system. Rather than not working well, as one might suppose, the immune system actually goes into hyper-alert mode, trying so hard to fight off the emergence of all the critters. In a way, it actually works TOO well. This is one probable reason that I haven't had the flu or a cold in a few years (except for maybe a couple of days of sniffles winter before last).... my immune system fights all that stuff off immediately. (Of course, Reiki has also helped keep me very healthy for years, as well). That's why I have to continue to strengthen and support the immune system, so it can regain control and balance in my body. Yes, this is possible and do-able, and yes, it takes time for the immune system to re-gain the upper hand. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day.

So along with the lyme journey, I've also been dealing with too-high levels of lead and mercury in my system. I did a 10-week detox last fall, which took the mercury level way down, but the lead still needs some work. You may think that everyone has mercury in their systems these days, and that is true. But some of us have way-high levels of it that are truly harmful. Mercury doesn't just come from fish, but from tooth fillings and all those lovely vaccinations we had as kids. I had my last mercury dental filling removed recently - a tricky process that must be done a certain way by a dentist trained in those things.

I was exposed to a lot of lead as a teen when I worked in an old building with lead paint (one of my jobs was to sand the paint off the walls. We knew nothing about lead, then.... I didn't even wear a mask when I was sanding). I can remember my dad washing paint off my hands with gasoline (leaded back then) as a kid after we had been painting, and he was out of turpentine. I don't know what other exposure I've had, but those come to mind. I hate to say it, but I think if most people were tested for heavy metals they would be surprised to learn what is stored in their systems...

The 10-week detox was pretty horrid. That's where I first experienced herx reactions. NOT FUN. I'm glad that's out of the way for now. I am hoping to sweat a lot more of those metals out of my system in my sauna, which is known for getting down to the level of heavy metals. I may have to do more chelation/detox down the road, though. My doctor says I don't want to have lead sitting in my brain when I get older... This gives new meaning to the expression "get the lead out!" ;-)

Also, because my immune system is in overdrive, I tested positive to quite a few things on a food sensitivities test..... in fact, much of what I was eating! Wheat, soy, eggs, dairy (I wasn't eating much dairy), and even some weird things like asparagus and almonds. For a vegetarian to remove soy and eggs from their diet is not easy.... although now I know much better about which veggies are fairly high in protein (broccoli, peas, avocados), and I eat more nuts and seeds (although they can be harder to digest). I will rarely have something with egg or soy in it, which will generally land me in my acupuncturist's office to clear things out of my system. Refined sugar? Don't even think about it! The only "sweet" I eat at this time is the very occasional small dollop of honey in something. For some reason, I react to agave, which is a bummer. Fruit is now dessert for me. Weirdly enough, I have become a fan of baked yams, which used to gross me out. But they are sweet and I will usually eat one a week. And of course, carbs convert to sugar in the system, so that means really limiting intake of grains, although the whole grains take much longer to break down into sugar. My doctor would like to see me off carbs entirely, for now. I haven't quite gotten there yet.... I do the occasional gluten-free oatmeal or oat bran, corn pasta, rice noodles, or basmati rice. Do I ever splurge? Trust me, if there is an Indian restaurant in the vicinity, I make a conscious choice to go for the gold (love that whole wheat paratha/bread).... and of course, I pay the price soon afterward. When the system gets flooded with carbs/sugars or foods I'm sensitive to, I can practically feel those little bacterials multiplying...

Of course, when one eats this way, one tends to lose weight. 32 pounds so far. Now honestly, I had the weight to lose, and I can still take off a few more without worrying about it. It's come off very slowly over the past year.... I haven't been "trying" to lose it. But it needed to come off and it did, and I actually feel so much healthier in so many ways. (Now if I could just get my driver's license photo changed! I look at it and am reminded of how bloated and crappy I was feeling at the time it was taken. Thank God I don't feel like THAT any more!). If I drop below 130 then I will have to start ramping up the amounts of food (including carbs) I'm eating.

I have learned to truly love greens - especially spinach and bok choy, which I eat a lot of. A couple of times a week I throw it all together into the blender - spinach, kale, beets, whatever is on hand veggie-wise, with some ginger and lemon and a little banana or apple, and whip it up into something fairly drinkable. I cook a lot more now (those who know me well, please stop laughing and get up off the floor), and make all kinds of interesting concoctions. Erick lovingly eats these things with me, although he still draws the line at consuming an avocado or a yam. I rarely eat out anymore, except at places I know I can get organic, fresh stuff. Here on the island that means Living Green, and once in awhile, Greenbank Farm at the Pie Cafe (they cook with lots of organics, and yes, I do have the willpower to resist the pies, but it ain't easy...). When we travel, I research ahead where the organic groceries and restaurants are and patronize those as much as possible. We are so blessed to have a beautiful organic farm less than two miles from our house (The Raven and the Spade), from which we get a weekly box of wonderful things...

OK, that's enough for now. Have I freaked anyone out yet?? It's an interesting journey, I must say, and I am a better person for it. My neighbor recently approached me about starting a support group for women with immune-related challenges and chronic pain, such as fibromyalgia, MS, lupus and lyme, and I said YES, let's do that.... we begin in May. There is strength in numbers, and in learning/debriefing/laughing/crying together. She came up with an awesome title for the group, "Chronic Wellness." Ya gotta love it...

Have a beautiful, magical day! Sukie