I haven’t been in the mood to blog lately. I haven’t been feeling terribly social. I’ve been coiling more than ever before and the symptoms have been building up. Yet when I go out to meet friends or do errands, I’m happy to see people and be doing something.
I meant to be keeping track of what it’s like to coil for Bartonella. Each day, I made a mental note of the odd things that happened and promised myself I would write them down. Then I didn’t do it. Somehow the thought of going through all my aches and pains, all my odd symptoms, all the tingling and night sweats, somehow it all seemed so boring.
It still seems boring. One of the things about chronic Lyme Disease is that it goes on and on and on and on, and when you’ve had as much as you could bear, it goes on some more. I had heard that as others have kept coiling, they saw drastic improvements from one season to the next. I was expecting to feel better this time around. Really better. Able to accomplish a lot more than I’ve actually been able to do. It’s a little depressing.
There is something I keep reminding myself: the early, successful coilers didn’t start out as sick as I was (though they were clearly sick enough to try something drastic and non-mainstream) and they still needed 3 to 5 years to get through to a recovery point. More than that, some of the early coilers were able to do one disease at a time.
I haven’t had that luxury. I’ve been tackling Lyme and staving off two co-infections from the very beginning. Then I had no choice but to go whole-hog at the Babesia last autumn and again this autumn because it got very active. I could either suffer from the infection or from the herxes, but Babesia chose the timing of the fight. Then when it came to Bartonella, I’d been trying to time the treatments so that they happened when Babesia wasn’t active, but it just didn’t work out that way. So I’m doing all three, and I can’t tell what’s what anymore.
Three weeks of coiling
It’s been about 3 weeks since my previous post. During that time, I kept thinking, “I wish I had a coiling guide book.” I haven’t been sure what to do, so I’ve been coiling a whole lot.
Each day, I coiled half my body for Bartonella in the morning and the other half in the evening.
Morning:
- Each side of ribcage, 1 minute
- Each ilium front, 1 minute
- Each hip/outer thigh, 1 minute
- Lower abdomen/pubic bone, 1 minute
- Between my legs: thighs, knees, calves, 1 minute each
- Feet through coil, 1 minute
- Abdomen, 5 minutes
Evening:
- Each side of head, 1 minute
- Top of head, 1 minute
- Back of head, 2 minutes
- Each shoulder knob, 1 minute
- Chest, 2 minutes
- Spine: upper, middle, lower, 2 minutes each
- Each ilium back, 1 minute
Within the last month, I no longer get kidney pain from Bartonella. I’m having herxes from something, but I don’t know whether to attribute it to Bartonella, Lyme or Babesia. I think the herxes of each have overlapping symptoms. The only thing I know to attribute to Bartonella is the pain in my hands and feet (now happening more intermittently and less frequently) and the continued digestive problems (constipation, mucus in my stools, abdominal pain).
I’ve been coiling by entire body twice a day and coiling my spleen sometime in the late afternoon, midway between the full body sessions.
Morning:
- top of head, 1 minute
- back of head, 1 minute
- each shoulder blade, 1 minute
- spine: upper, middle, lower, 1 minute each
- each ilium back, 1 minute
- back of legs: butt+ feet, 1 minute
- between legs: thighs, knees, calves, 1 minute each
- chest (over heart and sternum), 10 minutes
Midday:
- spleen, 10 minutes
Evening
- each side of head, 1 minute
- each side of ribcage, 1 minute
- lower abdomen, 1 minute
- each ilium front, 1 minute
- each hip/outer thigh, 1 minute
- front of legs: thighs, knees, shins, feet, 1 minute per
- abdomen (over spleen or liver) 10 minutes
I’ve been incredibly tired. Last autumn, that symptom coincided with getting rid of Babesia. The infection itself causes fatigue and so does the herx it generates. I’ve been napping regularly, sleeping 10+ hours per night, and dragging myself around during the day. The fatigue, which started in October, has been the most persistent and demoralizing symptom I’ve been living with lately.
For the past 4 days, I’ve been having heart trouble. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to face it this autumn. (It has been a recurring problem since I got Lyme et al. back in 2001, long before I knew what was going on or was disabled by the infections). Usually, I’m okay, psychologically, the first few hours or even the first day of heart symptoms, which include pressure/pain in the chest, palpitations, irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath and an extreme desire to lie down. I know that it happens. I know it will pass. But what gets to me is when it continues on to the second, third and fourth day. Then I start feeling worried, even though I know there is nothing I can do to remove the symptoms. The best I figured out to do is rest, and drink lots of water, electrolyte drinks, magnesium and potassium.
