I would like to talk a little bit about treatment for Lyme disease in this post. Treatment is complicated with Lyme disease and it usually takes many different steps. One person that has walked through the Lyme journey already and is on the other side told us that there are four important components to treating Lyme disease. You need to do all of them if you want to successfully heal from Lyme disease. These four components are sleep, exercise, diet, and targeted treatment (this includes antibiotics, herbal supplements, intervenes treatment, or any other types of physical treatment). In simple terms you need to be extra, extra health conscious to take care of your body, plus treatment on top of that.
SLEEP
The thing that all of us need and none of us get enough of... or that is how I feel 90% of the time. Sleep for someone that has Lyme disease is very important. Sleep is when your body rests so that it is strong and ready to fight, and fighting is the definition of what is happening in the body of someone with Lyme disease. Sleep is sometimes difficult for Kevin and there are nights that he is awake often. We usually are in bed around 10pm and he is awake for the day around 9am. When he wakes up varies from day to day, depending on how much sleep he got during the night and what his day was like the day before. It is very important that Kevin does not push himself and rest his body throughout the day. He will often spend some time in the morning and/or the afternoon in bed, he usually doesn’t sleep but relaxes his body. On days that are really bad he will spend most of the day in bed doing work on his computer, reading, watching videos, or sleeping. On days that he is feeling better he spends time at the kitchen table instead of the bed. It is very important, for all of us, but especially people that are treating Lyme disease to pay attention to their body and not push themselves harder than they need to.
EXERCISE
It seems a little contradictory to say that you need to “not push yourself and make sure you sleep and rest lots” when fighting Lyme disease but then follow it up with “and you need to exercise”. The truth is both are important. There are a lot of benefits to going outside for a walk and Kevin tries to do this every day. Going outside for a little fresh air is not only good for the body but also for the mind. Exercise is what keeps the heart strong and the heart is power for your body. If the power is weak, it only makes sense that the soldiers would be weak. The amount and difficulty of the exercise can be a difficult balance to find. Each day is different and overdoing it is not beneficial and can even be detrimental. Exercise causes inflammation and for a body that is already inflamed you do not want more added stress. So simple exercises like short walks and stretches are usually the best for Kevin.
DIET
This might be the hardest one to hear and to work with. A diet that is conducive to fighting Lyme disease has very little sugar and starches. Currently Kevin is eating a no sugar diet, this includes fruits, honey, maple syrup, and corn. He also is avoiding all yeast (even natural such as sourdough), dairy, and limits gluten. So far this has not been too hard to handle as I have heard of people that take out all grains, nuts, sweet vegetable like carrots and basically live off of meat and bitter greens! Of course, a diet like this is not sustainable for everyone and is usually for a brief time until a successful fight has been won and they are feeling like themselves again. This being said, someone that has gone through the battle with Lyme disease will most likely always need to be careful what they eat and have a healthier diet then the Standard American Diet. As I have said in the earlier post keeping a healthy diet is also a way to prevent Lyme disease from taking over your life. Cutting out processed, and preserved foods can help greatly in the fight and prevention of Lyme disease. Someday I will write a blog post about this subject, I will.
TREATMENT
Treatment can happen in many forms and in many ways. Lyme disease is a new enough disease that it is hard to treat. There is not enough research or knowledge out there. Doctors are learning as they go. One thing that we have learned is that for complete healing both antibiotics and natural remedies are needed and it can take years of treatment to feel well again. Antibiotics could mean oral pills or via an IV. Something else that we have heard of is oxygen therapy, this can be in the form of ozone treatments, most commonly through IV or a hyperbaric oxygen chamber which is a sealed chamber that you lay in and concentrated oxygen is pumped into the chamber. A hyperbaric chamber is used for many things including mental illness and behavioral therapies. There are so many kinds of treatment that it is hard to discern what is all true. Kevin read some articles the other day explaining how there are components of unpasteurized milk that are good for fighting Lyme so you should be drinking milk. In one article it even said that a man put his own infected blood into the udder of a cow and then drank her milk. That is what helped him fight it since the cow was able to create antibodies for the bacteria. Kevin is currently doing herbal treatment using 4 different drops and lots of other natural supplements to support his body while he fights. We are currently looking into finding a doctor that will supply us with antibiotics as well. Each person fighting Lyme disease will have a different journey and usually needs to try many different things before they find their healing. Kevin likes to say the last door you try is the one that is unlocked. Due to the limited amount of research and knowledge, there are often many different doors to try before you reach the last one.
Treatment is extraordinarily complex because it is a complex disease that currently does not have much research that can back it up. My prayer is that in the years to come Lyme disease will not be so taboo and that there will be a cure. I pray that somehow Kevin will be able to be a part of something bigger than himself and that God can use our journey to help the future of Lyme disease. God has a big purpose for each of our lives and it seems that this is part of ours. Lyme disease will always need all four of these components in order to reach healing; sleep, exercise, diet and both natural and medicinal treatment but hopefully in the future the treatment part will not be so hard to find.