My "Balance" Doctor

This is an excerpt from a response I wrote today to a lady on the Road Back Foundation Bulletin Board about whether or not to pursue lyme treatment. I feel that it really sums up where I am right now in terms of my healing and my view on health altogether... so I am going ahead to post it here on my autoimmune blog as well. Maybe someday it will help bring encouragement or faith to someone suffering from a "mysterious" autoimmune problem ~ and that would be wonderful.

I wrote:

"At the end of the day, I had almost every single lyme symptom on any lyme checklist I could find. I figured it was better to embark on a treatment and see what happened, rather than continuing to live feeling awful and foggy - and having so many MDs offer to give me antidepressants because they couldn't come up for an explanation for my symptoms. Or even more frustrating, to have multiple doctors tell me that I was likely developing an autoimmune disease but only time would tell which one, and there were no cures for any of them anyway.

I am seeing a well respected LLMD/ND (naturopathic doctor) and I have to say that I am already noticing positive changes based on the protocol I have been on for 3 weeks. They are small changes. However, just knowing that I am actively doing something to improve my health makes me feel better and more positive.

I honestly view my lyme doctor as a "balance" doctor. She is helping me to get my body back into balance - and frankly, who cares how it got that way. I have tested positive twice (via Labcorp) for active mycoplasma infection, my hormones are off, my adrenals aren't functioning normally, I have Hashimoto's - you name it. Plenty of "traditional lab" bloodwork to show that my body isn't happy with something. I believe that following up with the lyme by taking appropriate antimicrobials, balancing out the hormones, healing my gut with probiotics, cutting out gluten and if necessary taking antifungals... all of this is just getting my body back into balance.

So many people have told me in the past week how much better I am looking, and I don't even need this wonderful validation because overall, I have more energy and I can think more clearly. I am less depressed. Something is really helping me.

Thanks to all of the last 3 months, I no longer believe in autoimmune disease or even cancer. (I was checking out the studies last night on PubMed showing a proven causal relationship between bacteria/viruses and cancer... there is so much evidence out there.) At this point, I simply believe that we are [mammals] exposed to bacteria, protozoa, viruses and environmental toxins - which combined with poor diet, lack of sleep and stress, create illnesses that we have classified into different categories and given names like "Alzheimer's" or "Scleroderma". I think the main thing is to be proactive in getting your body back into balance.

The great thing about Lyme doctors, is that they really do look at you holistically. My LLMDs are the only people who look at me and don't think it is crazy or tragic that I have thyroid, adrenal, bladder and vulvadynia problems, along with disc hernations. They nod their heads and say, "Yep, all of that is typical lyme and babesia." For them, I'm just a run-of-the-mill patient. I can't tell you how good that feels, to be viewed as simply a normal person who has contracted lyme and possibly co-infections."

I really am feeling different. It is hard to quantify just yet, since I have only been on treatment for 3 weeks. However, I know for sure the treatment isn't hurting me - I just had a CBC run last week and my creatinine was at its best level in the last year, my kidney function is awesome :-) All of my numbers looked great. Other than that, my skin has got its color back, my acid reflux is about 85% improved, my digestive tract has normalized in such a great way, I have more energy, and I can think more clearly. I don't think I have been slurring my words as much either. I feel positive and optimistic.

Of course, there are plenty of symptoms I'd love to see cleared up. I'd love to have the parasthesias around my body go away, for one. I'd love to improve my spinal alignment... had a disc go out this weekend and it was excruciating until the chiro put it back in. I'd love to stop feeling itchy, to have physical stamina, and to be able to remember things as sharply as I used to. Having been a "smart" person most of my life, it has been enormously humbling to feel not very smart most of the time. I'd love to have just a little bit of my mental edge back again, if only to enjoy spirited debates with my adorable husband again.

Still, I feel like I am on the right track for which I am so grateful. I'm not as worried right now that I won't be here to see my kids grow up... I'm feeling more optimistic all the time.

Mycoplasma Confirmed

First of all, I am the luckiest woman in the world. I have now had my worst fears come true and I realize that I have the strength to withstand all of them. Today I received bloodwork back showing positive IgM for Mycoplasma Bacteria, plus I found a patch of scaly skin on my back that has just thickened and gone a little numb. With this plus the Raynaud's and Esophageal involvement... it's pretty clear that this is not only rheumatic, it's likely Scleroderma. Should get the antibody tests for that done next week... bloodwork on the way.

I wept a little bit, but then I walked to the beach and dug my hand deep into the sand at the edge of the water. Some day I will be part of that sand, but today is not that day. I looked out at the horizon toward the land where I grew up and I swore that I will never be scared of anything again in my life. Ever. No matter what.

So, it's time to move forward.

I am excited about this blog because it is going to be my vehicle for publicizing to the world the amazing research that has been done relating autoimmune conditions such as the one I am facing (scleroderma) to infection with the mycoplasma bacteria. I don't know why more doctors aren't ardently promoting antibiotics as a method of putting autoimmune diseases into remission, because the evidence is out there (all the way back to the 1940s) and it is very clear.

In this recent study done by the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 2004, it was clearly demonstrated that when infecting mice with the mycoplasma bacteria the scientists were able to create a scleroderma-like condition which can be remediated with antibiotics. As it says in the article, "We previously showed that the major targets of autoantibodies in scleroderma are centrosomes, organelles involved in mitotic spindle organization. Here we show that centrosome autoantibodies are induced in mice by mycoplasma infection... Antibiotic treatment of mice prevents autoantibody development."

I feel so blessed with this information, and saddened for the millions of families who have lost a member to autoimmune illness and were never told once that the use of low dose antibiotics might just have saved them. The rheumatologist that I am going to see in Riverside states directly on his website that he has successfully treated 70% of the patients who have come to him with scleroderma, using the antibiotic protocol.

I will be writing more about the antibiotic protocol soon. I have ordered a few seminal works about this subject off of Amazon.Com and will write an entire post about the books once I have read them.

For now I am sending much love to anyone reading this post - whether a friend, family member or someone like me who is dealing with scleroderma and looking for information. You may be feeling scared, but I have hope for you. There is a real treatment for this thing and I am going to take you along my journey to find it.

I received such an uplifting email from a woman who has had scleroderma for 6 years and is in complete remission. She told me about the vacation she is leaving for today with her husband and sons, and how strong and vital she feels. "You would never know that I have scleroderma unless you closely examined the capillaries of my nail beds" she announced. She says she personally knows 30 other people all on the antibiotic protocol that are ALL improving and many going into complete remission.

This stuff ain't rocket science! It also isn't new-agey or alternative. It's just good medicine, and I think that with the research currently underway, soon autoimmunity is going to be something we deal with just like a UTI.

Much love to you all, wherever you are.