On Monday, I listened to my heart for a while. It sounded like the warm up of a percussion band. But as I listened and breathed slowly, it started to get more regular. Regular still includes a loud third beat, but less additional, non-rhythmic noises.
I started to wonder if maybe the Babesia frequency wasn’t working anymore. I spoke to one woman last year who gave me other Babesia frequencies than the one I’ve been using. She said that 570Hz didn’t get rid of her infection and she had to use 753Hz. So I tried it for 5 minutes. I thought the feeling of compression in my chest was slightly less, but not really that much. I tried it again later for 10 minutes. It was later in the evening when the compression and pain were getting worse. The new frequency didn’t make it better, maybe made it worse or maybe did nothing as the sensations were getting worse anyway.
I’ve decided to stick with 570Hz for now. I’ll reconsider other frequencies in the New Year.
Lyme
In the past three weeks, I’ve coiled daily for Lyme on my abdomen (3 minutes) and sacrum (5 minutes) up until November 26 (2 days ago). I started it out when I had the big bout of diarrhea and was worried that the Lyme in my gut would get reactivated.
Meanwhile, I’ve coiled for Lyme every 5 to 7 days, each full-body scan requiring 2 days to complete. I’ve played around a little with the order of body parts but not the amount of time devoted to each one. The actual coiling days were: Nov 8 & 9, Nov 12 & 13, Nov 19 & 20, and Nov 24 & 25.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I’ve continued to herx. I was hoping this Lyme season would be shorter than it has been. I realized a while back that my long and frequent trips to the sauna might be keeping some of the Lyme in cyst form or putting it back in, but this time of the year it tends to keep activating. Since I slowed down on the sauna, I’ve been herxing more. These herxes are mixed in with those of the other two infections. The two sure signs of Lyme herxing have been peculiar smelling urine and peculiar smelling feces. (Don’t use the bathroom immediately after I do!)
The Mix of Herx Symptoms
I’ve been dealing with headaches which were pretty horrible until November 20th, the day after I had a massage that loosened up the muscles in my upper back and neck. I continue to have headaches, though not as crippling, with light sensitivity and sometimes sound sensitivity.
I’ve had aching joints which flare up with the changes in weather as well as with the Lyme coiling sessions. The pop and crack and sometime hurt enough that I don’t want to do anything. It is throughout all my joints with my shoulders and knees in the worst shape and my fingers and wrists coming in a close second.
I’ve had night sweats for series of nights then they stop for a few nights before starting up again. Last night I had a supersoaker; my entire torso was drenched. I changed clothes and when I got up in the morning, my first shirt of the night was still wet. Most of my nightsweats in the past have coincided with Babesia flares/herxes. However, I have had nightsweats when I bumped up the Lyme coiling. I’ve also been having nightsweats more frequently since I reduced my sauna visits, which might indicate that Bartonella herxes come out through sweat. So I don’t really know which of the three it is.
Twice I’ve had sudden shooting pains in my arms, leading from my neck to my fingertips. The first time this was followed by an unpleasant tingling sensation that lasted several hours. The second time (Nov 21), it was followed by hypersensitivity in my left forearm. The skin was so sensitive that my long sleeved shirt caused pain on contact. I found myself focused on avoiding letting anything touch it by accident.
My digestive tract has been its usual irritated self. The diarrhea cleared up. I continue to have other intestinal distress, including gas, intermittent bloating, constipation, abdominal pain, etc.
My moods have been more down than they’ve been in a while. Although I attribute some of that to all the body problems, I think some of it is from the herxes, especially when I kill Lyme or Bartonella in my cerebrospinal fluid.
I’m sure I’m missing some things, but I can’t focus that much after all this writing.
Detox 101
On Tuesday morning, I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep. I called a fellow Lyme-fighter & coiler. I told him what I’ve been going through. Then he gave me the same advice I gave him over a year ago. The only way to coil a lot is to detox, detox, detox.
I’ve been slacking off, especially since I stopped going to the sauna so much. I remembered that one of the reasons I was writing the blog daily was to keep myself honest. If I have to write down what I’ve done for the day, I’m much better at prioritizing my healing process.
The result of our conversation was that I went out and purchased vegetables for juicing. By the time I was done, I was too tired to juice. That will happen later today. I silently thanked my mother for juicing for me almost daily for months last autumn and winter (I forgot to say it aloud when I spoke to her). Now it’s time for me to do it again.
I’m hoping that my symptoms calm down as I juice and detox more. Juicing just might get me past the doldrums of this autumn.
Categories: detoxification support, healing process, Herx reactions, using the coil machine
Tags: babesia, bartonella, lyme, symptoms
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Coiling for Lyme 